On the surface, the story of King Ahab and Naboth’s vineyard is the story of greed which corrupts the human heart through to the point of murder, of royal power used in the service of covetousness.
The story is familiar: King Ahab coveted the field of Naboth, one of his subjects. Naboth refused to sell the field to Ahab, plunging the king into depression. Ahab’s wife, the infamous Jezebel, provided the solution. Using the laws of blasphemy, she fabricated the situation in which Naboth was accused, convicted and consequently stoned to death.
The obstacle to Ahab’s coveted goal having been removed, he could then use his royal power to subsume the land into his own private empire.
Royal power vs Yahweh
There are lessons to be learned from the story at that level. But the history of God’s people is most often multi-layered. On the one hand we see human actors and human responses to events. Underlying their individual stories is the story of God and the covenant he made with his people. This is very much the case with Naboth’s vineyard.
King Ahab’s greed and covetousness are common human traits, often magnified in those who have the wealth and power to do something about them. Ahab fully expected that his royal power and the money he had in his treasury would be enough to secure the field he wanted.
But Ahab’s royal power was not just set against one peasant farmer called Naboth. His wealth and royal power were pitted against Torah and the covenant. That’s because Naboth’s vineyard was not merely a parcel of land paid for and owned by Naboth and his family. There was no such thing under the covenant.
Naboth’s land was his share in the inheritance given by Yahweh to his people—tribe by tribe, clan by clan, family by family—when he brought them into the promised land. They did not buy the land; it was a gift of God’s grace. His promise to Abraham meant that he would provide his descendants a place to live and enjoy the blessings of being his people until through them Messiah would come.
So, Naboth’s ownership of the land was not just economic, it was theological. It was Naboth’s connection to the covenant, a gift of God’s grace to be held in perpetuity.
Kings and covenant
We also need to remember that kingship was not God’s idea. Kingship was a rejection of God as king (1 Samuel 8). Failing to heed his warnings, the people demanded a king so they could be “like other nations.” The structure was, therefore, a structure based on a usurping of the role that would be reserved for one man alone, Messiah, the true King. We note all the way through Israel’s history that Yahweh remains king until he hands “all authority in heaven and earth” to the one true son of Abraham. So, the kings of Israel and Judah would only be valid if they lived by Torah.
Ahab was not endowed with unfettered royal power. He was to have been a conditional steward of the wellbeing of God’s covenant people.
So, the setting: Ahab was king over God’s people. The land in question was not a freehold property within a capitalist system. The ultimate owner of Naboth’s vineyard was Yahweh. He gave it as an inheritance to Naboth as he did with every other that tribe, clan and family. The people were given stewardship of their inheritance in perpetuity. Land was a gift of god’s grace under the old covenant.
In the final analysis, King Ahab did not just help himself to a plot of ground. In his greed and mistaken sense of proprietorship, he exalted himself above Yahweh, exerting his royal power as an authority over the gifts of the covenant.
The memory of this event lies deep within the unfolding history of the nation. When Ahab’ and Jezebel’s evil son, king Joram, died his body was thrown into the field that had once belonged to Naboth. It’s as if the land remembered, a field of blood.
The shift from stewardship to ownership
So where is the connection for us? As noted above, this is not just a plot of ground in any Kingdom. It is not just a king of any nation. This whole episode concerns the decree of Yahweh, the covenant, the gracious gift of inheritance, and the abuse of power within the people of God.
As a king, Ahab was to rule under God, enacting God’s decrees. But Ahab didn’t see it that way. There was a shift in thinking that saw the land as a tradeable commodity over which he could assume ownership. His people were to serve his desires. These were never God’s intentions. Even were they to lose their land through mismanagement or misadventure, at the Jubilee, all land would be restored to its original inheritor. Neither the land nor the people belonged to the king.
It occurs to me, having seen these things in my own heart, that in church leadership there can be the same shift from stewardship to ownership. Church leaders are shepherds. They are there to nurture, feed, protect God’s people. That is the point: God’s people. As Jesus said to Peter, “Feed my sheep; take care of my flock.” The people do not belong to the church leaders, the institutional local church or the denomination.
To imagine that the people are the church leaders’ to use, control and in the worst cases, to milk, is an affront to the new covenant as blatant as was Ahab’s affront to the old covenant. Such possessiveness can manifest itself as fear that the people might want to move to another group of believers leading to attempts to coerce or bully them to stay. It might manifest itself in decision-making that suits the plans, convenience and ambitions of the leadership, rather than the well-being of the people. It might manifest itself in a sense of entitlement that usually goes along with royal power, an entitlement that requires (or demands) respect, loyalty, preferential treatment, guaranteed salary and financial outcomes, and a growing career. It manifests itself in titles that elevate and, still in some places, clothing that differentiates.
The leaders of God’s people are servants. Servant leadership, in direct contrast with royal power, is the mode of Christian leadership. The book of proverbs warns us,
‘Under three things the earth trembles,
under four it cannot bear up:
a servant who becomes king… (Proverbs 30:21-22)
King Ahab shifted from being an administrator of the rule of Yahweh among his covenant people, to being a possessor of royal power which served its own interests by royal decree, even to the point of murder.
When the people become the king’s people and the inheritance becomes a commodity to be owned and traded, a mark of the king’s increasing wealth and power, corruption grows like weeds. We have seen it today with sexual and financial greed flourishing under high level leadership “power.”
Jesus said of the leaders among his people that they were not to take upon themselves exalted titles and positions, “for you are all brothers.” His instruction not only creates a level ground between leaders, but also between leaders and the people. When a church leader boldly, or even subtly, moves towards a position of royal power, ruling as if the greater wisdom always rests with the leader, and the knowledge of the purpose and plans of God are always vested in leadership, the servant has become a king. And sadly, the destruction of the cohesion and fruitfulness God’s people at the hands of such a leader is usually unavoidable. Jezebel’s thinking was from outside the covenant, as are today’s secular management principles. Both serve the interests of power, neither serve well the purposes of God for his new covenant people.