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(The view expressed in this blog are my own and should not be taken as inspired in any way.)
1 Kings 21:1–4, “And it came to pass after these things, that Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard, which was in Jezreel, hard by the palace of Ahab king of Samaria. And Ahab spake unto Naboth, saying, Give me thy vineyard, that I may have it for a garden of herbs, because it is near unto my house: and I will give thee for it a better vineyard than it; or, if it seem good to thee, I will give thee the worth of it in money. And Naboth said to Ahab, The LORD forbid it me, that I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto thee. And Ahab came into his house heavy and displeased because of the word which Naboth the Jezreelite had spoken to him: for he had said, I will not give thee the inheritance of my fathers. And he laid him down upon his bed, and turned away his face, and would eat no bread.”
After Joshua had defeated the Amorites, who were in the Promised Land before Israel, he allocated the Land among the tribes according to the size of each tribe. The Land was a sacred gift from the Lord and was to belong to each family in perpetuity. It became their inheritance. The Lord commanded that every fifty years all the Land be returned to the original owners so that the Land would never be lost as the family’s inheritance. It was illegal, according to the underlying Israeli constitution, the Law of the Lord to move the original survey marks and alter a person’s inherited property. (Deut 19:14, “Thou shalt not remove thy neighbour’s landmark, which they of old time have set in thine inheritance, which thou shalt inherit in the land that the LORD thy God giveth thee to possess it.”) Every family in Israel had constitutional authority to keep their inheritance even though the king himself wanted the property and Ahab knew this. Ahab decided that he wanted to own a vineyard that belonged to a man called Naboth. Ahab’s palace looked out over the vineyard and he felt that it would nice for him to have a garden there. The king went to Naboth and asked Naboth to give him the property. Ahab promised Naboth that he would give him a much better property. However, Naboth wanted to keep control of the property that was given to his family when Israel first came into the Promised Land. He knew it was his right, under the Law of the Lord, to keep his family inheritance and he refused to give Ahab what he wanted. When Ahab didn't get his way he went back to his bedroom and had another sulk.
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