Would you like to read James McNaught’s novel Sinking Sand”? click here: Sinking Sand
(The view expressed in this blog are my own and should not be taken as inspired in any way.)
1 Kings 16:29–34, “And in the thirty and eighth year of Asa king of Judah began Ahab the son of Omri to reign over Israel: and Ahab the son of Omri reigned over Israel in Samaria twenty and two years. And Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the LORD above all that were before him. And it came to pass, as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, that he took to wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Zidonians, and went and served Baal, and worshipped him. And he reared up an altar for Baal in the house of Baal, which he had built in Samaria. And Ahab made a grove; and Ahab did more to provoke the LORD God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him. In his days did Hiel the Bethelite build Jericho: he laid the foundation thereof in Abiram his firstborn, and set up the gates thereof in his youngest son Segub, according to the word of the LORD, which he spake by Joshua the son of Nun.”
After some time, during which Israel refused to repent of taking the false gods that Jeroboam gave them, they began to move even further away from the Lord. Omri’s son Ahab took a step further that any of the kings of divided Israel did before him. He married Jezebel who was the daughter of one of the neighbouring kingdoms. After that, Ahab gave up the pretence of worshipping the substitute gods that Jeroboam gave them and began to wholeheartedly worship strange gods. Israel began to, unashamedly, worship the gods of the Amorites, the people who were to be driven out of the Land so that Israel didn’t fall into the old ways. One incident that demonstrated this beyond doubt was the rebuilding of Jericho. Jericho was the first city in the Promised Land that Joshua conquered. The ruins of Jericho were meant to remain as a permanent reminder of what would happen if Israel rejected the Lord and forgot His ways. Hiel, from Bethel, celebrated Israel’s sin by rebuilding this wicked city. When Joshua destroyed Jericho the Lord told Joshua to curse the man who rebuilt Jericho. The curse meant that his oldest son would die when he lay the foundations for the city and his youngest son would die when he set up the city gated. This happened, as the Lord promised, but Ahab didn’t take any notice of the warning.
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