If it were a transaction in the market place--if the auctioneer were visibly interested in this affair, if he could call out in audible tones “So much is the price, and the man is about to take it,” people would shrink from the villainous transaction.
But this is an affair which does not take place in the open market or in the open daylight. It is not conducted in words. If the men involved in such transactions could speak the words, the very speech of the words might break the spell and destroy the horrible infatuation. But the compact is made in darkness, in silence, in out-of-the-way places. It is an understanding unwritten, rather than an agreement in detail signed in the presence of witnesses. It is a mystery which the heart alone can understand, which even the preacher can not explain in terms, but he can only throw himself upon his own consciousness, and throw others upon their consciousness, and call for a united testimony to the fact that it is possible to sell one’s very soul to evil.
Now we understand King Ahab better. We thought him but little, frivolous of mind, childish and petty, without a man’s worthy ambition; but now we see that all this was only symptomatic, an outward sign, pointing, when rightly followed, to an inward and mortal corruption.
Now, let us look at the case of Naboth and the position which he occupied in this matter.
Naboth possessed the vineyard which Ahab is said to have coveted. Naboth said: “The Lord forbid.” He made a religious question of it. Why did he invoke the Eternal Name and stand back, as if an offense had been offered to his faith? The terms were commercial; the terms were not unreasonable; the approach was courteous, and the ground given for the approach was not an unnatural ground. Why did Naboth stand back as if his religion had been shocked?
The answer is in the Book of Numbers, thirty-sixth chapter and seventh verse:
“So shall not the inheritance of the children of Israel remove from tribe to tribe; for every one of the children of Israel shall keep himself to the inheritance of the tribe of his fathers.”
“Moreover, the prince shall not take of the people’s inheritance by oppression, to thrust them out of their possession; but he shall give his sons inheritance out of his own possession, that My people be not scattered every man from his possession.”