Michiana Covenant Presbyterian Church

Do you understand what an insult it is for Ahab to ask Naboth if he can turn his vineyard into a vegetable garden? A vineyard takes years to develop. You carefully tend the vines over several years, and only when they are mature do they provide a bountiful crop. A good vineyard is hard work and difficult to replace, and can last for generations. A vegetable garden, on the other hand, comes and goes. It has no abiding value. Ahab is asking Naboth to give up the vineyard where his fathers had labored in order to turn it into a vegetable garden for Ahab's own personal convenience. Earlier we sang from Psalm 80 about how God had taken a vine from Egypt and planted it in the promised land. Israel is God's vine. He tends it and cares for it. But Ahab is not interested in caring for the vine. He is a boar from the forest, uprooting the vine and casting it out, so that he might have a vegetable garden. He is not thinking about the kingdom of God, he is interested merely in his own convenience...