AHAB ā’ hăb (אַחְאָ֤ב, meaning brother of father; LXX, ̓Αχαὰ̀β; Josephus, ̓Αχαβος). There are two men of this name; the eighth king of Israel, who reigned c. 869-850 b.c. and whose story is told mainly in 1 Kings 16-22; and a certain false prophet who lived among exiled Jews in Babylon early in the 6th cent. b.c. known only by Jeremiah’s references to him (Jer 29:21, 22).

I. Ahab, the son of Omri

A. His dynasty. Omri, father of Ahab and founder of the short-lived dynasty (through three generations: Omri, Ahab his son, Ahaziah and Jehoram his grandsons: 1 Kings 16:16, 28; 22:40; 2 Kings 1:17, c. 876-842 b.c.) was captain of the armies of Israel under Elah. The assassination of King Elah by Zimri, one of his leading army officers (1 Kings 16:8ff.), led unexpectedly to the popular choice of Omri as the new king (1 Kings 16:15ff.). Though he reigned only twelve years and the Biblical narrative devotes only a few vv. of 1 Kings 16 to him, Omri seems to have strengthened the kingdom considerably, introducing more order and stability than had prevailed for some time. Also, he made some impression in foreign countries, for after Omri’s dynasty had been destroyed by Jehu (2 Kings 9:10) Shalmanezer III of Assyria, as the Black Obelisk inscr. claims, received tribute of Jehu, first king of the next dynasty, but called him “Jehu, son of Omri,” as does still another inscr. of Shalmanezer III (FLAP, pp. 205, 206, ANET pp. 280, 281; J. B. Pritchard, The Ancient Near East: An Anthology of Texts and Pictures [1958], p. 191; ARAB 1, sect. 590). No ancestral history of the family is provided by Scripture.

B. Chronology of Ahab’s reign. He is said to have reigned twenty-two years at Samaria. Some of the competing systems of chronology reduce this figure (in ways too technical to describe here) to twenty years or slightly less. The interested person should consult the articles of this encyclopedia on Biblical Chronology. The lit. is listed and rather fully summarized in J. Finegan’s Handbook of Biblical Chronology [1964], pp. 194-198. The elements of uncertainty chiefly arise out of the fact that OT annalists made use of two systems of dating accessions of kings. In one system the first full calendar year of a king’s reign is counted as his first year. In the other system the fraction of a calendar year wherein a king reigned, immediately after the death of his predecessor, is counted as his first year. Also, some kings were co-regents with their predecessors in the last months or years of their reigns; yet the chronologies of Scripture seldom take note of this fact.

C. Marriage. “And as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat (q.v.), he took for wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and went and served Baal, and worshipped him” (1 Kings 16:31). Thus the clouded family connections of this man Ahab are introduced. Ethbaal, his father-in-law, was a pagan steeped in the vile notions and practices of the Baal cults which had occasioned the annihilation of the Canaanites long before. On top of that, Ethbaal was a wily and violent politician, sufficiently so that the Gr. historian Menander took considerable notice of him (viz. Jos., Antiq. VIII. xiii.1 cf; Apion 1. 18). The central feature of Canaanite-Phoenecian religion, both as seen in the OT and in secular sources, was connected with fertility and sex—typical agricultural paganism but extraordinarily corrupt (FLAP pp. 171-174, Oesterley and Robinson, Hebrew Religion: Its Origin and Development, pp. 180-187). This marriage was a specific violation of a Pentateuchal prohibition against marriage with pagans (Deut 7:1-5). Furthermore, in the issue of the marriage to Jezebel the divine reasons for the prohibition are abundantly vindicated (Deut 7:4, cf. 1 Kings 16:31-33). The name Jezebel, or as more literally rendered in Eng., Izabel, prob. means “chaste,” or “virgin,” but she was anything but that. In her the reckless and immoral habits of the worst side of oriental royalty united with the aggressive strength of the Phoenicians (Tyrians) and the savage religious fanaticism of her father Ethbaal. Ethbaal combined with his royal office the priesthood of the goddess Astarte (consort of Baal) having come to the throne by the murder of his predecessor, Pheles (Jos., Apion, 1, 18). The next generation included several famous aggressive people, including Dido, foundress of Carthage; but all of bad character. Jezebel’s baleful influence, through intermarriage of her offspring with the house of David, extended to the kingdom of Judah (2 Kings 8:17, 26, 27; 11:1ff.). She made of her husband a puppet (1 Kings 21:25). Her evil genius became proverbial in her nation (2 Kings 9:22), even turning up as a name for some form of fanatical religious perversion mentioned in the last book of the Bible (Rev 2:20).

D. Events of Ahab’s reign. Several historical vignettes rather than a continuous narrative constitute the Biblical narrative and therefore also this summary.

1. Three and one-half years of drought (1 Kings 17:1-18:46). At some point fairly early in his reign the great prophet “Elijah the Tishbite, of Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, ‘As the Lord the God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word’” (1 Kings 17:1). This startling announcement was not only a signal for the beginning of a long rainless period but also the abrupt introduction of the strange prophet Elijah—so similar in many respects to the forerunner of our Lord (cf. Mal 4:3; Matt 11:11-14; Mark 9:11-13; Luke 1:17). After threatening the drought Elijah disappeared from the king for several years. 1 Kings 18:1 gives the period as “many days” and the end of it as “in the third year.” James 5:17 specifies, “And for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth.” This long period of drought was familiar to the Jews in later periods, for 2 (4) Esdras 7:39 mentions it as did also Jesus when not far from the area of some of Elijah’s wondrous acts (Luke 4:25). Some see a connection between this period of terrible suffering, when evidently most livestock died and presumably many people also (1 Kings 18:5), and the three and one-half years of divine wrath, producing world-wide tribulation (“a time, two times, and half a time,” “forty-two months,” “one thousand two hundred and sixty days” and one-half a prophetic week. See Dan 7:25; 9:27; 12:7; Rev 11:13; 12:6; 13:5) The two martyr witnesses prophesy for 1260 days and like Elijah have power to shut off rain during their time of prophesying. So this drought of Ahab’s time is a historical and hermeneutical landmark of Scripture. The dramatic close of the drought is set forth in connection with the bloody victory of Yahvism over Baalism reported in 1 Kings 18.

2. The introduction of and destruction of Phoenician Baalism. It is one of the discoveries of recent archeology that the Canaan of Moses and Joshua was a cultural and geographical area reaching from the Sinai desert far N of “the Land of Canaan” as older Bible geography drew it, for in the Amarna letters “Canaan applies to the Phoenician coast as far north as Ugarit (Ras Shamra in northern coastal modern Syria)” (FLAP p. 135). Baalism, a form of fertility cult, had been the prevailing religion of the entire region prior to the settlement of the Hebrews. Though suppressed, it had survived as an illicit cult in both Judah and Israel, as the Biblical histories and prophecies amply illustrate. Jezebel brought with her a particularly virulent strain of the infection from her home in lower Phoenicia (1 Kings 16:31-33) seducing her husband and through him the entire nation to Baalism. Though Ahab was a worshiper of Jehovah (at least in a nominal way) as the names of his children and several incidents demonstrate, for, even though their Phoen. grandfather Ethbaal honored Baal in his name, their own names, viz.: Athaliah (“strong is Jehovah,” 2 Kings 8:26), Ahaziah (“held by Jehovah,” 1 Kings 22:40; 2 Kings 1:1ff.) and Jehoram (“he whom Jehovah exalts,” 2 Kings 1:17) honored the true God of Israel—this in spite of the apostate condition of Jehovah worship introduced to the northern kingdom by Jeroboam’s calves and shrines at Bethel and Dan (1 Kings 12:25-33). There was already a strong foundation for Jezebel’s expansion of the vile fertility rites of Baalism (cf. Hebrew Religion: Its Origin and Development, Oesterley and Robinson, pp. 57-61). Ahab allowed the true national worship to be suppressed, involving the attempted “liquidation” of the Jehovah prophets (viz. 1 Kings 18:4). Unchecked, this movement would surely have entirely stamped out Biblical religion in the northern kingdom. This gives significance to the incidents of 1 Kings 18, explaining why such drastic measures against the priests and prophets became necessary, as also to the shouts of the people, “Jehovah, he is God” (1 Kings 18:39).

3. Ahab’s military campaigns. The record of 1 Kings reports three major engagements between Ahab and Benhadad (the Second) of Syria who ruled from Damascus. In the first war the Syrians besieged Samaria. After a diplomatic exchange particularly insulting to the Israelites, Ahab reverted (as monarchs are wont to do in time of great peril) to the older democratic ways, calling a national council of tribal elders. Then came an unusual prophet who in Jehovah’s name advised Ahab to attack (1 Kings 20:13). A smashing victory followed, the Syrian king barely escaping with his life (1 Kings 20:16-21). The same prophet then warned Ahab to prepare for another attack the next year. The narrative reports how Ahab won a great victory in the conflict, which did come just as the prophet had said, in vindication of the Biblical religion of Jehovah (1 Kings 20:22-30). Though he secured important commercial concessions from Benhadad and a handsome property settlement, Ahab, having captured the Syrian king, injudiciously released him and even made a covenant with him (vv. 31-34). Whereupon Ahab was rebuked by still another prophet (vv. 35-43). The third and last campaign was aggressive, Ahab taking the attack to the Syrians. Intervening was a period of three years of peace (1 Kings 22:1). Apparently during this interval took place the disgraceful affair wherein Jezebel (acting as virtual mistress of the realm and doing what Ahab’s Heb. scruples did not permit him to do) secured a desirable piece of property from Naboth, its owner, by destroying him and his sons (1 Kings 21; cf. 2 Kings 9:26). This third campaign was undertaken by Ahab in alliance with Jehoshaphat, the Davidic dynast of Judah. Relations were friendly between the two ruling houses at this period, even to the extent of marriage between a daughter of Ahab and Jezebel to Jehoram the son of Jehoshaphat (viz. Athaliah), adding greatly to the disaster and disadvantage of Judah. This third war was directed to recovery of Ramoth in Gilead, a city normally attached to Israel, but evidently still in Syrian hands in spite of the cession of cities from Syria to Israel after the second of the wars. In this battle the allied Heb. kings failed, Ahab being mortally wounded.

4. Ahab’s spiritual life. It might seem that nothing but evil could be said of this man. Yet on occasion he furnishes important examples of sincere, if wavering, trust in the prophets of God. It was his wife’s fury that sought their destruction, not his (1 Kings 18:44ff.; 20:13ff., 22:5-28). Furthermore, Ahab manifested remarkable, and apparently sincere, repentance after one prophetic rebuke (1 Kings 21:27-29).

E. Ahab’s place in secular history. Sometime in the summer of 853 b.c. Shalmanezer III of Assyria met in battle at a place called Qarqar, on the Orontes River in northern Syria, a quite formidable coalition of twelve Syrian kings. On the “Monolith Inscription,” now in the British Museum, there is a description of the battle, placing it in the sixth year of Shalmanezer III. Since the reigns of Assyrian kings are accurately dated by independent data this battle becomes very important, for the inscr. mentions “Ahab, the Israelite” as one of the twelve kings who fought Shalmanezer III in it. Thus we know when Ahab reigned and there is created an important hinge (perhaps the most important one connecting secular and Biblical history,) making possible something close to an exact dating of the events of OT history (viz. FLAP, pp. 204, 205, esp. the valuable documentation and bibliography). This expedition of Ahab is not mentioned in the Bible, showing how little concern the Bible authors really had for history or chronology as such, perhaps also the mistake in our modern pre-occupation with it. The treachery of the king’s wife in destroying a God-fearing freeholder is of much more spiritual significance than either winning or losing a battle which the king really ought not to have been in anyway, for the alliance which took Ahab to Qarqar was contrary to Mosaic law. It is of interest to know that Ahab had a place of prominence among Levantine rulers of his time. Shalmanezer’s statistics report “Ahab as commanding 2,000 chariots and 10,000 soldiers. In chariotry, Ahab’s forces were much larger than those of any other king” (FLAP, p. 205). Shalmanezer claims a big victory in the inscr. but he avoided Syria for a long time afterward, indicating that the “victory” was perhaps only paper propaganda for home consumption.

F. Ahab the builder. 1 Kings 22:39 refers to “the ivory house which he built,” presumably at Samaria his capital. Somewhat later Amos denounced the unspiritual luxury of the rulers of the northern kingdom, fastening special attention on “beds of ivory” (6:4) and “houses of ivory” (3:15). Thus it is of considerable interest, and perhaps great significance, that many ivory plaques and panels survived the millennia to be turned up by archeologists at Samaria. These plaques and panels were originally attached to furniture (“beds of ivory”) and walls of houses (“houses of ivory”). These ivories at least illustrate Ahab’s building operations and perhaps even are a part of them (see FLAP, pp. 187, 188).

II. Ahab the son of Koliah

This man was a false, i.e., self-appointed, prophet who spoke falsely in Jehovah’s name among the exiles of Babylon sometime after the transportation of Jeconiah (Jehoiachim, 598/7 b.c.) and the end of the Judaean kingdom some eleven years later. He is known in Scripture only from the words of Jeremiah (Jer 29:21-23). He and a certain Zedekiah were not only guilty of falsely claiming to speak for God, but of gross immorality (adultery) as well. Jeremiah prophesied that Nebuchadnezzar would have them executed by burning. The Code of Hammurabi, an earlier Babylonian monarch, did prescribe the death penalty for adultery. Jewish traditions identify Ahab and Zedekiah with the two evil elders of the apocryphal tale of Susannah.