The Influence Of An Evil Father

“Ahaziah the son of Ahab began to reign over Israel in Samaria the seventeenth year of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, and reigned two years over Israel. And he did evil in the sight of the LORD, and walked in the way of his father, and in the way of his mother, and in the way of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin: For he served Baal, and worshipped him, and provoked to anger the LORD God of Israel, according to all that his father had done” (1 Kings 22:51-53).

What kind of example had Ahab been for his son?

- He had married a foreign worshipper of Baal (1 Kings 16:31).

- He let his wife entice him to be wicked (1 Kings 16:31-33).

- Ahab believed in God (wearing sackcloth and going softly) but he was not willing to stand up against his wicked wife (1 Kings 21:7).

- He was covetousness in desiring his neighbor’s property (1 Kings 21:1-3).

- Ahab showed extreme self-pity, being like a spoiled child turning his head to the wall and refusing to eat when he could not attain his covetous desires (1 Kings 21:4).

- He allowed his wicked wife to use his authority to murder an innocent man (1 Kings 21:7-16).

- His wickedness affected and was finally the cause that his own children were destroyed (1 Kings 21:21-22; 2 Kings 10:6-7).

- He gave wicked counsel that affected and finally destroyed the king of Judah (2 Chronicles 22:4).

- Because of his wife’s influence, he murdered every prophet of God he could find (2 Kings 9:7-8).

- He was totally unfaithful in letting Benhadad live when God placed him in his hands to be killed (1 Kings 20:43-49).

- He was an example of God’s judgment of wickedness in high places.

- God said that he did more evil than all that were before him (1 Kings 16:30).

- He was an example that is hardly surpassed for wickedness in all of history.

God’s prophecy against the house of Ahab was completely fulfilled (1 Kings 21:20-24; 2 Kings 9:6-10; 2 Kings 10:1-11; 2 Kings 9:35-37; 2 Chr 22:7-9). In 2 Kings 10:1-11, we read about Ahab’s seventy sons in the city of Jezreel in Samaria who were being brought up by the great men of the city. Jehu sent letters and told the men to slay those sons and bring their heads in a basket to be laid in heaps at the gate of the city. When Jehu saw these sons’ heads, he said, “Know now that there shall fall unto the earth nothing of the word of the LORD, which the LORD spake concerning the house of Ahab: for the LORD hath done that which he spake by his servant Elijah. So Jehu slew all that remained of the house of Ahab in Jezreel, and all his great men, and his kinsfolk, and his priests, until he left him none remaining.”

“And I will make Jerusalem heaps, and a den of dragons; and I will make the cities of Judah desolate, without an inhabitant. ... Because they have forsaken my law which I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice, neither walked therein; But have walked after the imagination of their own heart, and after Baalam, which their fathers taught them” (Jer 9:11, 14).

Beth Johnson

The Scripture quotations in this article are from
The New King James Version. ©1979,1980,1982,
Thomas Nelson Inc., Publishers.
Permission for reference use has been granted.

Published in The Old Paths Archive
(http://www.oldpaths.com)