In First Kings, chapter twenty-one, verse seventeen, God hates injustice within the community of His people. Because of the death of the innocent Naboth, Elijah prophesied that Ahab and Jezebel would receive judgment specifically in the manner of their death, as in verses seventeen through twenty-nine. God’s principle of retribution and justice continues under the new covenant. For example, Paul states that “he that doeth wrong to another person shall receive the wrong which he hath done: and there is no respecter of persons.” God’s people must treat one another with righteousness, justice, and lovingkindness, as in Micah six, verse eight, Colossians four, verse one, and Galatians six, verse seven, respectively.
But when Ahab went down to Jezreel to take possession of the vineyard of Naboth, Elijah came to meet him by the command of God, with the word of the Lord, “Hast thou murdered and also taken possession?” The question sharpened his conscience since Ahab was obliged to admit the fact. When Elijah came to meet him, Ahab was in Jezreel. Elijah said to him still further: “Thus saith the Lord: In the place where the dogs have licked the blood of Naboth, will they also lick thine, yea, thy blood.” This threat was only so far fulfilled upon Ahab, from the compassion of God, the response due to the potential consequence of his humbling himself under the divine judgment, as in First Kings twenty-one, twenty-seven through twenty-nine that dogs licked his blood at Samaria when the carriage received washing in which he had died in First Kings twenty-two, verse thirty-eight: but the fulfillment in the case of his son Joram, whose corpse casting into Naboth’s piece of ground as in Second Kings nine, twenty-five to twenty-six.
We have heard nothing of him since the call of Elisha, as though he had once more retired to solitude. In the mere political service of the preceding chapter, importance in the eyes of the world, he takes no part. However, arised now for the higher moral duty of rebuking crime and avenging innocent blood in what Eastern tyranny would deem trivial matter. Ahab’s address to him seems to imply his unusual appearance among men.