1 Kings 21:1-16 states that Naboth owned a vineyard, in proximity to King Ahab's palace in the city of Jezreel. Because of this, Ahab desired to acquire the vineyard so that he could use it for a vegetable (or herb) garden. [2][3] Since he inherited the land from his ancestors, Naboth refused to sell it to Ahab.[4] According to the Mosaic law, the law forbade the permanent selling of land. [5]
Frustrated at not being able to procure the vineyard, Ahab returned to his palace and went to bed without eating anything. His wife, Jezebel, after learning the reason for his being upset, asked mockingly, "Are you not the king?"[2] She then said that she would obtain the vineyard for him. To do so, she sent a letter, under Ahab's name, to the elders and nobles of Naboth's city, instructing them to set Naboth up by proclaiming a fast and ordering Naboth to sit in a "prominent place". Two witnesses, referred to as "scoundrels" by Jezebel, were then called forth to (falsely) accuse Naboth of cursing God and the king. After that, they would take him outside the city and stone him to death. The elders and nobles agreed to carry out the letter's instructions as the letter mentioned using two witnesses to accuse Naboth, which according to Deuteronomy 17:6 and 19:15, was sufficient to charge an offender, accused of committing offenses that were worthy of the death penalty, guilty. Being written under Ahab's name and including Naboth's alleged crime of cursing the king, the letter also possibly convinced the elders and nobles that the crimes Naboth was to be executed for actually took place. After the letter's instructions were completely carried out, dogs outside of the city licked the blood of Naboth's corpse. Emil G. Hirsch points out that "It seems from II Kings ix. 26 that Naboth's sons perished with their father, probably being killed soon afterward by order of Jezebel in order that they might not claim the vineyard as their inheritance."[3] After Naboth was executed, the Queen told Ahab to take possession of the vineyard.[2]
As punishment for this incident, the prophet Elijah visited Ahab and prophesied his death and the extermination of the Omride line. Elijah also prophesied the death of Jezebel. Ahab humbled himself at Elijah's words, and God spared the king accordingly, instead postponing the prophesied destruction of Ahab's house to his son's reign.[1]Johannes Pedersen said that "The story teaches us that the king is bound to respect the proprietary rights of families..."[6] According to Rabbanic Literature, Naboth's soul was the lying spirit that was permitted to deceive Ahab to his death.[7] Elijah's prophecy on the doom of Ahab's house was fulfilled when Jehu executed Ahab's son Jehoram by shooting him in the back with an arrow, and had his body thrown into the field of Naboth the Jezreelite, as punishment for his parents' sin in illegally stealing Naboth's land. Jezebel met a similar fate after she was thrown off a building, with her corpse devoured by dogs.[citation needed]
Naboth's stoning in front of the vineyard, Prague, 14th century
Archaeological exploration conducted by the University of Haifa and the University of Evansville discovered an ancient winery in the vicinity of an Iron Age IIB (900–700 B.C.E.) military enclosure at the foot of Tel Jezreel.[1] While not definitely identifying the site as the location for the story of Naboth, archaeologist Dr. Norma Franklin, of the University of Haifa said that the vineyard appears to have been established sometime prior to 300 BCE, which would not be inconsistent with the time frame for Naboth. Franklin further noted, "Owning a vineyard would make him wealthy since wine was an important commodity. I reckon that since he was from the aristocracy he probably lived in Samaria and had more than one vineyard. This would give a slightly different picture than the Bible, which implies, though does not state explicitly, that he was a poor man being abused by the wealthy king."[5]
Francis Andersen observed that "Commentators have seen in the episode a clash of Israelite and Canaanite ideas of kingship, of citizenship, and of property."[6]
Jewish medieval scholars sometimes used Elijah's words to Ahab "You have killed and also taken possession" ("הֲרָצַחְתָּ וְגַם יָרָשְׁתָּ") or the expression "Naboth's vineyard" to hint at double injustice (or crime committed with indecency, as opposed to "simply committed" crime). The Talmud also sees here a link to the prohibition of mixtures of milk and meat in Jewish law.[citation needed]
Roger Williams, the founder of the American colony of Rhode Island and the co-founder of the First Baptist Church in America, wrote about Naboth's story in The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution for Cause of Conscience as an example of how God disfavored Christians from using government force in religious matters, such as the religious decrees by Jezebel and Ahab. Williams believed using force in the name of religion would lead to political persecution contrary to the Bible.[8]
Naboth as illustrated in the 1493 Nuremberg Chronicle
There are a number of artistic, dramatic, musical and literary works that are based on, or inspired by, the story of Naboth and his vineyard. These are less common now than was once the case, as the use of the expression as a cultural reference appears to have declined.
Elijah confronting Ahab and Jezebel in Naboth’s Vineyard, (1875) by Sir Frank Dicksee, a gold medal winner from the Royal Academy.[11] The original is untraced since having been sold at auction in 1919 from the collection of Sir Merton Russell-Cotes; the British Museum holds a black & white print.[12]
Naboth (1886, in book form 1891), by Rudyard Kipling; Kipling sympathises with Ahab, and treats Naboth as being unreasonable in refusing his demands.[15]
Naboth's Vineyard, (1968) a madrigal for three voices, forming the first part of a trilogy by the English composer Alexander Goehr.[24]
La vigne de Naboth: pièce en cinq actes et un épilogue, (1981) by the Belgian composer André Laporte.[25]
Naboth's Vineyard, (1983) a work for recorders, cello and harpsichord by the English composer Malcolm Lipkin.[26]
Custodian – An Ex Parte Oratorio, (2018) a protest oratorio for an a cappella choir by the Israeli composer Uri Agnon combining the stories of Naboth's Vineyard and the eviction of the Palestinian Sumreen family from their home in Silwan.[27]
Naboth's Vineyard (1953), a ballet by the Austrian-born American composer Eric Zeisl,[32] although it has not been produced or choreographed in full.[33]
Leviathan, (2014) a drama film directed by the Russian filmmaker Andrey Zvyagintsev, partly based on the story of Marvin Heemeyer, and partly on the Biblical stories of Job and Naboth's Vineyard.
^James P. Byrd, The challenges of Roger Williams: religious liberty, violent persecution, and the Bible (Mercer University Press, 2002)[1] (accessed on Google Books on July 20, 2009)
Adams, Jay E. (1982). "Property rights and functional tenure in Mesopotamian rural communities". Societies and languages of the ancient Near East: Studies in honour of Igor Michailovitch Diakonoff. Warminster, England: Aris & Phillips. pp. 1–14. ISBN978-0-85668-205-6. OCLC10099036.
Amit, Yairah (2015). "Shaping and Meaning in the Story of Naboth's Vineyard (1 Kgs 21)". Beit Mikra: Journal for the Study of the Bible and Its World. Jerusalem: Bialik Institute. ס (א): 19–36. JSTOR24430215.
Amit, Yairah (2019). "Formation and Significance in the Story of Naboth's Vineyard (1 Kgs 21)". Ben Porat Yosef. pp. 229–242.
Andersen, F. I. (1966). The socio-juridical background of the Naboth incident. Journal of Biblical Literature, 85(1), 46-57.
Beach, E. F. (2005). The Jezebel letters: Religion and politics in ninth-century Israel. Fortress Press.
Becking, Bob (2000). "No More Grapes from the Vineyard? A Plea for a Historical Critical Approach in the Study of the Old Testament". In Lemaire, André; Sæbø, M. (eds.). Congress volume : Oslo 1998. Leiden: Brill. pp. 123–141. doi:10.1163/9789004276055_010. ISBN978-90-04-11598-9. OCLC43656986.
Ben-Barak, T. (1986). "The Case of Naboth in the Light of Documents from Mesopotamia A New Perspective". Proceedings of the ninth world congress of Jewish studies. Div. A: The Period of the Bible. pp. 15–20.
Ben-Barak, Z. (1981). Meribaal and the system of land grants in ancient Israel. Biblica, 62(1), 73-91.
Boer, R. (2013). "Review of Philippe Guillaume, Land, Credit and Crisis: Agrarian Finance in the Hebrew Bible. BibleWorld. Shef-field: Equinox Publishing, 2012". The Bible and Critical Theory. 9 (1).
Bosman, Hendrik Jan (1991). ""Such a thing is not done in Israel": The judicial system of ancient Israel". In Bosman, H. L.; Gous, I. G. P.; Spangenberg, I. J. J. (eds.). Plutocrats and Paupers: Wealth and Poverty in the Old Testament. Pretoria, South Africa: J.L. van Schaik. pp. 190–205. ISBN978-0-627-01778-0.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
Farisani, E. B. (2005). "A sociological reading of the confrontation between Ahab and Elijah in 1 Kings 21: 1-29". Old Testament Essays. 18 (1): 47–60. hdl:10520/EJC85674.
Farisani, E.; Farisani, D. (2004). "The abuse of the administration of justice in 1 Kings 21: 1-29 and its significance for our South African context". Old Testament Essays. 17 (3): 389–403. hdl:10520/EJC85643.
Fleishman, Joseph (2015). "Ahab's criminal request of naboth: Why Naboth refused (1Kings 21:2–4)". Journal for Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical Law. 21: 275–289. JSTOR10.13173/zeitaltobiblrech.21.2015.0275.
Franklin, N., Ebeling, J. R., Guillaume, P., & Appler, D. (2017). Have we found Naboth's vineyard at Jezreel? Biblical archaeology review, 43(6), 49-54.
Garsiel, Moshe (2015). "The Significance of Repetitions and Comparisons for Understanding Characters, Points of view and Messages in the Story of Naboth's Vineyard". Beit Mikra: Journal for the Study of the Bible and Its World. Jerusalem: Bialik Institute. ס (א): 37–64. JSTOR24430216.
Gora, Kennedy. (2008). Postcolonial readings of 1 Kings 21: 1-29 within the context of the struggle for land in Zimbabwe: from colonialism to liberalism to liberation, to the present (Doctoral dissertation).
Henrey, K. H. (1954). "Land Tenure in the Old Testament". Palestine Exploration Quarterly. Informa UK Limited. 86 (1): 5–15. doi:10.1179/peq.1954.86.1.5. ISSN0031-0328.
Huizenga, Kirk. (2013). Exegetical analysis 1 Kings 21:1-16. Phoenix Seminary. Phoenix, Arizona. via Academia
Isager, Signe, and Bilde, Per. (1990). Kings and gods in the Seleucid empire. A question of landed property in Asia Minor. Religion and religious practice in the Seleucid kingdom, 79-90.
Jobling, David; Davies, P. R. (1991). "Text and the World – An Unbridgeable Gap? A Response to Carroll, Hoglund and Smith". In Davies, P.R.; Eskenazi, T.C.; Richards, K.H.; Halligan, J.M.; Hunt, A. (eds.). Second Temple Studies: Persian period. JSOT Supplement Series. Sheffield Academic Press. pp. 175–182. ISBN978-1-85075-315-5.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
Kitz, A. M. (2015). Naboth's vineyard after Mari and Amarna. Journal of Biblical Literature, 134(3), 529-545.
Knauf, Ernst Axel (21 July 2011). "Inside the Walls of Nehemiah's Jerusalem: Naboth's Vineyard". The Fire Signals of Lachish. Penn State University Press. pp. 185–194. doi:10.1515/9781575066295-014. ISBN9781575066295.
Kruger, P. A. (2003). "Ahab's "slowly" walking about: another look at 1 Kings 21:27b". SS. Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages. 29 (2): 133–142. hdl:10520/EJC101276.
Love, Mark (1990). "Blessed Are the Meek: The Land and Economic Justice". Leaven. 1 (2): 6ff.
Nzimande, Makhosazana K. (2008). "Reconfiguring Jezebel: A postcolonial Imbokodo1 reading of the story of Naboth'S vineyard (I Kings 21:1–16)". In West, Gerald O.; de Wit, Hans J. H. (eds.). African and European readers of the Bible in dialogue: In quest of a shared meaning. Leiden Boston: Brill. pp. 223–258. doi:10.1163/ej.9789004166561.i-434.92. ISBN978-90-04-16656-1. OCLC714879958.
Marie, Rowanne Sarojini (2004). Land, power and justice in South Africa in dialogue with the biblical story of Naboth's vineyard (Doctoral dissertation). hdl:10413/2142.
Martinachard, R. (1991). "The vineyard of Naboth, Current research on the theology and ethics of 1-Kings-21". Études Théologiques et Religieuses. 66 (1): 1–16.
Merecz, Robert J. (2013). "Ahab of LXX: Making Sense of the Swap of 1 Kgs/3 Kgdms 20-21". Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament. Informa UK Limited. 27 (2): 170–184. doi:10.1080/09018328.2013.839106. ISSN0901-8328. S2CID162291440.
Magdalene, F. Rachel (2014). "Trying the Crime of Abuse of Royal Authority in the Divine Courtroom and the Incident of Naboth's Vineyard". In Mermelstein, Ari; Holtz, Shalom E. (eds.). The divine courtroom in comparative perspective. Leiden Boston: Brill. pp. 167–245. doi:10.1163/9789004281646_011. ISBN978-90-04-28163-9. OCLC893333654.
Mtshiselwa, Ndikho (2014). "A Re-Reading of 1 Kings 21:1-29 and Jehu's revolution in Dialogue with Farisani and Nzimande: Negotiating socio-economic redress in South Africa". Old Testament Essays. 27 (1): 205–230. hdl:10520/EJC152824.
Mtshiselwa, Ndikho (2016). "Narratology and Orality in African Biblical Hermeneutics: Reading the story of Naboth's vineyard and Jehu's revolution in light of Intsomi yamaXhosa". Verbum et Ecclesia. AOSIS. 37 (1): 1–10. doi:10.4102/ve.v37i1.1563. hdl:10520/EJC-4d17b6e9a. ISSN2074-7705.
Na'aman, Nadav (13 November 2008). "Naboth's vineyard and the foundation of Jezreel". Journal for the Study of the Old Testament. SAGE Publications. 33 (2): 197–218. doi:10.1177/0309089208099256. ISSN0309-0892. S2CID170327708.
Nel, P. (2006). "Deuteronomistic ideology of land: from experience to abstract metaphor". Old Testament Essays. 19 (1): 171–182. hdl:10520/EJC85763.
Paczári, A. (2017). "He looked for justice, but behold, oppression": Socio-economic and political aspects of viticulture and viniculture in the Judean and Israelite kingdoms (Doctoral dissertation).
Pani, Giancarlo (2018). "The tyrannical king and poor Naboth: A never-ending story". La Civiltà Cattolica, English Edition. 2 (11): 1–13.
Poggioli, Renato (1963). "Naboth's vineyard or the pastoral view of the social order". Journal of the History of Ideas. 24 (1): 3–24. doi:10.2307/2707856. JSTOR2707856.
Poggioli, Renato (1975). "Naboth's Vineyard: The pastoral view of the social order". The Oaten Flute: Essays on Pastoral Poetry and the Pastoral Ideal. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. pp. 194–219. doi:10.4159/harvard.9780674421585.c12. ISBN978-0-674-42157-8. ISBN0-674-62950-7
Resane, K. T. (2016). "Naboth's vineyard: Theological lessons for the South African land issue". Acta Theologica. Sun Media Bloemfontein Pty Ltd. 35 (1): 174. doi:10.4314/actat.v35i1.10. ISSN1015-8758.
Rofé, Alexander (1988). "The vineyard of Naboth: The origin and message of the story". Vetus Testamentum. 38: 89–104. doi:10.1163/156853388X00517.
Russell, Stephen C. (2014). "The Hierarchy of Estates in Land and Naboth's Vineyard". Journal for the Study of the Old Testament. SAGE Publications. 38 (4): 453–469. doi:10.1177/0309089214536489. ISSN0309-0892. S2CID145293433.
Russell, Stephen C. (2014). "Ideologies of Attachment in the Story of Naboth's Vineyard". Biblical Theology Bulletin: Journal of Bible and Culture. SAGE Publications. 44 (1): 29–39. doi:10.1177/0146107913514201. ISSN0146-1079. S2CID145216138.
Russell, Stephen C. (2016). "Space, Land, Territory, and the Study of the Bible". Brill Research Perspectives in Biblical Interpretation. Brill. 1 (4): 1–64. doi:10.1163/24057657-12340004. ISSN2405-7649.
Sarna, Nahum M. (1997). "Naboth's vineyard revisited (1 Kings 21)". In Greenberg, Moshe (ed.). Tehillah le-Moshe: Biblical and Judaic studies in honor of Moshe Greenberg. Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns / Penn State University Press. pp. 119–126. doi:10.1515/9781575065052-016. ISBN978-1-57506-505-2. OCLC747412013.
Sarna, Nahum M. (2000). "Naboth's vineyard revisited (1 Kings 21)". Studies in biblical interpretation. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society. pp. 271–280. ISBN0-8276-0689-3. OCLC43114277.
Scheffler, E. (2017). "Royal care for the poor in Israel's first history: the royal law Deuteronomian 17:14-20), Hannah's song (1 Samuel 2: 1-10), Samuel's warning (1 Samuel 8: 10-18), David's attitude (2 Samuel 24: 10-24) and Ahab and Naboth (1 Kings 21) in intertext". Scriptura: Journal for Contextual Hermeneutics in Southern Africa. 116 (2): 160–174. hdl:10520/EJC-d63298edc.
Silver, Morris (1983). "The Market for Factors of Production: Commercial Loans, Slavery, and Land Consolidation". Prophets and markets. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands. pp. 65–81. doi:10.1007/978-94-009-7418-0_6. ISBN978-94-009-7420-3.
Varga, Cătălin (2019). "The relationship of the Old Testament prophets with civil authorities from the perspective of human rights". Diakrisis Yearbook of Theology and Philosophy. 2 (1): 87–107. doi:10.24193/diakrisis.2019.6. S2CID191779754.
Vengeyi, O. (2014). Land as an inalienable asset: lessons from 1 Kings 21: 1-29. University of Zimbabwe Publications.
Vitório, J. (2005). "Monarquia e profetismo: duas instituições em conflito; 1 Rs 21, 1-29-a vinha de Nabot". Estudos bíblicos (in Spanish) (88): 84–95.
Wallis, Louis (1942). "Land and Mishpat". The Bible is human: A study in secular history. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. pp. 267–270. doi:10.7312/wall93136-022. ISBN978-0-231-93136-6.
White, M. (1994). "Naboth's vineyard and Jehu's coup: the legitimation of a dynastic extermination". Vetus Testamentum. 44 (1): 66–76. doi:10.1163/156853394X00060.
Williamson, H. G. M. (2007). The Stories about Naboth the Jezreelite: A Source, Composition, and Redaction Investigation of 1 Kings 21 and Passages in 2 Kings 9.
Yafé, Felipe C. (1989). The case of Naboth's vineyard (1 Kings 21): An historical, sociological and literary study (PhD dissertation). The Jewish Theological Seminary of America.
Yee, G. A. (2016). "Coveting the Vineyard: An Asian American reading of 1 Kings 21". In Brenner-Idan, A.; Lee, A. C. C. (eds.). Samuel, Kings and Chronicles I. Texts @ Contexts. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN978-0-567-67117-2.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)