Ahab and Jezebel, Again!

In the ninth century before Christ a corrupt and evil regime came to power in the Kingdom of Israel. Ahab, a scion of the Omride dynasty, became king and his bride, Jezebel became queen (I Kgs. 16:21-28).

King Ahab and Queen Jezebel brought disaster to the Kingdom of Israel through their corrupt religious policy, flagrant disregard for human rights, and unwise foreign policy which sought war as a means of commerce. The totality of the administration of Ahab and Jezebel was gain, commerce, and increase “by any means necessary!” (See I Kgs. 19:1-2; chap. 21; 22:1-40).

When the reign of Ahab and Jezebel was over the Kingdom was morally, economically, and socially weak, and almost bankrupt. Under the Ahab and Jezebel administration the rule of law was abandoned for the rule of the expedient. The currency was devalued and financial markets came to ruin. There was a run on the banks. War and militarism was the government’s stock in trade. Those who approved of the wars were rewarded; those who didn’t were defamed and imprisoned (I Kgs. 22: 8-18).

It is apparent from the reading of the text that King Ahab had little knowledge or stomach to rule. This he leaves to Queen Jezebel. Jezebel’s idolatrous and hypocritical religious policies made Israel morally weak. Jezebel obviously did not know that Israel’s strength was in its moral rectitude, not in its military. Once Jezebel had successfully destroyed that moral defense, the Kingdom was open for attack and subjugation.

It is because of the moral weakness developed during the Ahab and Jezebel administration that Israel became a target for ravenous nation-states around her. This weakness set in motion the total destruction of the nation and the exile of it’s inhabits only a few hundred years later.

The biblical chronicler records that Ahab was the worst king that Israel had ever had. He goes on the say that he was worst than all the other kings of Israel combined (I Kgs. 16: 30, 33).

What happened in ninth century Israel is happening again in twenty-first century America. Again, the son of a great family, George W. Bush, has come to power, and he has brought with him his own Jezebel, Dick Chaney. Like Ahab, Bush has neither the intelligence nor the will to govern a nation. This he has left to his Jezebel, Dick Chaney.

Bush and Chaney’s policies, like Jezebel’s, have resulted in the most disastrous outcomes that the nation has experienced in its history:

1. Ten billion dollars a month for the war in Iraq that is the result of a planned series of lies for the purposes of personal aggrandizement and increasing the profits of corporations connected to the military-industrial complex.
2. War on two fronts while this administration is in search of a third theater of war before it leaves office,
3. International respect for the nation has fallen to its lowest since the nation has been in existence;
4. Phenomenal mortgage failures: hundreds of thousands of people loosing their homes, thousands more can’t get a mortgage because the lending institutions are going out of business;
5. The administration has used the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 as a pretext to trample over the civil and human rights of American citizens just as Jezebel trampled over the rights of Naboth and his ownership of the vineyard.
6. The cost of living is rising beyond the grasp of common people;
   Major financial institutions are failing in record numbers.
7. We are on the brink of a major financial depression that will make the 1930’s look like a picnic.
   
   We are experiencing Ahab and Jezebel again. I wonder if McCain and Palin are intended to be follow ups to this act? Are they to be the new Ahab and Jezebel?