Time was when the Hebrew nation was great and respected, "a praise in the earth" for kings wise and honourable, for magistrates upright and noble, and for a people faithful and true. But how completely is all this changed! A more pitiable picture of national depravity could scarcely be drawn than that presented in the text. Here we have -

I. AN INIQUITOUS PALACE.

1. The king is utterly unprincipled.

(1) See him "heavy and displeased," sick with rage and chagrin, lying in bed in a sulk, his face turned away, refusing to eat. And what for? What dreadful calamity has befallen him? Simply that he could not have the vineyard of Naboth for a garden of herbs!

(2) But, to make things worse, he could not have it without inducing Naboth to transgress God's law (see Leviticus 25:28). Naboth had too much respect for the law to yield. Ahab was really sulking against God I

(3) What model king is this I How could he expect his subjects to be law-abiding when he showed them this example? What a royal soul to take it thus to heart that in addition to his kingdom he cannot have this vineyard!

2. His queen is a "cursed woman."

(1) Such is the style in which she is described by Jehu (2 Kings 9:34). She seems never to have failed in any incident of her life to justify this description.

(2) Now she promises to give Ahab the vineyard of Naboth. Thus she encouraged his evil humour, instead of pointing out to him, as she should have done, his folly.

(3) She will accomplish this by an act of cruel and treacherous despotism scarcely to be paralleled in history (vers. 8-10). She makes her pliant husband her accomplice, using, with his consent, his seal of state, as probably she had done before when she destroyed the prophets of the Lord (1 Kings 18:4), to give authority to the missive of death. She engaged in this business all the more readily because Naboth appears to have been one of the "seven thousand" who would not bend to Baal.

II. AN UNSCRUPULOUS MAGISTRACY.

1. Their servility is horrible.

(1) Not voice of any noble or elder in Jezreel is raised in protest against the order from the palace to have Naboth murdered. With eyes wide open - for the sons of Belial are not found for them; they have themselves to procure these wretches - they proceed to give effect to the dreadful tragedy.

(2) What motive can influence them? They are afraid of Jezebel. They knew her power over Ahab, and they knew the cruelty and vindictiveness of her nature was nerved by more than masculine resolution.

(3) But where was their fear of God?

2. It is aggravated by treachery.

(1) Naboth was one of their number. Is not this suggested in the words, "the elders and nobles that were in the city, dwelling with Naboth! Then is there no voice of neighbourly friendship to speak for Naboth? No voice is raised.

(2) If one voice found courage surely others would take courage, and it might be found in the sequel that the sense of justice would be represented by such numbers and influence that even Jezebel might hesitate to reek vengeance upon them. But not a voice was raised.

3. The treachery is aggravated by hypocrisy.

(1) The tragedy opens with a fast. This is proclaimed ostensibly to avert from the nation the judgments of God supposed to have been provoked by the crimes of Naboth. How much more fitting had it been proclaimed to avert the judgment provoked by the crimes of Naboth's murderers!

(2) The accusation is, Thou didst blaspheme God and the King", (ברכת אלהים ומלך), which by some is rendered, "Thou hast blessed the false gods and Molech." Parkhurst says, "The Lexicons have absurdly, and contrary to the authority of the ancient versions, given to this verb (בר) the sense of cursing in the six following passages: 1 Kings 21:10, 13; Job 1:5, 11; Job 2:5, 9. As to the two first, the LXX. render בר in both cases by ευλογεω, and so the Vulgate by bendico, to bless. And though Jezebel was herself an abominable idolatress, yet, as the law of Moses still continued in force, she seems to have been wicked enough to have destroyed Naboth upon the false accusation of blessing the heathen Aleim and Molech, which subjected him to death by Deuteronomy 13:6; Deuteronomy 17:2-7."

(3) What abominable cruelties have been perpetrated under the name of religion!

III. A DEMORALIZED PEOPLE.

1. Sons of Belial are at hand.

(1) There seems to have been no difficulty in procuring men so lost to truth and mercy that they will readily swear away the life of a good citizen. Nor is this to be wondered at when the whole magistracy are sons of Belial, no better than those they suborned. Jezebel saw no difficulty in procuring such. The nobles and elders of Jezreel found none.

(2) The sons of Belial no doubt were paid for their services. The "consideration" is not mentioned. What will not some men stoop to for gain! What will they hazard in eternity! And for what a trifle!

2. No voice is raised for justice.

(1) Naboth has no hearing in his defence. The sentence given, he is hurried away to be stoned to death.

(2) His family are sacrificed along with him (see 2 Kings 9:26). This was on the principle that the family of Achan had to suffer with him (Joshua 7:24). But how different are the cases!

(3) Unless the family of Naboth had perished with him, the vineyard would not have fallen to the crown. This would be an objection to Jezebel hiring sons of Belial to assassinate Naboth, for Naboth's heirs would still have to be disposed of. Melancholy is the condition of the nation in which right is sacrificed to might. "Sin is reproach to any people." - J.A.M.

The witty Sydney Smith once said, "Never give way to melancholy, for if you do, it will encroach upon you like an overflowing river and overwhelm you." He added he had given twenty-four precautions to a lady of melancholy disposition to keep her from being sad. One of the things he recommended was to keep a bright fire in her room. Another of Sydney Smith's remedies for low spirits was to think over all the pleasant things you can remember. A third receipt was, always to keep a box of sugar-plums on the mantelpiece. Some of you would object to a sugar-plum when you go to a friend's house, but at any rate, it would please the giver for you to accept it, and for myself I may say that it would give me pleasure to receive it. Another remedy for despondency prescribed by the humorous Canon was, to always have the kettle simmering on the hob. These of course are little things, but they have their influence. These fits of sadness and melancholy make good things appear bad, and they so disturb the balance of our reason as to cause us to imagine that even loving friends dislike us. Shakespeare puts into the mouth of the masterpiece of his creative genius, Hamlet, this excellent description of the feelings of people, who are in the dumps: — "This goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a barren promontory; while that most excellent canopy, the air, look you; that great overhanging sky, that majestic roof, fretted with golden fire, — why! it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours." When the "lumbermen" are floating great logs of wood down the river St. Lawrence, past the city of Quebec, from the interior of Canada — those great logs which are brought to Liverpool and along our canals and railways to be cut up in the saw-mills — it sometimes happens that one of these great logs from being in the river for more than one season, gets its millions of pores filled with water, when it becomes what is called "water-logged." The log then sinks, through the water having got into its heart. Likewise, there are men and women who, while they are being carried along the stream of life, get so saturated with its cares and troubles that they sink; they are "trouble-logged," and sometimes they die of what is called a broken heart. I think it is in our power to prevent people getting "trouble-logged " and sinking helplessly in the Slough of Despond. Cervantes, the finest writer of humour that Spain has produced, whose works raised a smile on people's faces when they read or heard about them, was one of the saddest of men, his features having the marks of perpetual gloom upon them. Moliere, the greatest master of humorous writing in France, looked as if his face had been made ugly with disappointment and grief; while Foote, one of our most comic English writers and actors died of a broken heart. We all get at times into this hypochondriac way — We all get into the dumps at times, feeling as if there were no God. The victims of this mental disease of "low spirits" go through the world as if they were forsaken orphans, without a penny or a friend. There is the instance of Ahab, who had everything that a despotic king could desire, but he was not satisfied. In many cases our troubles and disappointments arise from our own fault. This seems to have been the case with Jacob. Few Scripture characters had more trouble or were oftener sad than Jacob, who said that all the days of his life had been evil, and that his children would bring down his grey hairs in sorrow to the grave. In modern times, few men have excited more morbid and undeserved sympathy than the poet, Lord Byron, who was often in the dumps. He inherited a passionate and proud nature, but his greatest trouble seems to have been his unfortunate club.foot, which he could neither hide nor put out of remembrance. This and his dissipation made his nature gloomy. Hear his words —

Melancholy

Sits on me as a cloud along the sky,

Which will not let the sunbeams through, nor yet

Descend in rain and end; but spreads itself

'Twixt heaven and earth, like envy between man

And man — and is an everlasting mist.Why should we punish ourselves because we cannot have what others have, and which instead of being a blessing might prove a curse? Why should we torment ourselves because somebody else has obtained what we wanted? Addison has beautifully described in an allegory the foolish way in which people are disappointed because their life is one of obscurity. He says, "There was one day a drop of rain fell from a cloud into the ocean, and the drop of water bitterly complained and was sad of heart because it thought it was annihilated in the mighty expanse of the sea. But it dropped down into the open mouth of an oyster, where, in process of time, it was transformed and became a pearl, which at the present day is the ornament of the crown of the Persian monarch." This little fable teaches us not to repine at our lot. Though you may be feeble and humble as compared with other people, though you may not be beautiful or wealthy, and think yours is a disappointed lot, yet, like that drop of water, our God is preparing you to be an adornment of heaven. Do not therefore be cast down, or let your heart be grieved by any discouragement of birth or fortune in this life.

(W. Birch.)