Commentaria in III Regum
2. THAT I MAY MAKE ME A GARDEN OF HERBS.—St. Ambrose, chapter 3, notes the shamelessness of the avaricious king. “This, then, was all the madness,” he says, “this all the fury, that room for common vegetables should be sought. You do not so much desire to possess what is useful as to shut others out. You have greater care for the spoils of the poor than for your own gains. You think it an injury to you if a poor man has anything that is thought worthy of the rich man’s possession. You believe whatever is another’s to be your loss.”
THE LORD BE MERCIFUL UNTO ME.—In Hebrew, the Lord forbid, that is, far be it; the Septuagint, may it not be so to me from the Lord; the Chaldee, far be it from me before the Lord.
THAT I SHOULD NOT GIVE THEE THE INHERITANCE OF MY FATHERS,—as if to say: The inheritance delivered to me by my parents is to be preserved by me, not so much as mine as theirs: for a son owes this memory and reverence to his parents, to guard their goods and transmit them to posterity. Moreover the same St. Ambrose, in chapter 3 already cited: “He considers the rich man’s money as a kind of contagion of himself; as though he said: Keep thy money with thee to thy perdition; but the inheritance of my fathers I cannot sell.”
Tropologically, the vineyard is the soul, which is our whole inheritance; wherefore beware lest you sell it for the low price of pleasure or honour to the devil, to death and hell. Whence St. Ambrose, in the Exhortation to Virgins, takes by the vineyard virginity, by Jezabel concupiscence, by Naboth Christ: “The vineyard,” he says, “is a certain virginal fruit; marriages are like beds of vegetables, in which there is frequent jealousy: and therefore the herbs of vegetables quickly fall and wither, unless old age put an end, or continence carry them to perfection. Let not Achab come upon you, who desires to destroy and extinguish your vineyard: nor come upon you Jezabel, that vain and worldly flood; for this is signified by the word, a vain and empty overflow, but let Naboth come, who comes from the Father, as the interpretation of his name indicates, who defends the vineyard with his own blood, and for it offers death. This is he who was stoned for us, died for us, for us was assailed by false testimony…” because Naboth had resisted his cupidity and, as it were, despised him. Hear St. Ambrose, chapter 6: “He did not eat his bread, because he sought another’s. For the rich eat rather another’s bread than their own, who live by plunder, and support their expenses by rapine. Or at least he did not eat his bread, wishing to punish himself with death because something was denied him.” And elegantly, chapter 6:
“The Gentiles call Dis,” he says, “the president of the lower world, the arbiter of death. They call him Dis and rich, because the rich man knows not how to bring anything but death, whose kingdom is of the dead, whose seat is hell. For what is the rich man but a kind of insatiable whirlpool of riches, an insatiable hunger of gold? The more he draws, the more he burns.” And after some intervening: “For sweet is the sleep of the servant, whether he eat little or much; but for him who is sated with riches there is none to let him sleep: cupidity rouses him, the wakeful care of seizing what is another’s harasses him, envy torments, delay vexes, barrenness of unfruitful yields disturbs him, abundance troubles him.”
7. AND JEZABEL HIS WIFE SAID TO HIM.—To her impious husband Jezabel was more impious, to the avaricious more avaricious, to the cruel more cruel, to the rapacious more rapacious, to the covetous more covetous. Whence St. Ambrose, chapter 9, teaches that Jezabel is a type of avarice, which promises to the rich against justice the possession they desire. For she herself was to Achab and Israel the torch and instigator of idolatry and of all evils like some fury of hell, as is plain from verse 25.
9. PROCLAIM (appoint) A FAST,—that you may cloak the crime (namely the unjust murder of Naboth) with an appearance of piety and zeal for God; for Jezabel commands a fast to be appointed, that by it, as by public penance of the people, the blasphemy of Naboth might be expiated, which she was having falsely laid to his charge. For blasphemy was horrible to the Hebrews; whence, on hearing it, they rent their garments, and gave other signs of public grief and detestation at so unworthy a thing.
“Hath blessed,” that is hath cursed. It is a euphemism by antiphrasis: for because blasphemy is so horrible a thing, the Jews did not dare even to name it, but signified it by the contrary, namely by blessing and praise: so St. Jerome, epistle 34 to Julian.
13. AND STONED HIM TO DEATH.—For a blasphemer was to be overwhelmed with stones by the law of Leviticus 24:16. It is added in 4 Kings 9:26 that the sons of Naboth also were slain, so that their vineyard might pass from them to Achab, as if, the heir failing, the king would be heir.
In like manner Eudoxia, wife of the Emperor Arcadius, coveting the vineyard of the widow Callitropa, drove St. Chrysostom, who pleaded the widow’s cause, into exile, and by a thousand hardships of journeys, hunger, thirst, soldiers harassing him, etc., brought him to death; so that St. Chrysostom is truly not only a Confessor but a Martyr, as one unjustly slain for justice, not by one death but by a hundred.
Allegorically, Naboth was a type of Christ, who by the Scribes and Pharisees, coveting His vineyard, that is the Synagogue, was accused by false witnesses of blasphemy, because He said He was the Son of God, and was therefore slain, according to the parable of the vineyard, which He Himself set before them on this very matter, Matthew 21:33. For the voice of the Scribes about Christ is in verse 38: “This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and we shall have his inheritance.” Hence also the dogs, that is the Gentiles (for the Jews despised these as dogs), the Romans, under the leadership of Titus and Vespasian, licked the blood of the Jews who slew Christ, in the same place, namely Jerusalem, and at the same time, namely at the Pasch, at which they had slain Christ. So Angelomus.
15. ARISE, AND TAKE POSSESSION.—In Hebrew resh; that is, inherit, namely by title of confiscation; because Naboth had been accused of the crime of treason against the majesty both of God and of the king, and therefore condemned. Wherefore his vineyard was adjudged by Jezabel to the treasury of King Achab.
19. THOU HAST SLAIN, AND MOREOVER HAST TAKEN POSSESSION.—Thou hast slain Naboth, that thou mightest seize and possess his vineyard, and so to unjust slaughter thou hast added unjust possession: wherefore by the law of retaliation thou shalt likewise be slain, and shalt lose the vineyard and all things, and shalt be deprived of possession as of life.