"Naboth, the Jezreelite, had a vineyard"
(I Kings 21:1)
The Hebrew for "had" is literally "become",
which means he came into possession of it by inheritance
The law of inheritance forbade the sale of land, since
it all belongs to the Lord and is entrusted by Him for possession (Leviticus 25:23); only a relative is allowed
to repurchase land, which was sold out of poverty (Leviticus 25:24-28)
Ahab offered a "better vineyard" (I Kings 21:2), but Naboth honored the
Law with respect to the "inheritance of my fathers" (I Kings 21:3)
Jezebel gave Ahab the "vineyard of Naboth, the
Jezreelite" (I Kings 21:7,14-16); Naboth and his sons were stoned (II Kings 9:26)
Zechariah, the priest
Jehoida, the priest, "strengthened himself"
(II Chronicles 23:1) and said "Behold,
the king's son shall reign, as the Lord hath said of the sons of David" (II Chronicles 23:3)
The wife of Jehoida saved the life of Joash by hiding
him in the temple during the six year reign of Athaliah, "so that she slew him not" (II Chronicles 22:11)
When Jehoida died, Joash "left the house of the
Lord God" and "served groves and idols" (II Chronicles 24:17-18)
Zechariah, the son of Jehoida, by the Spirit of the
Lord declared "Thus saith God, Why transgress ye the commandments of the Lord?" (II Chronicles 24:20)
They "stoned him with stones" and Joash the
king "remembered not" the kindness done to him by his father, "but slew his son" (II Chronicles 24:21-22)
The Jerusalem Gemara, a commentary on the Mishna (the
Talmud), records this end to the prophet Isaiah:
While fleeing for his life from King Manasseh, he took
refuge in a cedar tree
The tree "swallowed him up", but the fringes
of his garment remained seen
The king commanded the cedar tree to be "sawn asunder"
and the prophet's blood gushed forth
It was Manasseh's shedding of much innocent blood in Jersualem
(Isaiah's in particular), which brought about the Babylonian Captivity (II Kings 24:1-4)
Judah's most righteous king could NOT reverse the fury
of the Lord's wrath in response to Judah's most evil king (II Kings 23:23-27)
In time past, Daniel's three friends were tempted with
deliverance from suffering in exchange for abandoning their faith in Jehovah and worshipping Nebuchadnezzar's image
(Daniel 3:14-18)
In time future, a remnant of Israel will be tempted
with deliverance from suffering in exchange for abandoning their faith in the True Christ and worshipping the Beast's
image (Revelation 13:14-17 cf.Revelation 12:11)
There were those who in faith conquered through God and
"escaped the edge of the sword" (Hebrews 11:34) and there were those who in faith suffered for God and were "slain
with the sword" (Hebrews 11:37)
Jezebel, "which calleth herself a prophetess"
(Revelation 2:20), "cut off the prophets
of the Lord" (I Kings 18:4)
Elijah declared twice to the Lord that Israel had "slain
thy prophets with the sword" (I Kings 19:10,14)
Jehovah charges Jeremiah to "Go and cry in the
ears of Jerusalem" (Jeremiah 2:2) that "your own sword hath devoured your prophets, like a destroying
lion" (Jeremiah 2:30)
Urijah prophesied against Jerusalem "according
to all the words of Jeremiah" (Jeremiah 26:20)
King Jehoiakim "slew him with the sword"
and "cast his dead body in the graves of the common people" (Jeremiah 26:23)
Saul slew 85 "priests of the Lord" via Doeg,
the Edomite, "with the edge of the sword" (I Samuel 22:17-19) for their faithfulness
to David (I Samuel 22:13-16)
John saw the "souls of them that were slain ...
for the testimony which they held" (Revelation 6:9) concerning "the Root and the Offspring of David" (Revelation 22:16)
As the kingdom was taken from Saul and given to David,
"a man after God's own heart" (I Samuel 13:14), so will the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of the Lord's
Christ (Revelation 11:15)