1. And it happened after these things. As elsewhere, this vague temporal formula introduces a new narrative unit.

2. Give me your vineyard. The verb “give” sometimes means “to sell,” as Ahab’s subsequent words here make clear.

a better vineyard . . . silver as its price. Ahab initially offers fair value for the vineyard. The alternative of a better vineyard, stated first, is the more attractive because Naboth will still possess real estate (and a favorable possession), which was a prime consideration in Israelite society.

3. The LORD forbid that I should give away the estate of my fathers. Naboth is thinking in traditional tribal terms rather than in those of a fluid economy in which property is fungible for value. Hanging on to inherited land is conceived as a sacred obligation.

4. sullen and morose. This phrase is pointedly picked up from the last sentence of the previous episode.

And he lay down on his couch and turned away his face and ate no food. Ahab, who in the preceding episode had shown martial resolution against Ben-Hadad’s threats, now acts like a petulant adolescent. He has a child’s fixation on the desired object he can’t have, but it does not occur to him to wield royal power in order to seize it.

6. Give me your vineyard for silver. In his repetition of his own words to Jezebel, he pointedly switches the order, representing himself as having made the lesser offer first.

I will not give you my vineyard. This seeming repetition is a drastic recasting of Naboth’s actual words: there is no pious “The Lord forbid” and no mention of the sacred obligation to retain the estate of his fathers. In this version, for Jezebel’s benefit, Naboth sounds merely obstinate.

7. act like a king. The literal sense of the Hebrew is “act [or do] kingship.”

I myself will give you the vineyard of Naboth. She is careful not to explain the means by which she will effect this transaction.

8. she wrote letters in Ahab’s name and sealed them with his seal. She in effect usurps his royal power, “acting like a king” instead of him.

who were in his town, who dwelled with Naboth. The seeming redundancy underlines the idea that his own neighbors, alongside of whom he had always lived, will be complicit in betraying him.

9. Proclaim a fast. A common function of an ad hoc communal fast was to supplicate God when some ill had befallen the community because of an offense committed within the community. In all likelihood, the occasion of the fast, which would have been a reason for assembling the community, sets the stage for exposing the purported crime committed by Naboth.

10. seat two worthless fellows opposite him. Her written instructions, fully accepted by the elders, are candid about using scoundrels willing to perjure themselves in a false accusation against Naboth.

13. the worthless fellows bore witness against Naboth. Unlike the altered repetitions in Ahab’s report of his interchange with Naboth, every item of Jezebel’s murderous instructions is precisely carried out.

15. for Naboth is not alive, for he is dead. Her repetition at this point of what was first her written instructions, then the narrative report of their implementation, entirely omits reference to the stoning to death or to the false accusation that led to the stoning. The redundancy of her statement to Ahab is dramatically apt: she tells her fearful husband he is no longer alive, he’s actually dead, so you have nothing to worry about and can seize the vineyard.

19. Have you murdered and also taken hold? The Hebrew evinces the power of compressed statement: haratsaḥta wegam yarashta is just three words. Though Ahab was unaware of Jezebel’s scheme, these words of denunciation name him directly as the murderer.

Where the dogs licked Naboth’s blood. We learn not only that Naboth was stoned to death on a false accusation but also that his body was left in the open to be desecrated by scavengers.

20. Inasmuch as you have given yourself over to doing evil. Ahab’s previously condemned transgressions were all cultic. Now an act of moral turpitude is excoriated, and it will be this that dooms his royal line.

21. I will cut off every pisser against the wall. This coarse epithet for males is reserved for curses.

ruler and helper. The Hebrew term is somewhat obscure, but it appears to refer to political leadership. Compare Deuteronomy 32:36.

23. flatland. The received text reads ḥel, “rampart,” not a likely place for the devouring of Jezebel’s body, but many Hebrew manuscripts show ḥeleq (one additional consonant), which means something like “cultivated field.”

26. he acted most loathsomely to go after foul idols. Here the chief reason for the condemnation of Ahab shifts back from ethical to cultic infraction.

29. I will not bring the evil in his days. This postponement of retribution proves to be rather qualified. In the event, Ahab does not die peacefully in his bed, as one might infer from these words, but, after the passage of some time, he is killed in battle, after which the dogs lick his blood, in keeping with the terms of the initial prophetic curse.