Bible Dictionaries
Naboth

Holman Bible Dictionary

(nay' buhth) Personal name perhaps meaning, “sprout.” Owner of a vineyard in the Jezreel Valley adjacent to the country palace of King Ahab, who desired the property for a vegetable garden. Naboth refused to sell on the grounds that the property was a family inheritance (1 Kings 21:3-4 ). Hebrew law only allowed farmland to be leased for the number of crops until the Jubilee year (Leviticus 25:15-16 ). Farmland was not to be sold in perpetuity (Leviticus 25:23 ). Jezebel, who had no regard for Israel's laws, plotted Naboth's judicial murder on the charge that he had blasphemed God and the king (1 Kings 21:8-14 ). Naboth's murder evoked God's judgment on Ahab and his family (1 Kings 21:17-24 ).