Why David's Torah Scholars Fell and Ahab's Idolaters Won

[(Psalms 12:7:) REFINED SEVENFOLD.] Rabbi Joshua of Sikhnin said in the name of Rabbi Levi: The infants who lived in the days of David, before they had tasted the taste of sin, knew how to expound the Torah with forty-nine faces declaring a thing impure and forty-nine faces declaring it pure. And David would pray for them and say (Psalms 12:8): "You, O LORD, will keep them; You will guard him from this generation forever." "You, O LORD, will keep them" — guard their Torah in their hearts. "You will guard him from this generation forever" — [from a generation] that is worthy of destruction. And yet after all this praise, they would go out to war and fall, [because there were slanderers among them]. This is what David says (Psalms 57:5): "My soul is in the midst of lions; I lie down among those who are aflame, the children of man whose teeth are spears and arrows, and whose tongue is a sharp sword." "My soul is in the midst of lions" — these are Abner and Amasa, who were lions in the Torah. "I lie down among those who are aflame" — these are Doeg and Ahithophel, who were aflame after slander. "The children of man whose teeth are spears and arrows" — these are the men of Keilah, as it is said (1 Samuel 23:11): "Will the lords of Keilah surrender me?" "And whose tongue is a sharp sword" — these are the Ziphites, as it is said (Psalms 54:2): "When the Ziphites came and said to Saul: Is not David hiding himself among us?" At that hour David said (Psalms 57:6): "Be exalted above the heavens, O God" — remove Your Divine Presence from among them. But the generation of Ahab were all worshipers of idols, and because there were no slanderers among them, they would go out to war and win. This is what Obadiah said to Elijah (1 Kings 18:13): "Was it not told to my lord what I did... and I sustained them with bread and water?" If bread, why water? Rather, because the water was harder to bring them than the bread. And Elijah proclaimed on Mount Carmel and said (1 Kings 18:22): "I alone am left a prophet of the LORD." And all the people knew it, yet they did not make it known to the king.