1 Kings 22
McGeeCHAPTER 22THEME: Ahab and the prophet MicaiahNow in chapter 22 we will see the fulfillment of the Lord’s judgment against Ahab. While we have been following the career of this king of the northern kingdom, down in the south Jehoshaphat has come to the throne. He is a good king, but now he is going to make an alliance with Ahab.
1 Kings 22:1
What has happened that would cause a good king like Jehoshaphat to make an alliance with a king as wicked as Ahab? Why would he fraternize with his natural enemy? It’s an abnormal alliance, an unnatural confederacy. At this point it seems strange, but we will find out later that Jehoram, the son of Jehoshaphat, had married Athaliah, the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel. This was a case of the “sons of God marrying the daughters of men”; that is, a boy with a godly heritage married a girl with a very wicked one. And the wicked influence prevailed. When the believer and the unbeliever get married, my friend, you can always be sure that the believer is going to have trouble. When you marry a child of the Devil, your father-in-law sees to it that you have trouble.
1 Kings 22:3
Ramoth-gilead was one of the chief cities of the tribe of Gad, and it had been lost to Syria. The best thing to do would have been to leave things as they werestatus quo. At least Jehoshaphat should have stayed out of it. He should have followed the advice given to him by the prophet of the Lord. It was too bad that the Devil’s man and God’s man made an alliance. This was not Jehoshaphat’s fight anyway. Gilead did not belong to himit belonged to Ahab, and it was Ahab’s quarrel, not his.
1 Kings 22:5
AHAB IS PROMISED VICTORY BY HIS LYING PROPHETSJehoshaphat is God’s man. He wants to know what the will of God is.
1 Kings 22:6
Jehoshaphat wants to know the mind of the Lord, and he suspects that they are not getting it through these false prophets. He has a real spiritual discernment, and so he asks, “Is there not here a prophet of the LORD besides, that we might inquire of him?”
1 Kings 22:8
Ahab then introduces Micaiah, the after-dinner speaker. And he does so in a most unusual wayhe says, “I hate him.” Then Jehoshaphat says to Ahab, “You really don’t mean that you hate a man of God.” Someone has said that a man is not really known by his friends. Rather, he is known by his enemies. Every man ought to make sure that he has the right enemies. The best compliment that could be paid to Micaiah was for Ahab to say, “I hate him.” In the Lord’s work I have always prided myself on the fact that I had the right enemies. I like the enemies I have because they do not stand for the Word of God. It is well to have the right enemies as well as the right friends. I can truthfully say that I thank God for my friends. I can also thank God for my enemies. A toastmaster once said about a preacher he was introducing, “He doesn’t have an enemy.” God have mercy on him! You only had to listen to him for three minutes, and you could see why he had no enemies. He was Mr. Milquetoasthe didn’t stand for anything. Micaiah actually was the best friend Ahab ever had. Ahab just didn’t know it. Micaiah could say as Paul did, “Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?” (Gal_4:16).
1 Kings 22:9
They brought Micaiah in. After all, he was very close at hand: Ahab was keeping him in prison. This is another of these great dramatic scenes:
1 Kings 22:10
You can just imagine those four hundred prophets running around saying to Ahab, “Go up against the king of Syria.” One of the prophets was especially dramatic. Zedekiah ran around with iron horns, pushing at everyone with them, saying, “This is the way you are going to do it.” What a scenetwo kings on their thrones and all those prophets running about crying, “Go up and fight. You will win.”
1 Kings 22:13
DEFEAT IS PROPHESIED BY MICAIAHThe messenger that brought forth Micaiah said, “I’d just like to put a bug in your ear: all of the prophets are prophesying something good. They are telling the king to fight because he will win. That is what he wants to hear. You should join with them. Then you could get back into the king’s favor. Here’s your chance, Micaiah.” And, I suppose, this guard thought he was helping Micaiah.
1 Kings 22:14
Micaiah’s answer was not only dramatic, it was humorous. He said, “Whatever the Lord tells me to say, that is what I am going to say. I will tell it like it is.” Then Micaiah came in and sized up the situation. He saw the two kings on their thrones and all of the false prophets of Baal running around the room. They were all saying nice things to Ahab. They had all read the book, How to Win Friends and Influence People. Micaiah had not read that book. Neither had he read The Power of Positive Thinking. In fact, he was pretty negative. There is a lot of power in negative thinking, friend. We need more of it today.
1 Kings 22:15
Notice what Micaiah says to the kings. To him it is a humorous scene, so he joins in just for fun. I think he was as sarcastic as any man could bejust as sarcastic as Elijah could be. They were cut out of the same piece of cloth, by the way. Micaiah said, “Go, and prosper: for the LORD shall deliver it into the hand of the king.” Immediately the king saw that he was being ridiculed.
1 Kings 22:16
The king said to Micaiah, “I know you are kidding me because you have never been on the side of the false prophets.” Suddenly Micaiah becomes very serious and solemn.
1 Kings 22:17
And the king of Israel says to Jehoshaphat, “I told you soI told you he would say nothing but evil about me.” Then Micaiah said, “I’m not through. I have something else to say to you that you ought to hear.” And he gives a parable. You could call it a parable that is the reductio ad absurdum. It is a preposterous parable, a parable by contrast. (You will not find parables like this until you come to our Lord’s teaching as recorded by Luke. Take, for example, the parable of the unjust judge: God is not an unjust judge.) Notice what Micaiah says here:
1 Kings 22:19
Isn’t that ridiculous? Can you imagine God calling a meeting of the board of directors or of the church board to ask them what He should do in a case like this? God already knows what He is going to do, and He does not need any advice.
1 Kings 22:21
Imagine this! God says, “My, you smart little fellow! I wish I had thought of that.”
1 Kings 22:23
This was the nicest way Micaiah could call these prophets a bunch of liars.
1 Kings 22:24
Zedekiah, the false prophet, struck Micaiah on the cheek. This was an extreme insult. In response to the insult Micaiah said by implication that the day would come when the false prophets would hide themselves in terror. That time would come when Ahab was dead and Israel was defeated. Then Zedekiah would know what the truth was.
1 Kings 22:28
Micaiah told Ahab that he was not coming back. If he did, then the Lord had not spoken by him. Then Micaiah said, “In view of the fact the you won’t be coming back, Ahab, I want the people to witness that what I have spoken is the truth.”
1 Kings 22:31
AHAB’S DEFEAT AND DEATHIsrael went to battle. They listened to the false prophets, and what happened? Israel lost the battle. And Ahab proved he was a deceiver all the way through. You see, the only man in the battle who had on king’s robes was Jehoshaphat, which made him a marked man, because Ahab had disguised himself. You might say that Ahab set Jehoshaphat up as a clay pigeon to be slain in the battle. It was not Jehoshaphat’s fight at all, but he almost didn’t come out of it alive. Poor Jehoshaphat almost lost his life in the battle because of Ahab’s deception.
1 Kings 22:34
Ahab was not slain by a soldier that aimed at him. The king was not a target, and the soldier did not shoot at Ahabyet that arrow found him. You might say it was the first guided missile. I imagine that he was just an ordinary soldier with one last arrow left in his quiver. He pulled it out, put it in his bow, and simply let it go. He didn’t know where it was going. Ahab’s death would have to be listed as accidental, but in God’s record it was providential: that arrow was aimed. And you know, God still uses a very crude form of weaponHe’s still back in the bow and arrow days. In Psa_64:7, we read: “But God shall shoot at them with an arrow; suddenly shall they be wounded.” There are those today who think they have escaped the hand of God. But I want to tell you that God has an arrow with your name on it; it will find you one of these days. No matter how much you try to deceive and cover up, that arrow will find you. That is what happened to Ahab.
1 Kings 22:37
That which God had predicted through Elijah came to pass: Ahab died, and his blood was licked up by dogs in the same place that Naboth had died. Of course, Ahab had tried to stay away from that place, but his chariot was brought into Naboth’s vineyard, and the blood was washed out of it. The dogs were right there to lick it up. The prophecy was literally fulfilled. Whatever a man sows, my friend, he will reap. Why? Because God is not mocked. You cannot get by with sin; no one gets by with it. God sees to that; He is still on the throne. Now we turn briefly to the reign of Jehoshaphat, and we find that he made a big mistake.
1 Kings 22:43
This was a token of compromise that God could not nor did He bless in the life of Jehoshaphat. It is quite obvious here that this man is a compromiser, and yet he is rated as a good king because he did serve God in his own personal life.
1 Kings 22:44
This was a mistake alsohe should not have done this. We read in 2 Chronicles that Jehu the prophet met Jehoshaphat as he returned from his visit with Ahab: “And Jehu the son of Hanani the seer went out to meet him, and said to king Jehoshaphat, Shouldest thou help the ungodly, and love them that hate the LORD? therefore is wrath upon thee from before the LORD. Nevertheless there are good things found in thee, in that thou hast taken away the groves out of the land, and hast prepared thine heart to seek God” (2Ch_19:2-3). Now the groves were a place of great immorality, but the high places where sacrifices offered to Baal were not taken away. Jehoshaphat had compromised.
1 Kings 22:48
The son of Ahab who had come to the throne in the northern kingdom wanted Jehoshaphat to join him in a business dealit would be a peaceful mission this timebut Jehoshaphat would not compromise again. He had learned his lesson. He said, “No, thank you. I don’t care for this kind of an arrangement at all.”
1 Kings 22:50
Jehoshaphat died and was succeeded by his son Jehoram.
1 Kings 22:51
Ahaziah, the son of Ahab, began to reign over Israel in Samaria. He reigned for two years and followed in the footsteps of Ahab and Jezebel.