1 Kings 22:1–40 (NIV)✞: Micaiah Prophesies Against Ahab, Ahab Killed at Ramoth Gilead
Passage
This is another one of the many Old Testament passages that really grabs my interest. It’s so fascinating!
We might remember from Chapter 20 that Ahab had had war with the Arameans and was judged by one of the LORD‘s prophets for not killing the king of Aram when he had the chance. After three years of peace between Israel and Aram we’re now told that Ahab has decided that he wants to go and reclaim Ramoth Gilead, which had never been reclaimed from the Arameans.
At the time he happens to have Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, as a visitor, so he asks Jehoshaphat if he’ll be willing to join the Israelites in battle against the Arameans. Jehoshaphat indicates that yes, he’s inclined to join Ahab in battling the Arameans, but that Ahab should consult with the LORD first. So Ahab gathers four hundred “prophets”—four hundred of them!—and asks them if they should go to war, and all of the “prophets” say yes, “for the Lord will give it into the king’s hand” (verse 6 (NIV)✞).
However, that’s not a typo, they said that “the Lord” will deliver Ramoth Gilead, not “the LORD,” which sounds like I’m splitting hairs with my capitalization but I’m not: the personal name God’s people have for Him is “the LORD,” while the word “lord” is just a generic title for any ruler or person in authority – or even just a sign of respect. This is not lost on Jehoshaphat, either, who asks, “Is there no longer a prophet of the LORD here whom we can inquire of?” (verse 7 (NIV)✞).
Ahab grudgingly mentions that yes, there is one prophet he knows about named Micaiah, “but I hate him because he never prophesies anything good about me, but always bad” (verse 8 (NIV)✞). Jehoshaphat’s response sounds very weak in the English translation: “The king should not say such a thing” (verse 8 (NIV)✞), but that could just be a translation issue.
Regardless, they send for Micaiah. As they’re waiting for him the “prophets” are all unanimously declaring an upcoming victory against the Arameans, including a man named Zedekiah. So when Micaiah arrives he is told to please agree with the 400 “prophets” who are all declaring this upcoming victory. He answers that he can’t, he can only say what the LORD tells him to say, but when he addresses the king, he says the opposite: “Attack and be victorious, for the LORD will give it into the king’s hand” (verse 15 (NIV)✞). In our modern English translations this makes it sound like he’s just giving in to peer pressure but the context makes it clear that he’s not only being sarcastic, he’s being pointedly sarcastic. This is made obvious by Ahab’s response: “How many times must I make you swear to tell me nothing but the truth in the name of the LORD?” (verse 16 (NIV)✞)—which, honestly, is fascinating in its own right! Not only does Ahab consult Micaiah sometimes, he actually wants to hear a real answer when he does! (More on this below.)
So Micaiah delivers a true prophecy from the LORD:
17 Then Micaiah answered, “I saw all Israel scattered on the hills like sheep without a shepherd, and the LORD said, ‘These people have no master. Let each one go home in peace.’”
18 The king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, “Didn’t I tell you that he never prophesies anything good about me, but only bad?”
19 Micaiah continued, “Therefore hear the word of the LORD: I saw the LORD sitting on his throne with all the multitudes of heaven standing around him on his right and on his left. 20 And the LORD said, ‘Who will entice Ahab into attacking Ramoth Gilead and going to his death there?’
“One suggested this, and another that. 21 Finally, a spirit came forward, stood before the LORD and said, ‘I will entice him.’
22 “‘By what means?’ the LORD asked.
“‘I will go out and be a deceiving spirit in the mouths of all his prophets,’ he said.
“‘You will succeed in enticing him,’ said the LORD. ‘Go and do it.’
23 “So now the LORD has put a deceiving spirit in the mouths of all these prophets of yours. The LORD has decreed disaster for you.”
24 Then Zedekiah son of Kenaanah went up and slapped Micaiah in the face. “Which way did the spirit from the LORD go when he went from me to speak to you?” he asked.
25 Micaiah replied, “You will find out on the day you go to hide in an inner room.”
26 The king of Israel then ordered, “Take Micaiah and send him back to Amon the ruler of the city and to Joash the king’s son 27 and say, ‘This is what the king says: Put this fellow in prison and give him nothing but bread and water until I return safely.’”
28 Micaiah declared, “If you ever return safely, the LORD has not spoken through me.” Then he added, “Mark my words, all you people!”
Despite Micaiah’s words, the kings—both of them, including Jehoshaphat, who’d asked for a word from the LORD in the first place—continue with their plan to fight the Arameans.
When they go, however, Ahab decides that he’s going to disguise himself and enter the battle while Jehoshaphat should remain in his royal robes.
Unfortunately for Jehoshaphat, the king of Aram has instructed his chariot commanders that he doesn’t want them to fight anyone, “small or great,” except for the king of Israel (verse 31 (NIV)✞). So they see Jehoshaphat, the only man for miles around in royal robes, and naturally assume he must be the king of Israel. Fortunately for Jehoshaphat the LORD is not yet ready for him to die, because when he cries out the Arameans realize he’s not the king of Israel and stop pursuing him.
As a side note, I’m really curious how they know he’s not the king of Israel! It’s not like they have photographs of Ahab that they can consult; if they’re chasing a king because they want to kill Ahab and that king claims he’s not Ahab, they should assume that he really is Ahab, just trying not to be killed! But I see this as the work of the LORD.
As we should expect, Ahab does eventually meet the end that had been foretold by the LORD:
34 But someone drew his bow at random and hit the king of Israel between the sections of his armor. The king told his chariot driver, “Wheel around and get me out of the fighting. I’ve been wounded.” 35 All day long the battle raged, and the king was propped up in his chariot facing the Arameans. The blood from his wound ran onto the floor of the chariot, and that evening he died. 36 As the sun was setting, a cry spread through the army: “Every man to his town. Every man to his land!”
37 So the king died and was brought to Samaria, and they buried him there. 38 They washed the chariot at a pool in Samaria (where the prostitutes bathed), and the dogs licked up his blood, as the word of the LORD had declared.
We are then told that Ahab’s son Ahaziah succeeds him as king of Israel.
Thoughts
The main lesson I draw from this is another reminder that God is in control. Ahab just “happens” to receive an answer that he wants to hear from 400 people (as opposed to the answer he doesn’t want to hear from 1); an arrow just “happens” to find a chink in his armour, which mortally wounds him; the king of Aram just “happens” to tell his chariot commanders that they shouldn’t kill anyone other than Ahab, and then the chariot commanders “happen” to believe that Jehoshaphat is not Ahab even though he’s the only enemy king they can see.
It would be understandable for anyone who doesn’t know God to read this passage and say that we’re reading too much into it, or that the author(s) of the book of Kings are taking normal events and overly emphasizing certain things to make it seem like God is in control. I could understand someone taking that position. But anyone who does know God should be reading this passage and seeing His hand throughout.
The 400 Prophets
It’s obvious that the 400 “prophets” summoned by Ahab are not prophets of the One True God, the context makes that very plain, but the ESV Study Bible notes point out that there’s even more going on:
1 Kings 22:6–7 gathered the prophets together. The Hebrew expression occurs in the OT only here (with its parallel in 2 Chron. 18:5) and in 1 Kings 18:20, where Ahab had previously gathered prophets together in response to Elijah’s demand for the attendance of “the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah” (18:19) on Mount Carmel. As things turned out, only the 450 prophets of Baal actually turned up on that occasion (18:22, 25), leaving the 400 prophets of Asherah—precisely the number of men mentioned here in 22:6—unaccounted for. It is already implied, therefore, that these prophets are not truly prophets of the Lord, but in fact prophets committed to the religion of Jezebel. This is probably further implied in Jehoshaphat’s response to their advice, which indicates his suspicion of these prophets: Is there not here another prophet of the LORD? Jehoshaphat has been seeking “the word of the LORD.” Ahab summons just the prophets, and Jehoshaphat then subtly asks whether there is not a (genuine) prophet of the Lord who might now be consulted. (…)
ESV Study Bible
After I made such a big deal out of “Lord” vs. “LORD” above, the ESV Study Bible confusingly uses both capitalizations to refer to Him (“LORD” when quoting Scripture and “Lord” when not), so… oh well.
Does Ahab Really Consult Micaiah Sometimes?
The exchange between Ahab and Micaiah—“How many times must I make you swear to tell me nothing but the truth in the name of the LORD?” (verse 16 (NIV)✞)—makes it sound like Ahab and Micaiah have a history, and that Ahab really does consult Micaiah sometimes, looking for truth, even though the context of this passage seems to suggest that Ahab only wants to hear what he wants to hear. So which is it?
I kind of think it’s both. Ahab is evil, it’s true, the Scriptures take pains to illustrate this to us over and over, but, at the same time, he’s a king. Having advance information would be useful to a king, regardless of how evil or righteous he is. So yes, I fully believe that he was sometimes consulting Micaiah and seeking information from the LORD. I think he was just treating the LORD as one source of information among many—“I’ll consult all of the gods, including the LORD”—but I think he still genuinely wanted answers, even if he was misguided about what “gods” couldn’t provide them and which One could.
In this case, however, he was getting the answer he wanted to hear from 400 people and the answer he didn’t want to hear from 1, so we can’t be surprised when he decided to go with the advice of the 400 over the advice of the 1.
We can be surprised, however, that Jehoshaphat went along with it! He should have known better! He was the one who wanted to consult with the LORD in the first place, and he should have known that the Word of the LORD has more weight than the word of any other “god,” no matter how many “prophets” of that “god” are saying it! After Micaiah’s prophecy Jehoshaphat should have declined to join Ahab in battle, but apparently he succumbed to peer pressure, and joined Ahab anyway, even knowing what the prophet of the LORD had said…
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