1 Kings 22:1-12--Ahab and the False Prophets

1 Kings 22:1-12
English Standard Version

Ahab and the False Prophets
22 For three years Syria and Israel continued without war. 2 But in the third year Jehoshaphat the king of Judah came down to the king of Israel. 3 And the king of Israel said to his servants, “Do you know that Ramoth-gilead belongs to us, and we keep quiet and do not take it out of the hand of the king of Syria?” 4 And he said to Jehoshaphat, “Will you go with me to battle at Ramoth-gilead?” And Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel, “I am as you are, my people as your people, my horses as your horses.”

5 And Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel, “Inquire first for the word of the LORD.” 6 Then the king of Israel gathered the prophets together, about four hundred men, and said to them, “Shall I go to battle against Ramoth-gilead, or shall I refrain?” And they said, “Go up, for the LORD will give it into the hand of the king.” 7 But Jehoshaphat said, “Is there not here another prophet of the LORD of whom we may inquire?” 8 And the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, “There is yet one man by whom we may inquire of the LORD, Micaiah the son of Imlah, but I hate him, for he never prophesies good concerning me, but evil.” And Jehoshaphat said, “Let not the king say so.” 9 Then the king of Israel summoned an officer and said, “Bring quickly Micaiah the son of Imlah.” 10 Now the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat the king of Judah were sitting on their thrones, arrayed in their robes, at the threshing floor at the entrance of the gate of Samaria, and all the prophets were prophesying before them. 11 And Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah made for himself horns of iron and said, “Thus says the LORD, ‘With these you shall push the Syrians until they are destroyed.’” 12 And all the prophets prophesied so and said, “Go up to Ramoth-gilead and triumph; the LORD will give it into the hand of the king.”

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The LORD gave peace to Israel for a period of time following Ahab's repentance, but but eventually after three years, when Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, met with Ahab, king of Israel, Ahab asked Judah if they would be willing to fight alongside Israel against Syria so that they could reclaim the city of Ramth-gilead that was part of the eternal possession of the Israelites given to them by the LORD which the Syrians had taken from them in battle and kept.  Jehoshaphat said that in this matter the armies and people of Judah were united with their brethren from the North and that there would be no distinction between the people and armies of the two nations as they fought alongside one another.

However, the king of Judah wisely advised king Ahab to seek out the word of the LORD in this matter before going to war with another nation.  That is what the LORD taught them to do in the Law and what David and the "good" kings like him did in practice.  However, Ahab turned to the 400 "prophets" that were on his payroll (false prophets) that would tell him that the LORD was always in agreement with the king.  The king of Judah knows these false prophets from the real thing and asks the king, “Is there not here another prophet of the LORD of whom we may inquire?”  The voice of 400 false prophets in agreement with one another did not satisfy the king of Judah until he knew he had truly heard the voice of the LORD in the matter.

Ahab said there was one more prophet he knew of, but he hated this prophet because he always said the opposite of what Ahab wanted to hear.  The king of Judah asks what it would hurt Ahab to seek out this prophet as well to hear what he had to say before going to war, and encouraged Ahab to seek out the counsel of this prophet before making any decision, though his throne was surrounded by a bunch of false prophets who were saying the same thing as one another.  Truth is not necessarily found in the majority opinion.  We'll see next time that even true prophets sometimes need to be encouraged to speak the word of the LORD that has been given to them and sometimes that encouragement comes from strange places (like from those you are prophesying "against" telling you that you had better speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth to them, because they don't want to hear the same lies that everyone else is telling them).  We'll look at that next time.