Then the messenger who had gone to call Micaiah instructed him, "Behold now, with one accord the words of the prophets are favorable to the king. So please let your words be like theirs, and speak favorably." Then the messenger who had gone to call MicaiahThis phrase introduces us to the unnamed messenger tasked with summoning Micaiah, a prophet of the Lord. The role of a messenger in ancient Israel was significant, often serving as a bridge between the king and his subjects or between different parties. The Hebrew root for "messenger" is "mal'ak," which can also mean "angel" or "envoy," indicating a person sent with authority. This highlights the importance of the message being delivered and the expectation of obedience to the king's command. instructed him
The messenger's instruction to Micaiah reveals the pressure placed upon prophets to conform to the desires of those in power. The Hebrew word used here can imply a command or a strong suggestion, indicating the messenger's role in attempting to influence Micaiah's prophecy. This reflects the historical context where prophets often faced the challenge of speaking God's truth in the face of political and social pressures. Behold now
This phrase serves as an attention-grabbing introduction, urging Micaiah to consider carefully what is being said. The use of "behold" in the Hebrew text often signifies the importance of the following statement, drawing the listener's focus to the gravity of the situation. It underscores the urgency and the expectation that Micaiah will align with the other prophets. the words of the prophets are uniformly favorable to the king
Here, the messenger highlights the consensus among the other prophets, who have all spoken positively regarding the king's plans. The Hebrew term for "uniformly" suggests a complete agreement or unanimity, which in this context, implies a collective pressure to conform. Historically, this reflects the common practice of court prophets who would often speak in favor of the king to maintain their positions and favor. Please let your word be like theirs
The plea for Micaiah to align his prophecy with that of the other prophets reveals the tension between truth and conformity. The Hebrew word for "please" indicates a polite request, yet it carries an underlying expectation. This moment is pivotal, as it tests Micaiah's integrity and commitment to speaking God's truth, regardless of the consequences. and speak favorably
The final exhortation to "speak favorably" underscores the desire for a positive prophecy that would please the king. The Hebrew root for "favorably" can also mean "good" or "pleasant," reflecting the human tendency to seek affirming and agreeable messages. This phrase challenges us to consider the importance of truth over comfort, a recurring theme in the lives of the prophets who were often called to deliver difficult messages. Persons / Places / Events 1. MicaiahA prophet of the Lord who is known for speaking the truth, regardless of the consequences. He is called to prophesy before King Ahab. 2. The MessengerAn unnamed individual sent to bring Micaiah to King Ahab. He attempts to persuade Micaiah to conform to the other prophets' favorable messages. 3. King AhabThe king of Israel, known for his idolatry and opposition to the prophets of the Lord. He seeks counsel about going to war against Ramoth-gilead. 4. The ProphetsA group of prophets who are giving a unified, favorable message to King Ahab, likely to gain his favor or out of fear. 5. Ramoth-gileadA strategic city in the territory of Gilead, which is the focus of the military campaign discussed in this chapter. Teaching Points The Pressure to ConformThe messenger's request to Micaiah highlights the pressure to conform to popular opinion, even when it contradicts God's truth. As believers, we must stand firm in God's Word, even when it is unpopular. The Courage to Speak TruthMicaiah's role reminds us of the importance of courageously speaking the truth, regardless of the potential backlash or personal cost. Discernment in ProphecyThe situation underscores the need for discernment in evaluating messages and teachings, ensuring they align with Scripture. The Consequences of False AssuranceThe false prophets' favorable messages provide a false sense of security, leading to disastrous outcomes. We must seek God's true guidance rather than what simply sounds pleasing. Faithfulness Over FavorMicaiah's example teaches us to prioritize faithfulness to God over seeking favor with people, trusting that God's approval is of ultimate importance. Bible Study Questions 1. How does Micaiah's response to the messenger's request challenge us to stand firm in our convictions today? 2. In what ways can we discern between true and false teachings in our current context, and how does this passage guide us in that process? 3. Reflect on a time when you felt pressured to conform to popular opinion. How can Micaiah's example encourage you to respond differently in the future? 4. How does the account of Micaiah and the false prophets relate to Jesus' warnings about false prophets in the New Testament? 5. What practical steps can we take to ensure that we are seeking God's truth rather than simply what is favorable or pleasing to us? Connections to Other Scriptures 2 Chronicles 18This chapter parallels the events of 1 Kings 22, providing additional context and details about Micaiah's prophecy and the events surrounding it. Jeremiah 23:16Warns against listening to false prophets who speak visions from their own minds rather than from the mouth of the Lord, similar to the prophets in Ahab's court. Matthew 7:15Jesus warns about false prophets who come in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves, highlighting the need for discernment. People Ahab, Ahaziah, Amon, Aram, Asa, Azubah, Chenaanah, David, Geber, Imlah, Jehoram, Jehoshaphat, Jeroboam, Joash, Micah, Micaiah, Nebat, Ophir, Shilhi, Sodomites, Syrians, Tarshish, Tharshish, ZedekiahPlaces Edom, Ezion-geber, Jerusalem, Ophir, Ramoth-gilead, Samaria, Syria, TarshishTopics Accord, Agree, Assent, Behold, Declare, Favorable, Favorably, Hast, Messenger, Micah, Micaiah, Micai'ah, Mouth, Please, Predicting, Prophets, Saying, Servant, Spake, Speak, Spoke, Spoken, Success, Summon, Theirs, Towards, Uniformly, VoiceDictionary of Bible Themes 1 Kings 22:13 5408 messenger 1 Kings 22:1-28 7774 prophets, false 1 Kings 22:1-38 8131 guidance, results 1 Kings 22:10-28 1469 visions 1 Kings 22:12-14 7778 school of prophets 1 Kings 22:12-23 8129 guidance, examples 1 Kings 22:13-14 5811 compromise Library Unpossessed Possessions
'And the king of Israel said unto his servants, Know ye that Ramoth in Gilead is ours, and we be still, and take it not out of the hand of the king of Syria?'--1 KINGS xxii. 3. This city of Ramoth in Gilead was an important fortified place on the eastern side of the Jordan, and had, many years before the date of our text, been captured by its northern neighbours in the kingdom of Syria. A treaty had subsequently been concluded and broken a war followed thereafter, in which Ben-hadad, King of Syria, …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy ScriptureAhab and Micaiah
'And Jehoshaphat said, Is there not here a prophet of the Lord besides, that we might enquire of him? 8. And the king of Israel said unto Jehoshaphat, There is yet one man, Micaiah the son of Imlah, by whom we may enquire of the Lord: but I hate him; for he doth not prophesy good concerning me, but evil.'--1 KINGS xxii. 7,8. An ill-omened alliance had been struck up between Ahab of Israel and Jehoshaphat of Judah. The latter, who would have been much better in Jerusalem, had come down to Samaria …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture The Prophet Micah.
PRELIMINARY REMARKS. Micah signifies: "Who is like Jehovah;" and by this name, the prophet is consecrated to the incomparable God, just as Hosea was to the helping God, and Nahum to the comforting God. He prophesied, according to the inscription, under Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. We are not, however, entitled, on this account, to dissever his prophecies, and to assign particular discourses to the reign of each of these kings. On the contrary, the entire collection forms only one whole. At …
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament The Poetical Books (Including Also Ecclesiastes and Canticles).
1. The Hebrews reckon but three books as poetical, namely: Job, Psalms, and Proverbs, which are distinguished from the rest by a stricter rhythm--the rhythm not of feet, but of clauses (see below, No. 3)--and a peculiar system of accentuation. It is obvious to every reader that the poetry of the Old Testament, in the usual sense of the word, is not restricted to these three books. But they are called poetical in a special and technical sense. In any natural classification of the books of the …
E. P. Barrows—Companion to the Bible The Assyrian Revival and the Struggle for Syria
Assur-nazir-pal (885-860) and Shalmaneser III. (860-825)--The kingdom of Urartu and its conquering princes: Menuas and Argistis. Assyria was the first to reappear on the scene of action. Less hampered by an ancient past than Egypt and Chaldaea, she was the sooner able to recover her strength after any disastrous crisis, and to assume again the offensive along the whole of her frontier line. Image Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bas-relief at Koyunjik of the time of Sennacherib. The initial cut, …
G. Maspero—History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, V 7 Use to be Made of the Doctrine of Providence.
Sections. 1. Summary of the doctrine of Divine Providence. 1. It embraces the future and the past. 2. It works by means, without means, and against means. 3. Mankind, and particularly the Church, the object of special care. 4. The mode of administration usually secret, but always just. This last point more fully considered. 2. The profane denial that the world is governed by the secret counsel of God, refuted by passages of Scripture. Salutary counsel. 3. This doctrine, as to the secret counsel of …
John Calvin—The Institutes of the Christian Religion The Shepherd of Our Souls.
"I am the good Shepherd: the good Shepherd giveth His life for the sheep."--John x. 11. Our Lord here appropriates to Himself the title under which He had been foretold by the Prophets. "David My servant shall be king over them," says Almighty God by the mouth of Ezekiel: "and they all shall have one Shepherd." And in the book of Zechariah, "Awake, O sword, against My Shepherd, and against the man that is My fellow, saith the Lord of Hosts; smite the Shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered." …
John Henry Newman—Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII Of Councils and their Authority.
1. The true nature of Councils. 2. Whence the authority of Councils is derived. What meant by assembling in the name of Christ. 3. Objection, that no truth remains in the Church if it be not in Pastors and Councils. Answer, showing by passages from the Old Testament that Pastors were often devoid of the spirit of knowledge and truth. 4. Passages from the New Testament showing that our times were to be subject to the same evil. This confirmed by the example of almost all ages. 5. All not Pastors who …
John Calvin—The Institutes of the Christian Religion That the Employing Of, and Associating with the Malignant Party, According as is Contained in the Public Resolutions, is Sinful and Unlawful.
That The Employing Of, And Associating With The Malignant Party, According As Is Contained In The Public Resolutions, Is Sinful And Unlawful. If there be in the land a malignant party of power and policy, and the exceptions contained in the Act of Levy do comprehend but few of that party, then there need be no more difficulty to prove, that the present public resolutions and proceedings do import an association and conjunction with a malignant party, than to gather a conclusion from clear premises. …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning Of Passages from the Holy Scriptures, and from the Apocrypha, which are Quoted, or Incidentally Illustrated, in the Institutes.
TO THE AUTHORS QUOTED IN THE INSTITUTES PREFATORY ADDRESS TO HIS MOST CHRISTIAN MAJESTY, THE MOST MIGHTY AND ILLUSTRIOUS MONARCH, FRANCIS, KING OF THE FRENCH, HIS SOVEREIGN; [1] JOHN CALVIN PRAYS PEACE AND SALVATION IN CHRIST. [2] Sire,--When I first engaged in this work, nothing was farther from my thoughts than to write what should afterwards be presented to your Majesty. My intention was only to furnish a kind of rudiments, by which those who feel some interest in religion might be trained to …
John Calvin—The Institutes of the Christian Religion He Does Battle for the Faith; He Restores Peace among those who were at Variance; He Takes in Hand to Build a Stone Church.
57. (32). There was a certain clerk in Lismore whose life, as it is said, was good, but his faith not so. He was a man of some knowledge in his own eyes, and dared to say that in the Eucharist there is only a sacrament and not the fact[718] of the sacrament, that is, mere sanctification and not the truth of the Body. On this subject he was often addressed by Malachy in secret, but in vain; and finally he was called before a public assembly, the laity however being excluded, in order that if it were …
H. J. Lawlor—St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh Sovereignty of God in Administration
"The LORD hath prepared His Throne In the heavens; and His Kingdom ruleth over all" (Psa. 103:19). First, a word concerning the need for God to govern the material world. Suppose the opposite for a moment. For the sake of argument, let us say that God created the world, designed and fixed certain laws (which men term "the laws of Nature"), and that He then withdrew, leaving the world to its fortune and the out-working of these laws. In such a case, we should have a world over which there was no intelligent, …
Arthur W. Pink—The Sovereignty of God Tit. 2:06 Thoughts for Young Men
WHEN St. Paul wrote his Epistle to Titus about his duty as a minister, he mentioned young men as a class requiring peculiar attention. After speaking of aged men and aged women, and young women, he adds this pithy advice, "Young men likewise exhort to be sober-minded" (Tit. 2:6). I am going to follow the Apostle's advice. I propose to offer a few words of friendly exhortation to young men. I am growing old myself, but there are few things I remember so well as the days of my youth. I have a most …
John Charles Ryle—The Upper Room: Being a Few Truths for the Times General Principles of Interpretation. 1 Since the Bible Addresses Men in Human Language...
CHAPTER XXXIV. GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF INTERPRETATION. 1. Since the Bible addresses men in human language, and according to human modes of thinking and speaking, the interpreter's first work is to ascertain the meaning of the terms employed. Here he must proceed as in the case of other writings, seeking by the aid of grammars, lexicons, cognate languages, ancient versions, ancient interpreters, and whatever other outward helps are available, to gain a thorough knowledge of the language employed by …
E. P. Barrows—Companion to the Bible Commerce
The remarkable change which we have noticed in the views of Jewish authorities, from contempt to almost affectation of manual labour, could certainly not have been arbitrary. But as we fail to discover here any religious motive, we can only account for it on the score of altered political and social circumstances. So long as the people were, at least nominally, independent, and in possession of their own land, constant engagement in a trade would probably mark an inferior social stage, and imply …
Alfred Edersheim—Sketches of Jewish Social Life The Figurative Language of Scripture.
1. When the psalmist says: "The Lord God is a sun and shield" (Psa. 84:11), he means that God is to all his creatures the source of life and blessedness, and their almighty protector; but this meaning he conveys under the figure of a sun and a shield. When, again, the apostle James says that Moses is read in the synagogues every Sabbath-day (Acts 15:21), he signifies the writings of Moses under the figure of his name. In these examples the figure lies in particular words. But it may be embodied …
E. P. Barrows—Companion to the Bible Instruction for the Ignorant:
BEING A SALVE TO CURE THAT GREAT WANT OF KNOWLEDGE, WHICH SO MUCH REIGNS BOTH IN YOUNG AND OLD. PREPARED AND PRESENTED TO THEM IN A PLAIN AND EASY DIALOGUE, FITTED TO THE CAPACITY OF THE WEAKEST. 'My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.'--Hosea 4:6 ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR. This little catechism is upon a plan perfectly new and unique. It was first published as a pocket volume in 1675, and has been republished in every collection of the author's works; and recently in a separate tract. …
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3 Kings
The book[1] of Kings is strikingly unlike any modern historical narrative. Its comparative brevity, its curious perspective, and-with some brilliant exceptions--its relative monotony, are obvious to the most cursory perusal, and to understand these things is, in large measure, to understand the book. It covers a period of no less than four centuries. Beginning with the death of David and the accession of Solomon (1 Kings i., ii.) it traverses his reign with considerable fulness (1 Kings iii.-xi.), …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament Links 1 Kings 22:13 NIV1 Kings 22:13 NLT1 Kings 22:13 ESV1 Kings 22:13 NASB1 Kings 22:13 KJV
1 Kings 22:13 Commentaries
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