The king of Israel answered, "There is still one man who can ask the LORD, but I hate him because he never prophesies anything good for me, but only bad. He is Micaiah son of Imlah." "The king should not say that!" Jehoshaphat replied. The king of Israel answeredThis phrase introduces us to the speaker, Ahab, the king of Israel. Ahab's reign is marked by idolatry and conflict with the prophets of Yahweh. The Hebrew root for "answered" (עָנָה, 'anah) implies a response or reply, often in a context of dialogue or debate. This sets the stage for a significant interaction between Ahab and Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, highlighting the tension between worldly power and divine truth. There is still one man
The phrase "still one man" suggests a remnant, a lone voice of truth amidst a multitude of false prophets. This reflects the biblical theme of God preserving a faithful witness even in times of widespread apostasy. The Hebrew word for "man" (אִישׁ, 'ish) often denotes an individual of significance or standing, underscoring Micaiah's role as a true prophet of the LORD. who can inquire of the LORD
To "inquire of the LORD" (דָּרַשׁ, darash) means to seek divine guidance or revelation. This phrase emphasizes the role of prophets as intermediaries between God and His people. In the historical context, prophets were essential for discerning God's will, especially in matters of national importance like war. Micaiah's ability to inquire of the LORD sets him apart from the false prophets who merely tell the king what he wants to hear. but I hate him
Ahab's admission of hatred (שָׂנֵא, sane) for Micaiah reveals his resistance to God's truth. This animosity is rooted in Micaiah's commitment to prophesy only what he receives from the LORD, regardless of whether it pleases the king. This highlights the biblical principle that true prophets often face opposition and persecution for speaking God's truth. because he never prophesies good for me, but only bad
The contrast between "good" (טוֹב, tov) and "bad" (רָע, ra) in this context reflects Ahab's desire for favorable prophecies that align with his own plans. This underscores a common human tendency to reject divine correction in favor of comforting lies. The role of a prophet is not to please people but to faithfully convey God's message, whether it is one of blessing or judgment. He is Micaiah son of Imlah
Naming Micaiah and his father, Imlah, provides a specific identity and lineage, grounding the narrative in historical reality. Micaiah's name means "Who is like Yahweh?" which is fitting for a prophet who stands alone in fidelity to God. This personal detail invites readers to consider the courage and conviction required to stand for truth in a hostile environment. 'The king should not say that,' Jehoshaphat replied
Jehoshaphat's response serves as a gentle rebuke to Ahab, urging him to reconsider his attitude toward God's messenger. The phrase "should not say that" reflects a call to humility and openness to divine correction. Jehoshaphat, as a king who seeks the LORD, represents a contrasting model of leadership that values truth over personal preference. This interaction invites reflection on the importance of seeking God's will above all else, even when it challenges our desires or expectations. Persons / Places / Events 1. King AhabThe king of Israel, known for his idolatry and opposition to God's prophets. He is reluctant to hear from Micaiah because of the unfavorable prophecies. 2. JehoshaphatThe king of Judah, who seeks to hear from a true prophet of the LORD before going into battle. He encourages Ahab to listen to Micaiah. 3. Micaiah son of ImlahA prophet of the LORD who is known for speaking the truth, regardless of its popularity or reception by the king. 4. IsraelThe northern kingdom, ruled by Ahab, often in conflict with the surrounding nations and sometimes with Judah. 5. JudahThe southern kingdom, ruled by Jehoshaphat, who seeks alliance with Israel but desires to follow God's guidance. Teaching Points The Cost of Truth-TellingSpeaking God's truth may lead to opposition and hatred, as seen in Micaiah's experience. Believers are called to stand firm in truth, even when it is unpopular. Seeking God's GuidanceLike Jehoshaphat, we should prioritize seeking God's will and guidance in our decisions, especially in critical matters. The Danger of Selective HearingAhab's reluctance to hear from Micaiah highlights the danger of only listening to messages that align with our desires. We must be open to God's full counsel. The Role of ProphetsProphets in the Bible often faced resistance. Their role was to convey God's message faithfully, a calling that requires courage and integrity. The Influence of LeadershipThe decisions of leaders, like Ahab and Jehoshaphat, have significant impacts. Godly leadership seeks and heeds divine wisdom. Bible Study Questions 1. What can we learn from Jehoshaphat's insistence on hearing from a true prophet before making a decision? How can we apply this principle in our own decision-making processes? 2. How does Ahab's attitude towards Micaiah reflect our own tendencies to avoid uncomfortable truths? What steps can we take to be more receptive to God's full message? 3. In what ways does Micaiah's courage to speak the truth inspire us to stand firm in our faith today, even when facing opposition? 4. How do the events in 1 Kings 22:8 relate to the broader biblical theme of persecution for righteousness' sake? Can you think of other biblical figures who faced similar challenges? 5. Reflect on a time when you had to make a difficult decision. How did seeking God's guidance influence the outcome? How can you ensure that you are seeking His will in future decisions? Connections to Other Scriptures 2 Chronicles 18This chapter parallels the events of 1 Kings 22, providing additional context and details about the interaction between Ahab, Jehoshaphat, and Micaiah. Jeremiah 38Similar to Micaiah, the prophet Jeremiah faces opposition and persecution for delivering messages from God that are not well-received by the leaders. Matthew 5:11-12Jesus speaks about the blessing of being persecuted for righteousness' sake, which can be related to Micaiah's experience as a prophet. 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 Always, Anything, Bad, Directions, Enquire, Evil, Hate, Hated, Imlah, Inquire, Jehoshaphat, Jehosh'aphat, Love, Micah, Micaiah, Micai'ah, Prophesies, Prophesy, Prophet, Replied, Seek, YetDictionary of Bible Themes 1 Kings 22:8 5875 hatred
8765 grudge
8796 persecution, forms of 1 Kings 22:1-28 7774 prophets, false 1 Kings 22:1-38 8131 guidance, results 1 Kings 22:6-9 8648 enquiring of God 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 22:8 NIV1 Kings 22:8 NLT1 Kings 22:8 ESV1 Kings 22:8 NASB1 Kings 22:8 KJV
1 Kings 22:8 Commentaries
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