They continued three years without war between Syria and Israel (v. 1). In the third year Jehoshaphat comes down (v. 2). Ahab says, Ramoth in Gilead is ours, and we be still, and take it not out of the hand of the king of Syria (v. 3) — perhaps one of the cities Benhadad had promised to restore (20:34), though the text does not say so. 2 Chronicles 18:1 says Jehoshaphat had joined affinity with Ahab; 2 Kings 8:18 tells us the daughter of Ahab became the wife of Jehoshaphat's son. The two royal houses were now bound by marriage.

I am as thou art, my people as thy people, my horses as thy horses. Jehoshaphat commits himself before he asks God. Then he says, Enquire, I pray thee, at the word of the LORD to day (v. 5). Better late than never — but the order is telling. When Jehoshaphat came home, Jehu the son of Hanani asked him, Shouldest thou help the ungodly, and love them that hate the LORD? (2 Chronicles 19:2). A good king's alliance with a bad one nearly cost him his life (v. 32).

Ahab gathers about four hundred men, who say, Go up; for the LORD shall deliver it into the hand of the king (v. 6). Some note that the answer never says which king; the study offers that as a possible double edge, not a certainty. Jehoshaphat is not satisfied: Is there not here a prophet of the LORD besides, that we might enquire of him? (v. 7). Something in the chorus of four hundred did not ring true to him.

There is yet one man, Micaiah the son of Imlah... but I hate him; for he doth not prophesy good concerning me, but evil. Ahab knows where the true word is to be found, and hates it. Amos 5:10 describes the same spirit: They hate him that rebuketh in the gate. Paul warned of a time when people would gather teachers to suit their own desires, having itching ears (2 Timothy 4:3). Jehoshaphat answers gently, Let not the king say so. This Micaiah is not Micah the Morasthite, whose book stands among the prophets.

The scene is set with care: two kings sat each on his throne, having put on their robes, in a void place in the entrance of the gate of Samaria (v. 10), many take it a threshing floor. Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah made him horns of iron and said, With these shalt thou push the Syrians (v. 11), perhaps recalling Moses' blessing on Joseph, with them he shall push the people together (Deuteronomy 33:17). The messenger urges Micaiah: the words of the prophets declare good unto the king with one mouth: let thy word... be like the word of one of them (v. 13).

As the LORD liveth, what the LORD saith unto me, that will I speak. Even Balaam had said, the word that God putteth in my mouth, that shall I speak (Numbers 22:38). Yet when Micaiah stands before the king he first says, Go, and prosper (v. 15) — the words of the four hundred. Ahab hears the mockery in it: How many times shall I adjure thee that thou tell me nothing but that which is true in the name of the LORD? (v. 16). The king knows his prophets flatter him, and asks for a truth he does not mean to obey.

I saw all Israel scattered upon the hills, as sheep that have not a shepherd. In the ancient world a king was often called a shepherd of his people. Moses prayed that the congregation of the LORD be not as sheep which have no shepherd (Numbers 27:17). These have no master: let them return every man to his house in peace — the army will come home, but without its king. Micaiah announces Ahab's death without naming it.

Did I not tell thee that he would prophesy no good concerning me, but evil? (v. 18). Ahab turns the warning into proof of Micaiah's ill will. The image of shepherdless sheep returns in the Gospels: Jesus was moved with compassion for the crowds, because they were scattered as sheep having no shepherd (Matthew 9:36). What is judgment here becomes, in Christ, an occasion of compassion.

Micaiah describes a vision: I saw the LORD sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing by him on his right hand and on his left (v. 19; compare Isaiah 6:1; Job 1:6). Who shall persuade Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramothgilead? (v. 20). There came forth a spirit... and said, I will persuade him (v. 21). Asked how, it answers, I will go forth, and I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. The LORD says, Thou shalt persuade him, and prevail also: go forth, and do so. Micaiah concludes, the LORD hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets (v. 23).

This is one of the hardest passages in Kings, and readers have taken it in several ways. Some see judicial hardening: Ahab had long preferred lies, and God gave him over to the lie he loved — Paul speaks of God sending strong delusion, that they should believe a lie to those who refused the truth (2 Thessalonians 2:11), and Ezekiel 14:9 speaks in a similar way. Others read the scene as vision-language, a prophetic picture of the heavenly council meant to expose the four hundred, not a literal transcript. Who the spirit is, the text does not say.

Whatever reading is taken, two things stand in the text itself. Scripture elsewhere insists that God is not a man, that he should lie (Numbers 23:19). And in this very scene God tells Ahab the truth: Micaiah lays bare the lie in the open court, and the king hears plainly that his prophets are deceived and that the LORD hath spoken evil concerning thee. Ahab is not tricked without warning; he is warned and chooses the lie. The study presents the range of readings and does not force one.

Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah went near, and smote Micaiah on the cheek, and said, Which way went the Spirit of the LORD from me to speak unto thee? (v. 24). Micaiah answers that Zedekiah will learn in that day, when thou shalt go into an inner chamber to hide thyself (v. 25) — as Benhadad had hidden (20:30). Ahab orders, Put this fellow in the prison, and feed him with bread of affliction and with water of affliction, until I come in peace (v. 27). The text never tells us what became of Micaiah.

If thou return at all in peace, the LORD hath not spoken by me. Micaiah stakes everything on the test of Deuteronomy 18:22: if a prophet's word follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken. And he said, Hearken, O people, every one of you — he calls the bystanders as witnesses. One man against four hundred, struck and imprisoned, he leaves the outcome with God. Peter and John would say, we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard (Acts 4:20).

I will disguise myself, and enter into the battle; but put thou on thy robes (v. 30). Ahab tries to slip out from under the word of the LORD. The king of Syria commands his thirty and two captains... Fight neither with small nor great, save only with the king of Israel (v. 31). They pursue Jehoshaphat in his robes; Jehoshaphat cried out (v. 32), and they turn back (v. 33). 2 Chronicles 18:31 adds, and the LORD helped him; and God moved them to depart from him.

A certain man drew a bow at a venture, and smote the king of Israel between the joints of the harness — the Hebrew suggests he shot in his simplicity, not aiming at anyone in particular, and the arrow found the gap in Ahab's armour. No disguise hides a man from God's word. The lot is cast into the lap; but the whole disposing thereof is of the LORD (Proverbs 16:33). Turn thine hand, and carry me out of the host; for I am wounded.

The king was stayed up in his chariot against the Syrians, and died at even: and the blood ran out of the wound into the midst of the chariot (v. 35). At sunset the cry goes out, Every man to his city, and every man to his own country (v. 36) — Micaiah's let them return every man to his house (v. 17) fulfilled. So the king died, and was brought to Samaria (v. 37). And the dogs licked up his blood... according unto the word of the LORD which he spake. The word against Ahab at Naboth's vineyard (21:19) and the prophet's sentence after Aphek (20:42) both come to pass.

And they washed his armour is the KJV reading. The Hebrew is usually rendered today and the harlots washed or bathed there; the KJV seems to follow an older interpretation of the word. The study notes both without deciding. On the place: 21:19 spoke of the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth, at Jezreel, while this is the pool of Samaria; as noted at 21:19, readers explain this in different ways, including the postponement of 21:29 and the death of Joram in Naboth's plot (2 Kings 9:25-26).

The narrator turns to Judah. Jehoshaphat the son of Asa began to reign over Judah in the fourth year of Ahab (v. 41), at thirty-five, and reigned twenty-five years (v. 42). He walked in all the ways of Asa his father... doing that which was right in the eyes of the LORD: nevertheless the high places were not taken away. The verdict echoes Asa's (15:11, 14). 2 Chronicles 17:6 says he took away the high places and groves, yet 2 Chronicles 20:33 says the high places were not taken away; many suggest he removed shrines to other gods but not all local altars. The study notes the question.

Jehoshaphat made peace with the king of Israel (v. 44), and removed the remnant of the sodomites left from Asa's day (v. 46; compare 15:12). With Edom ruled by a deputy (v. 47), he made ships of Tharshish to go to Ophir for gold: but they went not; for the ships were broken at Eziongeber (v. 48), where Solomon's fleet had sailed (9:26-28). Verse 49 says he refused to let Ahaziah's servants join him; 2 Chronicles 20:35-37 says he joined with Ahaziah and a prophet foretold the wreck. Some suggest the refusal came after the first venture failed; the study notes this without settling it.

Ahaziah the son of Ahab began to reign over Israel in Samaria the seventeenth year of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, and reigned two years over Israel (v. 51). He did evil in the sight of the LORD, and walked in the way of his father, and in the way of his mother, and in the way of Jeroboam the son of Nebat. Three ways are named: Ahab's, Jezebel's (unnamed but plain), and Jeroboam's. The son of a king who once humbled himself (21:29) chose his parents' sins rather than that one moment of repentance.

For he served Baal, and worshipped him, and provoked to anger the LORD God of Israel, according to all that his father had done (v. 53). With this the book ends — mid-reign. Kings was traditionally one book in the Hebrew Bible, and 2 Kings 1 continues Ahaziah's story without a break. The conditional promise of 9:4-7 still hangs over both kingdoms. Carmel's The LORD, he is the God (18:39) has not held; yet the word of the LORD has not failed, and Elijah's work is not finished.