40 Minutes In The Old Testament - 1 Kings 21:16-22:53 (Episode 320)

Episode Date: June 8, 2022

Chad and Daniel wrap up 1 Kings in this episode. God is not pleased with Ahab acquiring Naboth's vineyard and sends Elijah to give him a hard word. Ahab asks false prophets if he should go to war. There is a lying spirit in certain mouths and a stray arrow in the gap of Ahab's armor. Have a listen! HWSS National Conference 1517 Podcast Network 1517 YouTube Donate

Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 Minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 Podcast Network podcast. You can go to 1517.org slash podcast and check out all the other podcasts that are living over there. And while you're over there, make sure you check out the events page. We got the national event registration open. That's October 13th through 15th in sunny, glorious San Diego, California. You can come hang out with Chad Bird. You can come hang out with me.

You're going to hang out with all the 15, 17 people. If you've never been to the website and looked over the event, watch the trailer for the event. Look at all of the roster of speakers, all of the breakouts that you get to sledge from, and, of course, all the times that you will be eating food provided for you. you're going to eat more food than the cost of the ticket. See, the cost of the ticket is less than it would cost you to buy the food you eat because we're not serving, you know, it's not a cookout where we just put hot dogs on the end of some coat hangers and give them to you.

This is a different kind of thing. This is a real deal party. You don't want to miss it, so go check it out and come hang out. Chad and I would never miss it. I mean, Chad, if you weren't speaking, you'd still be there. Absolutely. I wouldn't miss this for anything. That's right.

That's right. My kid's getting married. You better change that date. We can't. It's Here We Still Stand season. We got to go. So check it out. I'll put a link in the show notes, or you can go over to the website and get all the information over there.

All right, Chad. We are in 1 Kings chapter 21. And what we had was, you know, old Ahab was upset because he really wanted to get his hands on a vineyard so he could turn it into a vegetable garden. And the owner of this vineyard, he wasn't having any of that. He's probably been in his family for quite some time. Also, turning a vineyard into a vegetable garden is just theologically inappropriate,

as we talked about last week. Well, Ahab is not happy about it, but he's not going to really do anything about it. except for go home and lay on his bed and not eat and cry crocodile tears and whimper about it. But his wife, who's a little bit more of a go-getter, she thinks, listen, man, you're the king, let me just take care of this for you. Calls a fast, hires a couple of worthless guys to accuse this vineyard owner of speaking evil against the king and God. And this man is stoned in the street, and she comes home with the good news to her husband

that this problem has been taken care of, and he immediately feels better and goes and takes possession of the vineyard. And that's kind of where we left it. And we're going to find out how God feels about this. I do think if Ahab would have freaked out right then and been like, what did you do, and been horrified, this might have gone differently. Yeah, it definitely would have.

In fact, we're going to see at the end of this chapter that when ahab does at least partially come to his senses god also at least partially relents so there is built into all these threats not just in the case of ahab of course but throughout the old testament and today there is built into these threats the possibility of repentance so just because god says hey this bad thing is going to happen does not necessarily mean that that bad thing will happen if repentance follows the threat of the law. So the law will produce all kinds of very serious threats. That doesn't mean they're going to happen if between the arrival of the fulfillment of that threat, before that, there is repentance. And so what we'll see

in a few more verses is when Ahab actually does repent, and God partially relents of the threat. Yeah, when God says something is going to happen because of some terrible thing that's happened, it does not mean that that thing that God said has to happen. It does mean that if nothing changes, that is what's going to happen. It will happen, yes. So the first thing that happens here is after he takes possession of the vineyard, that the word of God comes to Elijah. So this is verse 17 of 1 Kings 21. and this word basically says that Elijah is to go he's to confront Ahab and he is to tell him basically he's going to suffer the penalty for what he along with Jezebel have done and the

language is used here is basically the kind of language we've seen more than once it has to do with blood in this case in the place this is what Elijah is to tell him from God in the place where dogs licked up the blood of Naboth, shall dogs lick your own blood? So we'll see what happens as the story develops. But first of all, after Elijah goes to confront Ahab, it's kind of hilarious in verse 20, the very first words out of Ahab's mouth, as soon as he sees the prophet coming up is, have you found me, O my enemy? It's like Ahab already knows. When Elijah confronts him, this is not good news. So have you found me? Oh, my enemy. And Elijah answers him. Oh yeah, I found you. And here's why, because you sold yourself to do what is evil in the sight of the

Lord. And then he goes on to say that disaster is going to come upon him. He's going to be burned up. And then every male, bond or free, is going to be cut off from Ahab. The word translated there as male is the one we've seen multiple times, beginning already in 1 Samuel. Literally, he who pisseth against the wall, to use the old King James Version. And I mentioned before that every time that very pejorative description of a man is used, it's in a judgment context. So it's not just kind of an idiom, a Hebrew idiom that's thrown out there. Instead of saying man, you say he who pisseth against the wall. Instead, it's purposely pejorative in these judgment contexts to talk about what is going to befall all those who are part of the

male descendants of whoever is being condemned, in this case Ahab. Yeah, it's something that you would say when you're angry and only when you're angry. Yeah, exactly. This is not like just something you throw out there in everyday discourse. And I wish that our translations would have kept, you know, they don't have to translate it quite as graphically as the king james did but at least use some sort of negative terminology instead of just male because it's obviously not just kind of a generic male term it's something that's it's very negative well yeah it seems like it's common to do this cut off so there's like a circumcision thing here right where it's like i'm gonna cut off everyone who p's standing up yeah yeah definitely

the the hebrew verb karat cut is the same word that you would use the circumcision yeah so yeah you can you can kind of put two and two together you get the idea of what's being what's being yeah it's intentionally feisty yeah there you go there you go well then he goes on to say uh that he's going to make ahab's house like the house of jeroboam and like the house of baasha these two prior kings who both, of course, faced divine judgment. And he adds to this concerning Jezebel, the wife of Ahab, the dogs shall eat Jezebel within the walls of Jezreel. And then he includes this language we've seen before that he who dies in the city, the dog shall eat. He who dies in the country, the birds of the heavens shall eat. So it's kind of this gross image of bodies all over

the place unburied being left as carrion being left there for uh you know birds or dogs or whatever it might be just to to devour them so again a very negative graphic image because this is going to be the the fruit that comes from all of the wickedness that jezebel and ahab have have sown yeah and you might be thinking like okay what jezebel did was really bad obviously that's really messed up but man, God's really bringing the hammer down here on this whole thing he's talking about not just

Jezebel and Ahab, he's talking about a lot of different people here, and I think the next part of the text sort of clarifies that this was sort of the straw that broke the camel's back with God, like God was this was the final thing where God was like, alright, I'm done yeah, yeah, this was

well, as it goes on to say that this is in kind of in parentheses here, this verse is 25 through 26 that ahab had as it were out sinned every everyone who came before him right i mean there was there's like the sin of jeroboam the sin of basha the sin of these other kings and that was like that was like minor that was like uh amateur night compared to what ahab did isn't this language interesting there was none who sold himself to do what was evil on the side the lord this is a guy who does evil things uh not just because like he's a wicked person but he

does them the sold almost seems like there's this knowing that you do it so that you might gain something from it um so you this buying and selling language is kind of different than you know this person did what was evil in the sight of the lord because this guy is evil ahab does seem like a guy who like he knows and then when he is presented with the opportunity to do something evil and he's going to gain from it he's willing to engage in that and there's something sort of worse about that yeah yeah it's like of course the first thing comes to my mind is is the image of you know selling your soul to to the devil yeah you're there's so it's not like this This just happened to Ahab, in other words.

This was a willing, a knowing selling of himself to evil. Well, if you're an idolater and you do wicked things while worshiping your gods, you might be doing wicked things believing that they are the right things to do. This doesn't seem like it's the case with Ahab. Ahab does the wrong things knowing they're the wrong things. Yeah, so it's a willingness to go to whatever lengths are necessary to make sure that not only idolatry is practiced, but that it's promulgated, it's spread. This becomes kind of the official religion of the Northern Kingdom. It could also be that we know

from archaeological records and other records as well, that this was an extremely financially prosperous time in the Northern Kingdom. In fact, Ahab has an ivory palace, as we'll hear at the end of end of chapter 22 so they were doing very well and so maybe the image of selling oneself also kind of reflects that financial reality like he was such a devotee of mammon that he was willing to sell himself for for evil as well so whatever is implied by all of that that's what he was doing sold himself to do evil jezebel his wife incited him to this he acted abominably and going after the esv has idols these are the gilalim we've talked about before these are the dung deities the crap gods uh this this negative uh term that ezekiel likes to use so

foul idols we might say now this is an important phrase it's the end of verse 26 as the amorites had done whom the lord cast out before the people of israel so the inclusion of that analogy that the northern kingdom had become like the Amorites is basically saying that the northern kingdom is fully Canaanized. They've reverted back to the situation that called for God's judgment upon the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites and all those peoples. So what's happening in the northern kingdom is that they have become so enmeshed in evil that they are now basically like the Canaanites, that the Lord punished and drove out and destroyed by means of the Israelites a few centuries before.

Now, Ahab hears this. This is what I was referring to earlier. And how does he react? Well, interestingly, he doesn't defy the prophet. He doesn't defy God. It says he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth, fasted, and lay in sackcloth and went about dejectedly. Now, the dejectedly part is almost predictable, given his emotional roller coaster that he's in. You know, when he doesn't get the vengeance at first, what does he do?

He goes home and sucks his thumb and cries and lays in bed. So he's all dejected, acting like a baby. So him reacting this way is sort of part of his personality as far as the dejected part. But he also displays all the signs of repentance, the tearing of clothes, the wearing of sackcloth, fasting and whatnot. not. And he's not just playing the part. This is sincere because after he does this, verse 28, the word of the Lord comes to Elijah and says, have you seen how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he's humbled himself before me, I will not bring the disaster in his days, but in his son's days, I will bring the disaster upon his house. Now you might be saying to yourself,

well, he's still going to bring disaster. Yeah, but what usually happens is you have a wicked king, and then God says, I'm going to bring punishment upon the next generation. That's been the standard so far. This king is wicked. King A is wicked, so his son King B, he will face the penalty for that. What was going to happen in the case of Ahab is that punishment was actually going to be happening in the very life of the king. So God does relent. He does lessen the penalty in that he shifts it from Ahab's life to the life of his son. And again, this still gives Ahab a chance to continue in repentance. But as we'll see in the next chapter, the very last chapter indeed of the book, 1 Kings 22, Ahab is going to slip right back into his former days of

rebellion, right back into listening to lying prophets, right back into rebelling against God. So he's been given an opportunity. More than one prophet, this is the second prophet so far, who has promised him, threatened him with divine judgment. And now what we're going to hear in chapter 22 is a third prophet is going to come along and say the same thing, and then it will be fulfilled in the life that they have. All right, so let's get into this last chapter. This is 1 Kings 22.

We're told that for three years, Syria and Israel continued without war. But in the third year, here's what happened. Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, came down to the king of Israel. I want to stop there just for a minute. Keep in mind the numerical significance going on here. This is the third year, and big things happen on thirds, or in the third day, or in threes. There's a lot of that happening throughout the Scriptures. That, by the way, is the background, of course, for Paul's statement that Christ was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures. Big things are done by God on the third of something, and so that fits with the resurrection as well. So this is the

third year. We're going to have that third warning, that third threat from a prophet coming up. So we've reached the climax here of everything that's been building up in Ahab's life. So for three years, there's no war, and then Jehoshaphat, whose name means the Lord judges, Yahweh judges he comes to the king of Israel now this is surprising because what we've seen since the days of Rehoboam and Jeroboam the first two kings of the northern and southern kingdoms is that there's been civil war so there's been there's been no uh no evidence so far that there's been any kind of reconciliation between the north and the south there have been fights and skirmishes and this ongoing irritation between the two kingdoms now for the first time we hear about a

an accord that somehow has been reached probably because there's a common enemy they're facing the northern northern arameans or syrians whatever you want to call them so this common threat is going to unite north to south with king ahab in the north and then king jehoshaphat in the south so jehoshaphat comes and he meets up with ahab and ahab says 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. And then he says to Jehoshaphat, will you go with me to battle against, to battle at Ramoth-Gilead? And Jehoshaphat says to Ahab, basically, you bet. I am as you are, my people are your people, my horses are your horses. So they're going to unite against this common enemy,

the Syrians, and they're going to try and retake this trans-Jordanian city. So this city that is east of the Jordan River, that's under the control of the Arameans, but should be under their control. Ramoth Gilead, by the way, is located at a place where it's kind of a significant trade route goes through there. It's also a place that would be of pivotal importance for making sure that no one from the eastern tribes comes in and invades. So it has a military strategic importance as well. So they're going to try and recapture this place. But, verse 5, before they do that, before they go to battle, the king from the south, Josephat, wants to make sure that God wants them to do this.

So he says, first inquire for the word of Yahweh. so verse 6 says that ahab gathers the prophets together about 400 men and he asked him shall i go to battle against ramoth gilead or shall i refrain now this is this is important to to make a connection between what's happening now and what happened a few chapters before so that hebrew expression for gathering the prophets together we've heard that before we'll hear it back in 1 Kings 18 verse 20, when all the prophets of Baal were gathered together for the showdown at Mount Carmel with Ahab. And interestingly too, that was 450 prophets of Baal. But there we also hear about 400 prophets of Asherah who did not show up on that mountaintop. So there's a very

good chance that these 400 prophets that Ahab has gathered together are actually prophets of Asherah, Those same prophets who were kind of the leftovers that weren't killed by Elijah back in the day. So this can be another case where you have one true prophet, whose name we'll see in just a minute, is Micaiah. One true prophet against hundreds of false prophets. Just like we had the one prophet Elijah against the 450 prophets of Baal. So this is sort of Mount Carmel 2.0. Everything that's going to happen in the scene that follows. 400 prophets is a lot of prophets to have roaming the earth at one time.

That's a lot of preachers. Yeah, it's a lot of prophets. And it accentuates the odds is the best way to put it. But there is an idea that one guy against 400, it's not great odds for the one guy. So we'll see, of course, as things develop as to how he is able to gain the upper hand. so he asked him should we go and basically they say you bet you know they're kind of they're they're yes sir man uh they're willing to say whatever the king wants them to say so here's what they say and i think that the hebrew here is important they say go up for not yahweh but i don't

i don't will give it into your hand now that's a little bit ambiguous because i don't we get adonai from that can either can sometimes refer to yahweh but it can also just kind of be a general word for lord or master so it can be applicable to other deities as well so were they saying go up for yahweh we'll give it into your hand or for god kind of in a generic sense we'll give it into your hand we don't know but either way they're basically saying what they know the king wants to hear he's made it obvious that he wants to do this and so they say oh yeah yeah definitely all 400 of us we prayed we've sacrificed we're all in agreement that this is definitely god's will for you to do this do you think that them using this word is why jehoshaphat is then going

to say is there not here another prophet of the lord and he's going to use a different word yeah i think so i think that was uh i think that's why he follows their united speech with this question like okay that's great these 400 people say this uh but can we ask yali's prophet yeah is there yeah is is there like a true prophet here in other words and and for those of you who don't uh you know read hebrew you can tell that this is the case just which is nice the bible does this so you you see here that go up for the lord and this the sort of generic word for god it's just Lord. They capitalize the L, but the O-R-D is not.

And then you'll hear the words of Jehoshaphat and you see Lord and the whole thing is capitalized and now we know we're talking about Yahweh. Yeah, that is a handy device that translators have given to us. So at least you know whether you're looking to get Yahweh or another word. So

Jehoshaphat, yeah, he says, hey, is there a Yahweh prophet we can talk to? And Ahab's response is this. This is verse 8. he says yeah there's a guy there's one man that we can use to inquire of Yahweh his name is Micaiah the son of Imlah but I hate him because he never prophesies good concerning me but but only evil so of course Ahab doesn't want to talk to this guy because every time Micaiah opens his mouth

to prophesy something connected to Ahab Ahab knows it's going to be anti-Ahab why well because Ahab is giving himself over to idolatry. And so, of course, the prophet of Yahweh is not going to come around, you know, pat him on the back and tell him what a great job he's doing as an idolater. He's going to speak harsh words against him, words of judgment and law. And so Ahab says, yeah, there's a guy, there is a prophet Yahweh, but I can't stand him. I hate his guts because all they can say is negative things about me. So Jehoshaphat responds by saying, let not the king say so in other words god forbid but the king of israel a uh ahab he summons an officer and he says go fetch micaiah so let's get this over with now here's the scene this is verse

10 this and this is an important scene because of the contrast we're going to see in just a minute here we have ahab verse 10 and jehoshaphat so the kings of the north and south and what are they doing? It says they were sitting on their thrones, arrayed in their robes at the threshing floor of the entrance of the gate of Samaria, and all these 400 prophets were prophesying before them. Why is that important? Because this is the earthly setting that's then going to be contrasted with a heavenly setting that we're going to hear about in verse 19. So here we have on earth two kings, one who's a pretty good guy joseph at one who's not a very good guy ahab but they're sitting on their thrones on earth surrounded by these lying prophets these false prophets and they're at this

threshing floor of the gate of samaria it's not quite a spectacle right yeah all these guys prophesize you feel i mean this just doesn't feel like you're gonna get the truth in this situation I mean, I know if you read the Bible, you know this, but the prophet that's going to tell you the truth is never like that. Never. You look at Elijah, you look at Jeremiah, you look at Isaiah, all these guys, they ain't doing that. Yeah, this is so much in accord with what Paul talks about, too,

with false teachers. They're saying what your ears want to hear. Right. The same thing happening here. So false teachers, of course, are going to they don't want to they don't want to tell you something you don't want to hear. They want to just they want to stroke your ego. They want to tell you, yeah, everything you're doing is good. Everything you're believing is right. That's that's that's the way they've they've always been. So that's what these false prophets are doing. They're in the hundreds basically telling the king, you're the best. you you you are the guy in fact uh zedekiah is going to who's one of these false prophets he makes himself he's really he's gonna he's gonna go over the top here he makes himself some horns

of iron so i don't know how this works and he's like holds up to his head these these horn-like objects of iron and he says in the name of yahweh now they switch i think what's happening is so first of all they they said this in the name of the of adon lord but then they realized well hey josephad is more interested in what yahweh says so they make a switch and now they're going to claim to be speaking the name of yahweh so he has these horns and he's going to have a prophetic enactment this this acted out parable and he says here's what yahweh says with these horns you shall push the syrians until they are destroyed and all the prophets are basically saying go for it go to Ramoth, Gilead, and Triant, because Yahweh will give it into the hand of the king.

Now, that's what is described to us. What we don't know is what Micaiah is going to tell us in a minute, that all of this is nothing more than God at work, secretly, silently, behind the scenes to basically let Ahab go the way that he has chosen to go. So I'll explain more what that means as we get into what Micaiah has to say, which has taken us to verse 13. So the messenger goes to Micaiah and says, Behold, the words of the prophet with one accord are favorable to the king. Let your word be like the word of one of them and speak favorably. So in other words, just make things easier, Micaiah. I know the way you are. The king hates you because you're always saying evil things against him. Can you make an exception this time? Because everybody else agrees

that he should do this, so why don't you agree as well? Just echo what these other prophets are saying. And Micaiah says, no. As the Lord lives, what the Lord says to me, that I will speak. I'm only here to speak what God tells me to speak. I'm not here to say what the king wants to hear, what all the other prophets are saying. I'm going to say what God gives me to say. So he comes to the king, and the king says to him, shall we do this, shall we go to battle, or shall we not? And at first he says, and this is surprising, at first he says to him, go up and triumph.

The Lord will give it into the hand of the king. You're like, wait, that's exactly what the false prophets were saying. So why does Micaiah say this? I think a couple of different ways we can explain this. one is that we can't, of course, we're reading this, we're not hearing this, but a common explanation is that he says this sarcastically. So he's purposely being sarcastic in echoing what the false prophets are saying, because he's always kind of under the skin of Ahab. Or what could also be an explanation is that that is actually the word that God gave him to say.

Now, he said he was going to say what Yahweh said. He didn't mean that what Yahweh was going to say to him was necessarily going to be good for Ahab. So it could be that God is using this prophet in order to basically let Ahab go to his own, pronounce a word that's going to lead Ahab to his own destruction. I lean toward hearing this as basically sarcasm. Yeah.

well i think i think it's i think it's based you can base that on what the response is yes yeah because he's upset after he says this yeah the response isn't like oh well good all right he's like okay i'll do that he's like i really hate this guy like come on man like so you have to you have to feel like that he's over there he's like yeah man sure go on up there i'm sure of the lord will give it to you and the king and you know ahab's like come on man like maybe he's annoyed that someone came up and talked to him and tried to prime the pump and get him to say something else he just goes down there and he's got a little bit of an attitude about it uh you don't really want the word of the lord you just want me to come down here and say what you want

all right fine i do it uh but i'll let you know that i'm being sarcastic yeah i to me anyway that's the most straightforward way to read this, because after he says that, then the king is upset. He says, how many times shall I make you swear that you speak to me nothing but the truth in the name of the Lord? In other words, I don't believe a word you just said. So why don't you tell me what you really think? And he does. He goes on to say, well, all right, here's what I saw. I saw all Israel scattered on the mountains as sheep that have no shepherd. And the Lord said, these have no master. Let each return to his home in peace. In other words, what's happening is all Israel is going to scatter in the mountains because their shepherd, which is another name for the king,

kings were often called shepherds in the ancient Near East, including Israel, the shepherd is going to die. So the king, the regal shepherd of the northern kingdom is going to be killed. And as a result, the flock, the sheep, the citizens are going to scatter each to his own home in peace. Of course, if you know the Gospels, this kind of language is also used by Jesus talking about how, quoting Zechariah, actually, where the shepherd will be struck and what will happen to the sheep that will be scattered, talking about his own arrest and everything happening on that night. So just like is going to happen in the case of Ahab, also happen in the case of our regal shepherd, regal shepherd Christ. So that's a prophecy of the death of Ahab. And it's a third prophecy, and this one is leading directly up to his death. And then he goes on to say, verse 18, the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat,

didn't I tell you that he would not prophesy good concerning me, but evil? I told you that's why I don't like this guy. He's always saying evil things against me. And then Micaiah goes on. He's not done yet. He's got more to say. He says, here's what I saw. i saw yahweh sitting on his throne so this is the heavenly counterpart to what was happening on earth so you two kings are sitting here on your thrones all decked out in your regalia and you're watching these prophets prophesying well here's what i saw i saw the king of kings i saw yahweh

sitting on his throne in heaven and all the hosts of heaven were standing around him on his right and on his left and the lord spoke he said who will entice ahab that he may go up and fall at Ramoth Gilead. And one said this, and one said that. And then a spirit came forward and stood before the Lord and volunteered. He said, I will entice him. And the Lord said, how will you do it? And he says, I'll go out and I'll be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And he said, you are to entice him and you shall succeed. So go get them. And therefore, behold, the Lord has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all of these, your prophets, and the Lord has declare disaster against you, which is basically another example of God giving to sinners what they

want, or God handing over sinners into their own way. So Ahab likes to follow lies. God says, oh, you like that? I'll give you some more lies. You'd like to listen to false prophets? Well, I'll give you even more falsehood. You'd like to reject me? Well, then I'll give you even more chances to reject me so this is the the typical way that that things work of course it's reflected in romans 1 as well yeah and this is a passage that like troubles a lot of people because they're like oh my gosh like god's putting a lying spirit in the mouth of people like how can you do that yeah i think to understand we don't know exactly what what this uh what's going on here exactly but it seems reasonable that you know you look at like something like job and you have uh the devil

like talking to god and like there's a conversation that goes on there it does seem that even the the fallen heavenly host uh perhaps are god is willing to use them for his purposes so they're they're more than willing to put lies in the mouths of prophets and sometimes god is willing to let them do so yeah there's a there's a lot about this passage that um is a bit difficult to wrap your mind around and to fully understand uh commentaries reflect this as well but yeah that's one possibility for sure, that this lying spirit in the mouth of the prophets is a false spirit. But whatever is happening, what is clear is that the Lord is the one who is orchestrating events. So Ahab thinks that he's doing what he wants, all the while not knowing that he's actually

falling into the very trap that God has placed for him. Why? Well, because Ahab has continued in his rebellion. He's continued to defy God. He's continued to listen to false prophets. And so finally, after hardening his heart, stiffening his neck all these years, he's going to actually get that which God had prophesied. So that's going to happen soon. In between, that Zedekiah, the guy with the fake iron horns, he comes up and he strikes Micaiah on the cheek. And Micaiah gets arrested, more or less, and thrown in prison with meager rations. And Micaiah has the last word. He says, listen, you can do to me whatever you want to, but you're going to find out whether what I speak is true. So if you return in peace, he says to Ahab, if you return in peace, the Lord has not

spoken by me. So everybody listen up. In other words, watch and see what happens. If Ahab's killed in battle, if the shepherd is killed and the sheep are scattered, will you know that I spoke the truth? If it doesn't happen, will you know that I'm not to be listened to? So this is a kind of a truism of Old Testament prophecy. How do you know who the true prophet is? Well, do their words come true or not? And so Micaiah is saying, well, you'll find out very soon. Just pay attention and see what happens. And if the king is killed, well, then I spoke the truth. If he's not, well, then I spoke falsehood. So you can weigh the evidence and see whether I'm speaking the truth or not. Yeah, he's basically saying you're not going to have to wait long for definitive evidence.

I don't know who's right and who's wrong here. Yeah, you're going to find out in the battle that's about to be waged, which is what is described in verses 29 and following. Just kind of summarize what's happening here. The two kings are going to go with their armies against the Arameans at Ramoth Gilead, but they're going to go in different ways. Jehoshaphat is going to wear his typical royal robes in the battle. He's going to be the king. everybody's going to see him now ahab thinks that what he will do to get away from the prophecy that micaiah has given is he's going to disguise himself he's going to dress like an ordinary soldier

so he will go like an ordinary soldier ahab will dress that way so he won't stand out in other words but jehoshaphat is going to be obviously dressed as a king so they go into battle and the king of Syria says to his chariot drivers, what I want you to do is to single out the king of Israel. I want you to watch for Ahab, watch for the king. And when you see him, I want you to take him down. So despite everything happening in the battle, I want you to focus your sights on him. So verse 32 tells us that when the captains of these chariots saw not Ahab, but Jehoshaphat, they thought he was the king of Israel. So they turned to fight against him. So they're supposed to be going for Ahab, but of course Ahab is in disguise. They see this one guy who's dressed

like a king, and they assume it's Ahab. Well, it's not, but they don't know that. So they go against him. Jehoshaphat cries out, and the captains of the chariot see that it's not their guy. It's not the king of Israel, but it's somebody else. How do they know? Well, it could be they knew what he look like it could also be that when joseph cried out maybe he uh maybe his accent gave him away that does happen often in the scriptures or maybe what he said what the words he used to cry out indicated that oh this this guy isn't ahab we don't know but whatever happened they realized they were going after the wrong guy so they turned back from pursuing him but what does happen and this is where you see divine providence at work there was a certain soldier certain aramean soldier

who just drew his bow at random so this wasn't like purposeful he just was like firing arrows just drew his bow at arrow at random shoots the arrow and where does it land it lands in the body of ahab the king of israel right there where there was a gap in his armor the arrow goes in he doesn't die he's he's seriously injured so he tells his chariot driver to take him out of the battle he's wounded and what happens is the battle continues throughout the day ahab stays there in his chariot either because he can't really be moved or because he wants to stay there to be kind of an encouragement for his troops whatever whatever it is he stays there but by evening he's dead the whole chariot bottom is just full of his blood and so when he dies in fulfillment of these

prophecies. When he dies, then a cry goes out to the army, every man to his city, and every man to his country. In other words, Micaiah's prophecy has been fulfilled. The shepherd is dead, and therefore the sheep are scattered, every man to his own place. So the king dies. He's brought to Samaria. They bury him in Samaria, and exactly what was prophesied happens. So his chariot, His bloody chariot is washed out, and the dogs come, and they lick up the blood. And we're also told that where this happened, the pool where this happened, is where the prostitutes washed themselves. And so it's just kind of this, like, really rubbing it in. You know, not only did he die, not only did the dogs come and lick up his blood,

but his blood that got washed in the water is the very water that the prostitutes used to wash themselves in. uh so this is like the this is the sad ending of the life of ahab he had multiple chances to repent and he did once but then he he went right back into his old idolatrous ways and so finally met the punishment that had been talked about multiple times so that takes us almost to the very end of first kings let me just quickly summarize the last few verses there's there's not really a lot to say first of all verses 41 to 50 describe the reign of jehoshaphat the guy from the south that we've just heard about we're told that he was actually a pretty good guy uh that he did not turn aside from the way of asa his father who had been a good king he did what

was right in the eyes of the lord now he wasn't like david he said it says the high places were not taken away and so the people were still making sacrifices there but more or less he was you know on the scale of kings in the south, he was pretty good, you know, so he gives a B plus, let's say. And then we're told about Ahaziah in the last few verses, 51 to 53. Ahaziah, who was the son of Ahab, so Ahab was just killed in battle. Ahaziah takes over. He reigns in the 17th year of Jehoshaphat. He only reigns two years. Ahab had a pretty long reign. His son Ahaziah does not. He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, walked in the way of his father and in the way of his mother. So he doubled it up. He walked in the way of Ahab and Jezebel and in the way of

Jeroboam, the founder of this terrible idolatrous kingdom. And he served Baal, worshiped him, provoked the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger in every way that his father had done. So that is the way that 1 Kings 22 wraps up. That's the way that 1 Kings itself wraps up with a description of the reign of Jehoshaphat in the south and then Ahaziah in the north. Now you might be thinking to yourself, well, that's a really weird way for a book to end. And I don't disagree. But what 1 and 2 Kings originally were was it's just one long book but there's so much material here that it makes for a huge scroll right so what happened at some point is you just basically say you know what uh let's just divide this book in half and we'll pick a good halfway point and we'll put one on one scroll

the one on another and so that's where it it happened to happen to be so it's not like this sudden like a great summary conclusion of first kings second kings one one is just going to continue the story is is all that's going to take place but hey we did finish a book we did finish uh did finish first kings so we are still making very turtle-like progress to the old through the old testament but we'll get there eventually that's right well we will be back next week to fire up uh second kings most of the same characters remaining we're going to pick it up with elijah you might have been like oh new prophet where's elijah well he's he's roaming around with elijah elijah's getting schooled up getting trained up and so we're gonna have to

we're gonna get to engage a lot with the two of them uh going forward in second king so that that'll be fun because they are they are interesting fellows we'll wait till next week to to fire up second king's chapter one chad i'll see you then all right see you then We'll see you next time.