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1 Kings 22 Bible study: What the LORD says to me
In the whole story of his last battle (22:1-38), Ahab is named only once, by the LORD in Micaiah's vision (22:20); the story calls him "the king of Israel". And the one prophet the king said he hated (22:8) is the one whose word came true: "If you return at all in peace, the LORD has not spoken by me" (22:28).
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“Micaiah said, “As the LORD lives, what the LORD says to me, that I will speak.””
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“In 1 Kings 22:30, the king of Israel disguised himself and told Jehoshaphat to put on his robes.”
Is that in 1 Kings 22, or not? Make your call.
What's really going on
Four hundred prophets, and one more
"They continued three years without war between Syria and Israel" (22:1). In the third year Jehoshaphat the king of Judah comes down to the king of Israel (22:2), who says to his servants, "You know that Ramoth Gilead is ours" (22:3), and asks Jehoshaphat, "Will you go with me to battle to Ramoth Gilead?" (22:4). Jehoshaphat answers, "I am as you are, my people as your people, my horses as your horses" (22:4). Then he adds, "Please inquire first for the LORD’s word" (22:5) (tap word). The king of Israel gathers the prophets, "about four hundred men" (22:6), and they say, "Go up; for the Lord will deliver it into the hand of the king" (22:6). Jehoshaphat asks again: "Isn’t there here a prophet of the LORD, that we may inquire of him?" (22:7). There is one, the king says, "Micaiah the son of Imlah; but I hate him, for he does not prophesy good concerning me, but evil" (22:8). Jehoshaphat answers, "Don’t let the king say so" (22:8).
Where it leads to Jesus
The same thing to the prophets
1 Kings 22:8leads toLuke 6:22-23
The king of Israel said of the one prophet left to ask, "I hate him, for he does not prophesy good concerning me, but evil" (22:8), while about four hundred prophets said, "Go up" (22:6), and the messenger said, "the prophets declare good to the king with one mouth" (22:13). Micaiah was struck on the cheek (22:24) and sent to prison (22:27). Jesus, speaking to his disciples (Luke 6:20), said, "Blessed are you when men hate you, and when they exclude and mock you, and throw out your name as evil, for the Son of Man’s sake" (Luke 6:22), "for their fathers did the same thing to the prophets" (Luke 6:23). And he said, "Woe, when men speak well of you, for their fathers did the same thing to the false prophets" (Luke 6:26). Jesus doesn’t name Micaiah or cite 1 Kings 22, so setting the two side by side is a reading. Some see this chapter as one of the times Jesus means: a prophet hated for the word he spoke (22:8), and the many who declared good to the king (22:13). Others read Jesus’ words as about the prophets in general and about his disciples, and draw no line to this chapter.
Honest questions
Questions people ask about 1 Kings 22
- "The LORD has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these your prophets" (22:23). How can that be, if God doesn't lie?
- The LORD sent Elijah to tell Ahab that dogs would lick his blood "in the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth" (21:19). Is that what 22:38 tells?
- Why did Micaiah first tell the king, "Go up and prosper"?
That was a taste
The rest of 1 Kings 22 is waiting in Favor
- Two kings on their thrones, and the LORD on his
- A disguise, and a bow drawn at random
- Two kings to close the book
- How to know a word the LORD has not spoken
- Told again in Chronicles
- 17 questions as you read
- 12 more Hebrew words
- A short check at the end
- Your notes, saved as you go
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The Hebrew word behind it
דָּבָרdavarsay da-VAR
Brown-Driver-Briggs: "speech, word", and also "matter, affair, thing about which one speaks". The chapter turns on whose word is the LORD's. Jehoshaphat begins it: "Please inquire first for the LORD’s word" (22:5). The messenger uses the noun three times in one verse: where the WEB has "the prophets declare good", the Hebrew has this noun, literally "the words of the prophets", and he asks, "Please let your word be like the word of one of them" (22:13). Micaiah answers with "Therefore hear the LORD’s word" (22:19). At the end the dogs lick the king's blood "according to the LORD’s word which he spoke" (22:38). The same noun, in the plural, is the acts in "the rest of the acts of Ahab" (22:39) and of Jehoshaphat (22:45), and chronicles in "the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel" (22:39).
For your group
1 Kings 22 Bible study questions
- 1Jehoshaphat had already said, "I am as you are" (22:4), before he said, "Please inquire first for the LORD’s word" (22:5). When have you asked God about something after you had already decided?
- 2The messenger asked Micaiah to let his word be like the others' and "speak good" (22:13). Where do you feel pressure to say what people want to hear?
- 3The king said of Micaiah, "I hate him, for he does not prophesy good concerning me, but evil" (22:8), yet he still asked him for "nothing but the truth" (22:16). Who tells you hard truths, and how do you receive them?
Leading a group? In Favor, everyone reads 1 Kings 22 during the week and answers these questions privately. Answers stay sealed until you meet, then appear together, and you can print the week's sheet.
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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Hebrew and Greek words are checked against the original-language texts and public-domain lexicons. What we believe · Favor home