2 Chronicles 18 Bible study: What my God says

The chapter before began with Jehoshaphat, who "strengthened himself against Israel" (17:1), and said that "he had riches and honor in abundance" (17:5). This chapter opens with the same words and something new: "Now Jehoshaphat had riches and honor in abundance; and he allied himself with Ahab" (18:1) (tap allied himself). In Hebrew allied himself is one word, vayyitchatten, the same word as in 1 Kings 3:1: "Solomon made a marriage alliance with Pharaoh king of Egypt" (1 Kings 3:1). 2 Chronicles doesn't say here how the alliance was made. Three chapters on, it says of Jehoram, the son who reigned after Jehoshaphat (21:1), "he had Ahab’s daughter as his wife" (21:6). "After some years, he went down to Ahab to Samaria" (18:2). "Ahab killed sheep and cattle for him in abundance, and for the people who were with him, and moved him to go up with him to Ramoth Gilead" (18:2) (tap moved). Jehoshaphat answers, "I am as you are, and my people as your people. We will be with you in the war" (18:3). When he comes home, a seer will ask him, "Should you help the wicked, and love those who hate the LORD?" (19:2).

2 Chronicles 18:23→leads toLuke 22:64

Micaiah had told the king, "the LORD has spoken evil concerning you" (18:22). "Then Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah came near, and struck Micaiah on the cheek, and said, “Which way did the LORD’s Spirit go from me to speak to you?”" (18:23). After Jesus was seized and brought into the high priest’s house (Luke 22:54), "The men who held Jesus mocked him and beat him" (Luke 22:63). "Having blindfolded him, they struck him on the face and asked him, “Prophesy! Who is the one who struck you?”" (Luke 22:64). Luke doesn't cite 2 Chronicles 18, so setting the two side by side is a reading, resting on what happens in each: one who spoke God's word is struck in the face and mocked for claiming that God speaks through him. Some see in Micaiah's blow a prophet's treatment that Jesus also met. Others read Luke 22:63-65 in its own setting, before the council met (Luke 22:66), and 2 Chronicles 18 as Micaiah's day before the two kings, and draw no line from one to the other.

סוּתsutsay SOOT

Brown-Driver-Briggs: "incite, allure, instigate". Strong's: "properly, to prick, i.e. (figuratively) stimulate; by implication, to seduce". The chapter uses it twice, with two different subjects. Ahab feasted Jehoshaphat "and moved him to go up with him to Ramoth Gilead" (18:2). In the battle, "Jehoshaphat cried out, and the LORD helped him; and God moved them to depart from him" (18:31). The first is 2 Chronicles' own; 1 Kings says only that Jehoshaphat "came down to the king of Israel" (1 Kings 22:2). The second is 2 Chronicles' own too (1 Kings 22:32). The same verb is in 1 Chronicles 21:1: "Satan stood up against Israel, and moved David to take a census of Israel" (1 Chronicles 21:1).