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1 Kings 22 · a question people ask

Why did Micaiah first tell the king, "Go up and prosper"?

In the text

The messenger had asked him, "Please let your word be like the word of one of them, and speak good" (22:13), and Micaiah had sworn, "As the LORD lives, what the LORD says to me, that I will speak" (22:14). Then, asked whether to go, he answers, "Go up and prosper; and the LORD will deliver it into the hand of the king" (22:15), nearly the prophets' own words: "Go up to Ramoth Gilead and prosper; for the LORD will deliver it into the hand of the king" (22:12). The chapter doesn't say why he said it, or how. The king himself doesn't take it as the LORD's word: "How many times do I have to adjure you that you speak to me nothing but the truth in the LORD’s name?" (22:16). Then Micaiah tells what he saw (22:17). The chapter says no more about his first answer, and these notes don't guess.

From Favor's study of 1 Kings 22

1 Kings 22: 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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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions