>> Jen: Hello and good morning, faithful listeners. Welcome to the Bible Explained podcast. And hi, my name is Jen, I am the host here and I'm so excited that you chose to tune in. Today we're going to be reading 1 Kings 22, not quite finishing it up like I thought we were, but instead talking about this battle that King Ahab goes into and how poorly it ended for him. Before we begin today, I'm going to ask you guys for some prayers. Once again, I am sick. I have a
fever. I'm not feeling like terribly ill that I can't, you know, do a podcast. And obviously since I'm not like sitting in front of you guys, I can complete a podcast episode. But if you could pray for me and hopefully this fever will get kicked really fast, I won't really get that sick and I can continue doing episodes for the rest of the week, that would be great. Alright, uh, let's read First Kings 22, 19 - 40
today. I apologize because I did think we were going to finish 1 Kings today, but we're going to finish it on Wednesday and instead today we're going to talk about the death of King Ahab. I will be reading this out of the web as usual. Micaiah said, therefore hear Yahweh's word. I saw Yahweh sitting on His throne and all the army of heaven standing by him on His right hand and on His left. Yahweh said, who will entice Ahab that he may go up and fall at Ramoth
Gilead? One said one thing and another said another. A spirit came out and stood before Yahweh and said, I will entice him. He said to him, how? He said, I will go out and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all of his prophets. He said, you will entice him and you will also prevail. Go out and do so. Now. Therefore, behold, Yahweh has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all of these prophets, and Yahweh has spoken evil concerning you.
Then Zedekiah the son of Chenanah came near and struck Micaiah on the cheek and said, which way did Yahweh's spirit go from me to speak to you? Micaiah said, behold, you will see on that day when you go into an inner room to hide yourself, the king of Israel said, take Micaiah and carry him back to Ammon, the governor of the city, and to Joash, the king's son. Say, the king says, put this fellow in prison and feed him with Bread of affliction and the water of affliction until I come in peace.
Micaiah said, if you return at all in peace, Yahweh has not spoken by me. He said, listen, all you people. So m the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, went to Ramoth. Gilead, the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, I will disguise myself and go into the battle. But you put on your robes. The king of Israel disguised himself and went into the battle. Now the king of Syria had commanded the 32 captains of his chariots, saying, don't fight with small nor great, except only with
the king of Israel. When the captains of the chariots saw Jehoshaphat, they said, surely that's the king of Israel. They came over to fight against him. Jehoshaphat cried out. When the captains of the chariots saw that it was not the king of Israel, they turned back from pursuing him. A certain man drew his bow at random and struck the king of Israel between the joints of the armor. Therefore he said to the driver of his chariot, turn around and carry me out of the
battle, for I am severely wounded. The battle increased that day. The king was propped up in his chariot facing the Syrians and died. At evening. The blood ran out of the wound into the bottom of the chariot. A cry went throughout the army about the going down of the sun, saying, every man to his city and every man to his country. So the king died and was brought to Samaria, and
they buried the king in Samaria. Then they washed the chariot by the pool of Samaria, and the dogs licked up his blood where the prostitutes washed themselves. According to Yahweh's word, he spoke. Now, the rest of the acts of Ahab and all that he did and the ivory house which he built and all the cities that he built. Aren't they written in the book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel? So Ahab slept with his fathers, and Ahaziah, his son, reigned in his place.
So this is the story of the death of King Ahab. After many years of going against God and doing very terrible things with his wife Jezebel. Now King Ahab has finally met his end, and he did so willingly because it says here that he had a prophet actually telling him, don't go to battle, otherwise you will die. But Ahab refused to listen to this particular prophet and instead chose to listen to these 400 other prophets that he had in his court,
prophesying the opposite. All of these other 400 prophets were saying hey, go up to battle. God's going to be with you. You're going to be successful. You're going to take back Ramoth Gilead for the Israelites against the Syrians. Go up to battle. And Ahab, of course, wanted to go to battle. And the reason these prophets were prophesying all this stuff was because two
reasons, actually. The first reason being that they were probably paid or benefited by King Ahab in some way and wanted to continue being on his good side, so they prophesy whatever he wanted to hear. But the second reason is that God actually sent a lying spirit to these false prophets, which is what Micaiah here talks about, because Micaiah was the only true prophet in the room. He was the only one actually speaking with
Yahweh's words. And he was trying to warn King Ahab, saying, look, all of these other prophets are lying to you. Here is what I saw. He says, therefore, hear Yahweh's word in verse 19. I saw Yahweh sitting on his throne and all the army of heaven standing by him on his right hand and on his left. So Micaiah reveals a little bit about heaven in this prophecy, which is really fantastic. He says, I saw Yahweh sitting on his throne, and then I saw all the hosts of heaven sitting on his, uh, right
hand and on his left. Now, this implies that. That angels and evil spirits were both in the presence of God. And we know that this is the case, that evil spirits did have access to heaven. And I don't know if that's still the case now, but evil spirits did have access to heaven at one point in time. And you might be like, well, how can God have evil spirits in his presence? You know, if God can't tolerate evil being in his presence, how then can these
evil spirits get into heaven? Basically, well, forgive me if I've ever, in the past taught that God cannot be around evil. I may have at some point because that was something I used to believe. So, um, I wouldn't be shocked if I had said that at some point in the podcast. But if you think about it, God can have evil in his presence. The story that I think of the most is actually in the book of Isaiah, which we haven't gotten to yet. But the prophet Isaiah actually saw God.
He was, like, transported to heaven, and he was literally standing before the throne of God. And Isaiah freaked out because he was like, I am going to die because I am a sinful man. My mouth is sinful. The things that I say are sinful and I cannot be in your presence, I am going to die. And God literally forgave Isaiah of his sins right then and there and said, you're forgiven, now go be a prophet for me. And then if you think about Jesus, he came down to a sinful world and he was God.
He was pure and perfect. He was also in a sin filled world. So it's not God that can't handle being around sin or being around evil. Rather it's us that can't handle being around God. We are like the prophet Isaiah where if we go in front of God we're like, wow, we are going to die right here. We just cannot be in the presence of somebody so pure and perfect. We just can't do it. But that being said, God doesn't want evil in His presence. He didn't want His
temple being corrupted with evil. He hates evil because evil is the opposite of Him Evil is the opposite of good. And God loves good. God loves truth. So he doesn't like evil. He hates evil. And eventually evil is going to be abolished completely. Our sins are just going to be gone. Jesus is going to come down to earth and completely defeat sin and death. And that's no longer going to be in God's presence at all, including the evil
spirits. Now I don't know if the evil spirits still have access to heaven to this day, but back in these days they did. There are several stories actually of the spirits, the evil spirits being allowed in God's presence. This is one of the stories right here in First Kings 22. Another story is in the book of First Samuel, chapter
16. And then of course the most famous example would be in the book of Job where God actually allowed Satan to test Job M. So there are examples of evil spirits being allowed in God's presence. So Micaiah reveals this to King Ahab. He says, look, I saw angels and evil spirits in the presence of God. And Yahweh said to all of these angels and these evil spirits who will entice Ahab that he will go up and fall at Ramoth, Gilead, and, and all these angels and demons. One said one thing and another
said another. Then a spirit came and stood before Yahweh and said, I will entice him. So this evil spirit apparently comes up to Yahweh and says, I volunteer for the job. I will go do it. And God says, how are you going to do it? And he says, I will go out and I'll be a lying spirit in the mouth of all of his prophets. Now, notice that the evil spirit here actually mentions these prophets as being Ahab's prophets and not God's prophets. Because these prophets were not God's prophets
at all. They were false prophets that just said whatever Ahab wanted to hear. That's what they were. And so this demon specifically says, I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all of Ahab's prophets. And then God said, you will succeed at what you do and go do it. So then Micaiah says in verse 23, therefore, behold, Yahweh has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all of these your prophets, and Yahweh has spoken evil concerning
you. Now, a lot of people wonder, like, how can God send an evil spirit or a lying spirit to cause somebody to sin? Because doesn't it say in scripture that God does not tempt people to sin and He cannot cause people to sin? Well, that's correct, because it's not God causing the person to sin. It's the evil spirit causing the person to sin. And sometimes God will allow those evil spirits to entice somebody to sin. For whatever purpose God has in store, God will use evil
spirits. And you might remember us talking about that in the case of King Saul Many kings before this, back at the beginning of first Samuel, King Saul was the first king of Israel. And, he started out as a pretty good king, but then sort of went off the deep end, and God ended up taking the kingdom from him and giving it to King David. And at the same time, God sent an evil spirit to torment Saul And that would cause Saul to
have these like, fits of rage. But the fact of the matter is, whenever God allows an evil spirit to do his bidding, God always gives that person an out. There's actually a verse about that that says, we will never be tempted above what we can bear. There is always going to be an out somewhere. And King Saul did not take that out. He allowed that evil spirit to torment him, and he'd have these fits of rage. Ahab here was given an out. Micaiah, the true prophet in the swarm of 400 false
prophets. Micaiah was the only one actually stating the truth. And that was Ahab's way out. Ahab could have listened to Micaiah, could have listened to the truth of what Micaiah was saying and possibly not died in this battle. But Ahab, as we're going to read, does not do that. Instead, he listens to the 400 false prophets instead of what Micaiah has to say. So God always gives somebody an out. Even if He uses an evil spirit to do his bidding, there's always a way out.
So Micaiah says that all of the prophets in verse 23 have been enticed with this spirit that is causing them to lie. So one of the false prophets named Zedekiah, who we talked about last week, he was the false prophet that brought in the horns of iron and was was putting on this big show and being like, look, king, with these horns of iron, you're going to push back the Syrians. So go out to war. Zedekiah, the false prophet, comes up to Micaiah and
he slaps him across the cheek. It's really sad because every time we see Micaiah, which it's only a handful of times, he's getting hit by somebody, every single time, this poor prophet, he just got hit nonstop. It says, verse 24, Zedekiah, the son of Chenanah came near and struck Micaiah on the cheek and said, which way did Yahweh's spirit go from me to speak to you? So basically he's like, oh, yeah, when did God's spirit leave me to go into you? Like, who are you to say all
of these things? Who are you to say that I don't have Yahweh's spirit? So Micaiah answers, zedekiah, well, you're going to find out soon enough where Yahweh's spirit went, because you're going to go and hide yourself in an inner room to try to save your life. And we don't have any evidence of this particular prophecy coming true, but it obviously happened. Micaiah was giving Zedekiah a personal prophecy, and it probably happened when King Ahab died.
Zedekiah's life and the life of the other prophets would have been on the line as a new king and a new dynasty comes in to place. So Ahab, of course, is watching all of this. And also King Jehoshaphat was there as well. He was the king of Judah. The two kings are watching all of this take place, and Ahab gets really mad at Micaiah, and he throws him back into prison with a very
harsh punishment. He says, throw him in prison with very little bread and very little water, with the bread of affliction and the water of affliction. And he says, do that until I come back from this battle. And as Micaiah is getting pulled off of the court, he screams out to the king, he says, you're not going to come back in peace. I'M telling you, you're going to to die. And he says to everybody, listen to me. Mark my words. The king will die. And that was Micaiah's final
plea to King Ahab. But Ahab does not listen. He wanted to do what he wanted to do, and he was not going to listen to what Yahweh had to say to him. And God, of course, predicted all of this. He knew that the evil spirit was going to win out because King Ahab refused to listen to Yahweh that time and time again before this. Even though God was constantly trying to get King Ahab's attention, Ahab just refused to listen to Yahweh. And so God knew, ahab will not listen to my prophet.
But Ahab, huh, does get a little bit nervous about what Micaiah has to say, because he has this tactic for going into battle. He says to King Jehoshaphat, who is with him, who promised to go into battle with him. He says, look, Jehoshaphat, you dress up as me, and I will dress up as a commoner. I'm going to go out to battle. And obviously, because I'm dressed up as an ordinary person, nobody is going to target me. And we have no clue why Jehoshaphat agreed to this terrible idea. For
him. It was a bad idea because now he has a target on his back as he's dressed in these, like, kingly robes. But Jehoshaphat agrees to it. He thinks, for some reason, it's a good idea. And in fact, I don't know why Jehoshaphat went into battle to begin with. Because he was a Yahweh follower. He was considered one of the good kings of Judah, and yet he didn't listen to this prophecy from Micaiah, Even though he was listening to everything. He did not heed Micaiah's warning.
And it's very possible the reason he didn't heed the warning was because he got convinced, maybe by Ahab, maybe by the other prophets, that Micaiah was lying. And so, possibly against his better judgment, Jehoshaphat just went into war hoping that, uh, everything would be fine. So Jehoshaphat agrees to this bad idea, and he dresses himself in his own kingly robes, and Ahab dresses as a commoner. So the king of Syria, who they're going up to battle against, the king of Syria, was only
interested in killing King Ahab. That's all he wanted. So he tells his people, don't fight with small nor great, only with the king of Israel. That's all he wanted. Which, uh, by the way, you can see how well that peace treaty between the Syrian king and Ahab went. Because clearly the Syrian king hated Ahab with every fiber of his being. So, uh, yeah, he commands his people not to fight with anybody other than the king of
Israel. And this actually works out in Jehoshaphat's favor, because initially, when the Syrians see Jehoshaphat dressed in kingly robes, they're like, look, that's the king of Israel right there. Let's go fight him. And Jehoshaphat is in this chariot, and he's riding away from these people who are trying to kill him. He becomes so afraid that he actually cries out to Yahweh. Second Chronicles, chapter 18 tells this story again. 31, 32. When the captains of the chariots saw
Jehoshaphat, they said, that's the king of Israel. Therefore, they turned around to fight against him. But Jehoshaphat cried out, and Yahweh helped him, and God moved them to depart from him. When the captains of the chariots saw that it was not the king of Israel, they turned back from pursuing him. So Jehoshaphat cried out to Yahweh. He was scared. You know, he got himself into a bad situation and agreed to a terrible plan. And now all of these people are targeting
him. He cries out to Yahweh, and God opens the eyes of the Syrian commanders, and they realize, oh, that's not the king of Israel. We're not supposed to fight against anybody. That's not the king of Israel. We don't know who this guy is, so we're not going to fight him. And they turn around, and Jehoshaphat's life is completely saved. But the Syrians still couldn't find King Ahab because he was dressed as a commoner. They had no clue which one he
was. And it says randomly, literally randomly, a certain man of the Syrian army drew his bow at random and struck the king of Israel between the joints of the armor. Therefore, he said to the driver of his chariot, turn around. Carry me out of the battle, for I am severely wounded. So at random, a Syrian shoots a bow, just hoping to hit somebody, and he hits the king of Israel. And Ahab tells the driver of his chariot, I am severely wounded. We need to go back. It says, the
battle increased. The king was propped up in his chariot, facing the Syrians and died at evening. So this was not an easy death that Ahab had. He was slowly losing his life in this chariot. He was fighting and trying to get out of there. Yet he still didn't die until the evening. This was a terrible death for Ahab, which could have been avoided had he just listened to Yahweh. It says the blood ran out of the wound into the bottom of his
chariot. And a cry went throughout the army about the going down of the sun, saying, every man to his own city and every man to his own country. So the Israelites and the king of Judah were not successful in this battle. Nobody gained anything from this other than Ahab dying. Just as God said would happen. Nobody gained anything. Verse 37. So the king died, and he was brought to Samaria. And they buried the king in Samaria.
They washed the chariot by the pool of Samaria, and the dogs licked up his blood where the prostitutes washed themselves according to Yahweh's word, which he spoke. So, uh, a couple chapters ago, or the last chapter rather, God gave a prophecy to Ahab. And he said, your blood is going to spill out and the dogs are going to lick it up because you killed Naboth the same way. And the dogs came and licked up his blood. So because that happened to Naboth, that same fate is going
to happen to you. And it happened right here. The dogs licked up the blood. Now, some people do wonder about this prophecy because God said it would happen in Jezreel. But it turned out that Ahab was brought back to Samaria instead of Jezreel. But it mentions here that the chariot had so much blood in it that it was dripping. And it says they also washed the blood in this stream. So some people wonder, did the stream carry the blood down to Jezreel? Because Jezreel wasn't
terribly far away from Samaria. It was probably like a, um, maybe a half day's journey from Jezreel to Samaria. So the blood certainly could have gone into the river. And by the time it got to Jezreel, the dogs, the wild dogs, were like drinking the water that was mixed with the blood. So some people wonder if that's how the prophecy got fulfilled, which honestly makes some sense to
me. But to conclude, it says now the rest of the acts of King Ahab and all that he did, and the ivory house which he built and all the cities that he built, Aren't they written in the book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel? So Ahab slept with his fathers, and Ahaziah, his son, reigned in his place. So apparently, at some point in his time in his life, Ahab built an ivory house, which, holy moly. If you build ivory house, that is. That's not good for the health of elephants.
But, yeah, he built an ivory house at some point in time. And this kind of shows, you know, just Ahab's priorities in life. He didn't prioritize any of the things of God, not once. He prioritized his own ego, his own selfishness. That's all he cared about, in his own comfort. So much so that pretty much everything Ahab did throughout the entire history of him, everything he did was him looking out for himself. He never cared about his
people. In fact, he was willing to kill his people to get what he wanted. He was a tyrant. And he ended up dying a very horrific death, even after God gave him mercy after mercy. Well, faithful listeners, I hope you enjoyed today's episode. And, you know, I've been reading through all the reviews that you guys left on the podcast, and I'm just so appreciative. I love reading them. I do read them all, if I can find them, that is. And, uh, they're just very nice. I
appreciate the kindness. But, faithful listeners, I hope to see you guys tomorrow for an episode from Second Corinthians. I will see you guys then, 6am or whenever you choose to wake up. Happy listening and God bless.