1 Kings 22
King Ahab dies fighting
Ahab’s question: War or no war?
2 Chronicles 18:2-27 1Israel and Syria lived in peace for three years. 2But in that third year, King Jehoshaphat of Judah came up to visit King Ahab in Israel.
3Ahab told him, “Ramoth Gilead belongs to us. You know that, right? But we haven’t done anything to take it back from the Syrian king. 4Would you ride into battle with me at Ramoth Gilead?” Jehoshaphat said, “We are the sons of Israel. We are one people. My horses are your horses. 5But before we go to war, we should ask the LORD about it.” 400 prophets say “Go to war”
6King Arab assembled 400 prophets and he asked them one question: “Should I go into battle to reclaim Ramoth in Gilead or not?” [1] The prophets agreed, “Go. The LORD will give you the city.”
7Jehoshaphat said, “Are there any other prophets we can ask? Just to be sure.” 8Ahab said, “Yeah, there’s one more we could ask. But I hate him. His name is Micaiah son of Imiah. He never predicts anything good for me. All he predicts is disaster.” Jehoshaphat said, “No, no, no. Don’t talk that way about a prophet of the LORD.” 9Ahab told one of his officials, “Get Micaiah son of Imiah here right away.”
10Ahab and Jehoshaphat were both dressed in their royal robes. They sat outside on their thrones. This was on a threshing floor [2] near the gate into Samaria. That’s where all the other prophets assembled to prophesy for the kings. 11A prophet named Zedekiah son of Chenaanah, pieced together iron into the shape of horns. And he said, “The LORD says you will gore the Syrians to death.” 12All the crowd of prophets said, “Go to Ramoth in Gilead and take it back. The LORD will give it to you.” One prophet predicts Ahab’s disaster
13The king’s messenger who went to get Micaiah told the prophet, “All the prophets told the king to go ahead with his plan. They told him he would succeed. You should do the same.” 14Micaiah said, “As sure as the LORD is alive, I’ll deliver his message to the king.”
15When the prophet arrived, Ahab said, “Micaiah, should we fight to take back Ramoth Gilead or not?” The prophet said, “Go ahead. You’ll win the battle and God will give you back the land you lost.” 16The king pressed him, “How many times am I going to have to insist you tell me all the truth when you speak for the LORD?”
17Micaiah said, “I saw your soldiers in the message God gave me. They had scattered onto the hills like sheep without a shepherd. The LORD told me, ‘They have no leader anymore. They should go home peacefully.’”
18Ahab told Jehoshaphat, “It didn’t take a prophet to call that one. Didn’t I tell you this man never has a good word for me? All he does is doom me with one disaster after another.”
19Micaiah said, “Here’s more from the LORD. I saw the LORD sitting on his throne in heaven. Crowds stood with him, left and right of his throne. 20He was asking for a volunteer. He said, ‘Who’s willing to tempt Ahab to retake Ramoth in Gilead?’ Voices rang out with reactions. 21Then a single spirit volunteered, ‘I can turn him.’ 22The LORD asked, ‘And how do you plan to do that?’ The spirit said, ‘I’ll feed the prophets on lies.’ The LORD said, ‘Do it. Lure Ahab. You’ll succeed.’ [3] 23So, now you know. It was the LORD who seduced the prophets to lie. The LORD convinced the prophets into giving the king this disastrous recommendation.”
24Zedekiah slapped Micaiah up the side of his face and said, “Why on earth would the spirit of the LORD speak through you when I’m here?” 25Micaiah said, “Well, perhaps you’ll discover why when you have more time to reflect—while you’re hiding in the back room of someone’s house.”
26Ahab said, “Arrest Micaiah. Escort him to Samaria’s city governor, Amon. Leave him in the custody of Amon and my son Joash. 27Tell the men to put him in prison and keep him there and feed him reduced rations of bread and water until I safely return.”
28Micaiah said, “Safely return? If you safely return, the LORD didn’t speak through me. I’ll be the one who lied. Hey everyone, did you get that? Get it!” Ahab fatally wounded
2 Chronicles 18:28-34 29So they went to war. Israel’s king and Judah’s king led their armies to Ramoth in Gilead. 30Ahab told Jehoshaphat, “I’m going to disguise myself. But you go ahead and wear your royal robes.” And that’s what they did.
31Syria’s king brought a chariot corps led by 32 commanders. He gave them these orders, “Don’t engage anyone but the king of Israel. Find him and kill him.” 32Chariot commanders spotted only one man wearing royal robes, and it was Jehoshaphat. They said, “That’s got to be him.” So the entire corps raced to catch him. Jehoshaphat saw them coming and he screamed. 33Charioteers got close enough to see it wasn’t Ahab. So they turned away.
34A Syrian archer’s arrow pierced Ahab between the chest protector and the scale armor. The archer didn’t know his target was Ahab. The king told his chariot driver, “I’m wounded. Get me out of here.” Ahab bleeds out during the battle
35The battle raged all day, with Ahab propped up and dying while his chariot faced the enemy. He bled out and died that evening as his blood drained onto the chariot’s floorboard. 36At sundown a voice cried out to the Israelite army, “Go home to your families, wherever home is.”
37Soldiers carried Ahab’s body back to Samaria. 38They drove his chariot to the pool of Samaria and washed it there. His blood dispersed into the pool, where dogs drank it and prostitutes bathed in it. [4] That’s just what the LORD said would happen. [5]
39The rest of Ahab’s story survives in the History of Israel’s Kings. [6] It tells of the ivory house he built and all the cities he fortified with walls. 40Ahab joined his ancestors in death. His son Ahaziah became Israel’s new king. Jehoshaphat’s reign in Judah
2 Chronicles 20:31-21:1 41Jehoshaphat son of Asa became Judah’s king during Ahab’s fourth year as king of Israel. 42Jehoshaphat was 35 years old when he became king in Jerusalem. He reigned for 25 years.
His mother was Azubah, the daughter of Shilhi.
43Jehoshaphat was his father’s son, and it showed. He stayed true to the LORD. He wasn’t able, however, to get rid of the hilltop shrines where people sacrificed animals to idols and burned incense to honor the gods. 44Jehoshaphat was the king who made peace between Judah and Israel. 45The rest of his story about his power and his wars is preserved in the History of Judah’s Kings.
46Jehoshaphat did manage to get rid of the priest-prostitutes who worked at pagan shrines. His father Asa hadn’t been able to do that. 47The nation of Edom didn’t have a king. They had a deputy king as a placeholder.
48Jehoshaphat had a fleet built in the style of Tarshish [7] ships. He wanted to send them to Ophir [8] to bring back some gold. But the ships didn’t make it far. They wrecked in Ezion-geber. 49Ahab’s son King Ahaziah tried to talk Jehoshaphat into letting some of his men sail with the ships of Judah. Jehoshaphat turned him down.
50Jehoshaphat died and was buried with his ancestors in the City of David, in lower Jerusalem. His son Jehoram became the new king. Ahaziah, Ahab’s son, king of Israel
51Ahab’s son Ahaziah became Israel’s new king when Jehoshaphat was into his seventeenth year as king of Judah. 52He was a bad king, evil like his father and mother, and like Jeroboam. They normalized sin for the entire nation. 53He worshiped Baal, [9] which got the true God of Israel angry as all get out. He was like his father in that way. Footnotes
122:6It was common in the ancient world for kings to consult the gods before going into battle. It wasn’t just an Israelite practice. Kings wanted to know if they were going to win or lose, live or die. If they heard “lose” and “die,” some cancelled the war. The oracles and prophecies at Delphi influenced military decisions that Greek leaders made. But not Alexander the Great. He didn’t like the Delphi’s refusal to answer his question (Will I conquer the world?). He dragged out the prophet Pythia by her hair, while she screamed, “You are invincible, my son!” That’s the story he wanted to hear.
222:10The threshing floor was often a flat rock where farmers would beat grain kernels loose from the stalks.
322:22Okay, that’s uncomfortable for many people of faith, the idea that God has lying spirits hanging out in heaven. How could anyone trust a prophet after hearing what Micaiah reported, thinking people might ask? Yet the idea that God can lead and mislead people shows up elsewhere in the Bible: Jeremiah 20:7, 10; Ezekiel 14:9. We’re left with the question of why a good God would lie. There’s no clear and clean answer to satisfy everyone. Some Christians might be okay with the answer, “Why not lie if it’s for a good result?” Others could rest in their faith that God is love, God is in charge, and God knows what he’s doing. Still others would like very much to know what in the devil is going on with that “lying spirit” in heavenly places.
422:38It’s not clear what the prostitutes were doing. The Hebrew language simply says they washed. It doesn’t say what they washed or if they washed in the blood, in perhaps a pagan ritual, or in bloodied water. Bible translators have to make their best guess.
522:382 Kings 21:19.
622:39This is a lost book apparently filled with more details about the Israelite kings. Some scholars say they consider this and the History of Judah’s Kings (14:29) lost books of the Bible.
722:48Location of Tarshish is unknown. But wherever it was, it was west of the Jewish homeland of Israel. Scholars often guess that it was a city in Spain or somewhere else at the opposite end of the Mediterranean Sea from the Jewish homeland. Some say it was a Phoenician colony called Tartessus, in Spain. Phoenicians were native to what is now Lebanon, but their merchant ships sailed through the Mediterranean Sea.
822:48Location of Ophir is unknown. But it was famous for producing the finest gold. A broken piece of pottery found near Tel Aviv and dated to the 700s BC, a century after events in this chapter, confirms that Ophir was a location from which gold was exported. The fragment reads “30 shekels…gold of Ophir for Beth-Horon.” Scholars have speculated that the gold was somewhere in Arabia or Africa or India. That narrows the search from seven continents to three.
922:53Baal was considered a god of fertility in family, flocks, and fields. Some scholars say the idea behind one worship ritual was to entertain Baal by letting him watch people have sex. They did this so he would make it rain. It’s a tad gross, but some taught that the rain was Baal’s semen. So, if the sex of worshipers got Baal stimulated enough, he would make it rain in this predominately dry part of the world. Priests apparently served as sacred prostitutes assigned to helping worshipers please their god.
Discussion Questions
- Sorry, there are currently no questions for this chapter.
Maps/Guides
King Ahab's 3 battles with SyriaVideos
3Ahab told him, “Ramoth Gilead belongs to us. You know that, right? But we haven’t done anything to take it back from the Syrian king. 4Would you ride into battle with me at Ramoth Gilead?” Jehoshaphat said, “We are the sons of Israel. We are one people. My horses are your horses. 5But before we go to war, we should ask the LORD about it.”
400 prophets say “Go to war”
6King Arab assembled 400 prophets and he asked them one question: “Should I go into battle to reclaim Ramoth in Gilead or not?” [1] The prophets agreed, “Go. The LORD will give you the city.”7Jehoshaphat said, “Are there any other prophets we can ask? Just to be sure.” 8Ahab said, “Yeah, there’s one more we could ask. But I hate him. His name is Micaiah son of Imiah. He never predicts anything good for me. All he predicts is disaster.” Jehoshaphat said, “No, no, no. Don’t talk that way about a prophet of the LORD.” 9Ahab told one of his officials, “Get Micaiah son of Imiah here right away.”
10Ahab and Jehoshaphat were both dressed in their royal robes. They sat outside on their thrones. This was on a threshing floor [2] near the gate into Samaria. That’s where all the other prophets assembled to prophesy for the kings. 11A prophet named Zedekiah son of Chenaanah, pieced together iron into the shape of horns. And he said, “The LORD says you will gore the Syrians to death.” 12All the crowd of prophets said, “Go to Ramoth in Gilead and take it back. The LORD will give it to you.”
One prophet predicts Ahab’s disaster
13The king’s messenger who went to get Micaiah told the prophet, “All the prophets told the king to go ahead with his plan. They told him he would succeed. You should do the same.” 14Micaiah said, “As sure as the LORD is alive, I’ll deliver his message to the king.”15When the prophet arrived, Ahab said, “Micaiah, should we fight to take back Ramoth Gilead or not?” The prophet said, “Go ahead. You’ll win the battle and God will give you back the land you lost.” 16The king pressed him, “How many times am I going to have to insist you tell me all the truth when you speak for the LORD?”
17Micaiah said, “I saw your soldiers in the message God gave me. They had scattered onto the hills like sheep without a shepherd. The LORD told me, ‘They have no leader anymore. They should go home peacefully.’”
18Ahab told Jehoshaphat, “It didn’t take a prophet to call that one. Didn’t I tell you this man never has a good word for me? All he does is doom me with one disaster after another.”
19Micaiah said, “Here’s more from the LORD. I saw the LORD sitting on his throne in heaven. Crowds stood with him, left and right of his throne. 20He was asking for a volunteer. He said, ‘Who’s willing to tempt Ahab to retake Ramoth in Gilead?’ Voices rang out with reactions. 21Then a single spirit volunteered, ‘I can turn him.’ 22The LORD asked, ‘And how do you plan to do that?’ The spirit said, ‘I’ll feed the prophets on lies.’ The LORD said, ‘Do it. Lure Ahab. You’ll succeed.’ [3] 23So, now you know. It was the LORD who seduced the prophets to lie. The LORD convinced the prophets into giving the king this disastrous recommendation.”
24Zedekiah slapped Micaiah up the side of his face and said, “Why on earth would the spirit of the LORD speak through you when I’m here?” 25Micaiah said, “Well, perhaps you’ll discover why when you have more time to reflect—while you’re hiding in the back room of someone’s house.”
26Ahab said, “Arrest Micaiah. Escort him to Samaria’s city governor, Amon. Leave him in the custody of Amon and my son Joash. 27Tell the men to put him in prison and keep him there and feed him reduced rations of bread and water until I safely return.”
28Micaiah said, “Safely return? If you safely return, the LORD didn’t speak through me. I’ll be the one who lied. Hey everyone, did you get that? Get it!”
Ahab fatally wounded
2 Chronicles 18:28-34 29So they went to war. Israel’s king and Judah’s king led their armies to Ramoth in Gilead. 30Ahab told Jehoshaphat, “I’m going to disguise myself. But you go ahead and wear your royal robes.” And that’s what they did.
31Syria’s king brought a chariot corps led by 32 commanders. He gave them these orders, “Don’t engage anyone but the king of Israel. Find him and kill him.” 32Chariot commanders spotted only one man wearing royal robes, and it was Jehoshaphat. They said, “That’s got to be him.” So the entire corps raced to catch him. Jehoshaphat saw them coming and he screamed. 33Charioteers got close enough to see it wasn’t Ahab. So they turned away.
34A Syrian archer’s arrow pierced Ahab between the chest protector and the scale armor. The archer didn’t know his target was Ahab. The king told his chariot driver, “I’m wounded. Get me out of here.” Ahab bleeds out during the battle
35The battle raged all day, with Ahab propped up and dying while his chariot faced the enemy. He bled out and died that evening as his blood drained onto the chariot’s floorboard. 36At sundown a voice cried out to the Israelite army, “Go home to your families, wherever home is.”
37Soldiers carried Ahab’s body back to Samaria. 38They drove his chariot to the pool of Samaria and washed it there. His blood dispersed into the pool, where dogs drank it and prostitutes bathed in it. [4] That’s just what the LORD said would happen. [5]
39The rest of Ahab’s story survives in the History of Israel’s Kings. [6] It tells of the ivory house he built and all the cities he fortified with walls. 40Ahab joined his ancestors in death. His son Ahaziah became Israel’s new king. Jehoshaphat’s reign in Judah
2 Chronicles 20:31-21:1 41Jehoshaphat son of Asa became Judah’s king during Ahab’s fourth year as king of Israel. 42Jehoshaphat was 35 years old when he became king in Jerusalem. He reigned for 25 years.
His mother was Azubah, the daughter of Shilhi.
43Jehoshaphat was his father’s son, and it showed. He stayed true to the LORD. He wasn’t able, however, to get rid of the hilltop shrines where people sacrificed animals to idols and burned incense to honor the gods. 44Jehoshaphat was the king who made peace between Judah and Israel. 45The rest of his story about his power and his wars is preserved in the History of Judah’s Kings.
46Jehoshaphat did manage to get rid of the priest-prostitutes who worked at pagan shrines. His father Asa hadn’t been able to do that. 47The nation of Edom didn’t have a king. They had a deputy king as a placeholder.
48Jehoshaphat had a fleet built in the style of Tarshish [7] ships. He wanted to send them to Ophir [8] to bring back some gold. But the ships didn’t make it far. They wrecked in Ezion-geber. 49Ahab’s son King Ahaziah tried to talk Jehoshaphat into letting some of his men sail with the ships of Judah. Jehoshaphat turned him down.
50Jehoshaphat died and was buried with his ancestors in the City of David, in lower Jerusalem. His son Jehoram became the new king. Ahaziah, Ahab’s son, king of Israel
51Ahab’s son Ahaziah became Israel’s new king when Jehoshaphat was into his seventeenth year as king of Judah. 52He was a bad king, evil like his father and mother, and like Jeroboam. They normalized sin for the entire nation. 53He worshiped Baal, [9] which got the true God of Israel angry as all get out. He was like his father in that way. Footnotes
122:6It was common in the ancient world for kings to consult the gods before going into battle. It wasn’t just an Israelite practice. Kings wanted to know if they were going to win or lose, live or die. If they heard “lose” and “die,” some cancelled the war. The oracles and prophecies at Delphi influenced military decisions that Greek leaders made. But not Alexander the Great. He didn’t like the Delphi’s refusal to answer his question (Will I conquer the world?). He dragged out the prophet Pythia by her hair, while she screamed, “You are invincible, my son!” That’s the story he wanted to hear.
222:10The threshing floor was often a flat rock where farmers would beat grain kernels loose from the stalks.
322:22Okay, that’s uncomfortable for many people of faith, the idea that God has lying spirits hanging out in heaven. How could anyone trust a prophet after hearing what Micaiah reported, thinking people might ask? Yet the idea that God can lead and mislead people shows up elsewhere in the Bible: Jeremiah 20:7, 10; Ezekiel 14:9. We’re left with the question of why a good God would lie. There’s no clear and clean answer to satisfy everyone. Some Christians might be okay with the answer, “Why not lie if it’s for a good result?” Others could rest in their faith that God is love, God is in charge, and God knows what he’s doing. Still others would like very much to know what in the devil is going on with that “lying spirit” in heavenly places.
422:38It’s not clear what the prostitutes were doing. The Hebrew language simply says they washed. It doesn’t say what they washed or if they washed in the blood, in perhaps a pagan ritual, or in bloodied water. Bible translators have to make their best guess.
522:382 Kings 21:19.
622:39This is a lost book apparently filled with more details about the Israelite kings. Some scholars say they consider this and the History of Judah’s Kings (14:29) lost books of the Bible.
722:48Location of Tarshish is unknown. But wherever it was, it was west of the Jewish homeland of Israel. Scholars often guess that it was a city in Spain or somewhere else at the opposite end of the Mediterranean Sea from the Jewish homeland. Some say it was a Phoenician colony called Tartessus, in Spain. Phoenicians were native to what is now Lebanon, but their merchant ships sailed through the Mediterranean Sea.
822:48Location of Ophir is unknown. But it was famous for producing the finest gold. A broken piece of pottery found near Tel Aviv and dated to the 700s BC, a century after events in this chapter, confirms that Ophir was a location from which gold was exported. The fragment reads “30 shekels…gold of Ophir for Beth-Horon.” Scholars have speculated that the gold was somewhere in Arabia or Africa or India. That narrows the search from seven continents to three.
922:53Baal was considered a god of fertility in family, flocks, and fields. Some scholars say the idea behind one worship ritual was to entertain Baal by letting him watch people have sex. They did this so he would make it rain. It’s a tad gross, but some taught that the rain was Baal’s semen. So, if the sex of worshipers got Baal stimulated enough, he would make it rain in this predominately dry part of the world. Priests apparently served as sacred prostitutes assigned to helping worshipers please their god.
Discussion Questions
- Sorry, there are currently no questions for this chapter.
Maps/Guides
King Ahab's 3 battles with SyriaVideos
31Syria’s king brought a chariot corps led by 32 commanders. He gave them these orders, “Don’t engage anyone but the king of Israel. Find him and kill him.” 32Chariot commanders spotted only one man wearing royal robes, and it was Jehoshaphat. They said, “That’s got to be him.” So the entire corps raced to catch him. Jehoshaphat saw them coming and he screamed. 33Charioteers got close enough to see it wasn’t Ahab. So they turned away.
34A Syrian archer’s arrow pierced Ahab between the chest protector and the scale armor. The archer didn’t know his target was Ahab. The king told his chariot driver, “I’m wounded. Get me out of here.”
Ahab bleeds out during the battle
35The battle raged all day, with Ahab propped up and dying while his chariot faced the enemy. He bled out and died that evening as his blood drained onto the chariot’s floorboard. 36At sundown a voice cried out to the Israelite army, “Go home to your families, wherever home is.”37Soldiers carried Ahab’s body back to Samaria. 38They drove his chariot to the pool of Samaria and washed it there. His blood dispersed into the pool, where dogs drank it and prostitutes bathed in it. [4] That’s just what the LORD said would happen. [5]
39The rest of Ahab’s story survives in the History of Israel’s Kings. [6] It tells of the ivory house he built and all the cities he fortified with walls. 40Ahab joined his ancestors in death. His son Ahaziah became Israel’s new king.
Jehoshaphat’s reign in Judah
2 Chronicles 20:31-21:1 41Jehoshaphat son of Asa became Judah’s king during Ahab’s fourth year as king of Israel. 42Jehoshaphat was 35 years old when he became king in Jerusalem. He reigned for 25 years.
His mother was Azubah, the daughter of Shilhi.
43Jehoshaphat was his father’s son, and it showed. He stayed true to the LORD. He wasn’t able, however, to get rid of the hilltop shrines where people sacrificed animals to idols and burned incense to honor the gods. 44Jehoshaphat was the king who made peace between Judah and Israel. 45The rest of his story about his power and his wars is preserved in the History of Judah’s Kings.
46Jehoshaphat did manage to get rid of the priest-prostitutes who worked at pagan shrines. His father Asa hadn’t been able to do that. 47The nation of Edom didn’t have a king. They had a deputy king as a placeholder.
48Jehoshaphat had a fleet built in the style of Tarshish [7] ships. He wanted to send them to Ophir [8] to bring back some gold. But the ships didn’t make it far. They wrecked in Ezion-geber. 49Ahab’s son King Ahaziah tried to talk Jehoshaphat into letting some of his men sail with the ships of Judah. Jehoshaphat turned him down.
50Jehoshaphat died and was buried with his ancestors in the City of David, in lower Jerusalem. His son Jehoram became the new king. Ahaziah, Ahab’s son, king of Israel
51Ahab’s son Ahaziah became Israel’s new king when Jehoshaphat was into his seventeenth year as king of Judah. 52He was a bad king, evil like his father and mother, and like Jeroboam. They normalized sin for the entire nation. 53He worshiped Baal, [9] which got the true God of Israel angry as all get out. He was like his father in that way. Footnotes
122:6It was common in the ancient world for kings to consult the gods before going into battle. It wasn’t just an Israelite practice. Kings wanted to know if they were going to win or lose, live or die. If they heard “lose” and “die,” some cancelled the war. The oracles and prophecies at Delphi influenced military decisions that Greek leaders made. But not Alexander the Great. He didn’t like the Delphi’s refusal to answer his question (Will I conquer the world?). He dragged out the prophet Pythia by her hair, while she screamed, “You are invincible, my son!” That’s the story he wanted to hear.
222:10The threshing floor was often a flat rock where farmers would beat grain kernels loose from the stalks.
322:22Okay, that’s uncomfortable for many people of faith, the idea that God has lying spirits hanging out in heaven. How could anyone trust a prophet after hearing what Micaiah reported, thinking people might ask? Yet the idea that God can lead and mislead people shows up elsewhere in the Bible: Jeremiah 20:7, 10; Ezekiel 14:9. We’re left with the question of why a good God would lie. There’s no clear and clean answer to satisfy everyone. Some Christians might be okay with the answer, “Why not lie if it’s for a good result?” Others could rest in their faith that God is love, God is in charge, and God knows what he’s doing. Still others would like very much to know what in the devil is going on with that “lying spirit” in heavenly places.
422:38It’s not clear what the prostitutes were doing. The Hebrew language simply says they washed. It doesn’t say what they washed or if they washed in the blood, in perhaps a pagan ritual, or in bloodied water. Bible translators have to make their best guess.
522:382 Kings 21:19.
622:39This is a lost book apparently filled with more details about the Israelite kings. Some scholars say they consider this and the History of Judah’s Kings (14:29) lost books of the Bible.
722:48Location of Tarshish is unknown. But wherever it was, it was west of the Jewish homeland of Israel. Scholars often guess that it was a city in Spain or somewhere else at the opposite end of the Mediterranean Sea from the Jewish homeland. Some say it was a Phoenician colony called Tartessus, in Spain. Phoenicians were native to what is now Lebanon, but their merchant ships sailed through the Mediterranean Sea.
822:48Location of Ophir is unknown. But it was famous for producing the finest gold. A broken piece of pottery found near Tel Aviv and dated to the 700s BC, a century after events in this chapter, confirms that Ophir was a location from which gold was exported. The fragment reads “30 shekels…gold of Ophir for Beth-Horon.” Scholars have speculated that the gold was somewhere in Arabia or Africa or India. That narrows the search from seven continents to three.
922:53Baal was considered a god of fertility in family, flocks, and fields. Some scholars say the idea behind one worship ritual was to entertain Baal by letting him watch people have sex. They did this so he would make it rain. It’s a tad gross, but some taught that the rain was Baal’s semen. So, if the sex of worshipers got Baal stimulated enough, he would make it rain in this predominately dry part of the world. Priests apparently served as sacred prostitutes assigned to helping worshipers please their god.
Discussion Questions
- Sorry, there are currently no questions for this chapter.
Maps/Guides
King Ahab's 3 battles with SyriaVideos
43Jehoshaphat was his father’s son, and it showed. He stayed true to the LORD. He wasn’t able, however, to get rid of the hilltop shrines where people sacrificed animals to idols and burned incense to honor the gods. 44Jehoshaphat was the king who made peace between Judah and Israel. 45The rest of his story about his power and his wars is preserved in the History of Judah’s Kings.
46Jehoshaphat did manage to get rid of the priest-prostitutes who worked at pagan shrines. His father Asa hadn’t been able to do that. 47The nation of Edom didn’t have a king. They had a deputy king as a placeholder.
48Jehoshaphat had a fleet built in the style of Tarshish [7] ships. He wanted to send them to Ophir [8] to bring back some gold. But the ships didn’t make it far. They wrecked in Ezion-geber. 49Ahab’s son King Ahaziah tried to talk Jehoshaphat into letting some of his men sail with the ships of Judah. Jehoshaphat turned him down.
50Jehoshaphat died and was buried with his ancestors in the City of David, in lower Jerusalem. His son Jehoram became the new king.
Ahaziah, Ahab’s son, king of Israel
51Ahab’s son Ahaziah became Israel’s new king when Jehoshaphat was into his seventeenth year as king of Judah. 52He was a bad king, evil like his father and mother, and like Jeroboam. They normalized sin for the entire nation. 53He worshiped Baal, [9] which got the true God of Israel angry as all get out. He was like his father in that way.Footnotes
It was common in the ancient world for kings to consult the gods before going into battle. It wasn’t just an Israelite practice. Kings wanted to know if they were going to win or lose, live or die. If they heard “lose” and “die,” some cancelled the war. The oracles and prophecies at Delphi influenced military decisions that Greek leaders made. But not Alexander the Great. He didn’t like the Delphi’s refusal to answer his question (Will I conquer the world?). He dragged out the prophet Pythia by her hair, while she screamed, “You are invincible, my son!” That’s the story he wanted to hear.
The threshing floor was often a flat rock where farmers would beat grain kernels loose from the stalks.
Okay, that’s uncomfortable for many people of faith, the idea that God has lying spirits hanging out in heaven. How could anyone trust a prophet after hearing what Micaiah reported, thinking people might ask? Yet the idea that God can lead and mislead people shows up elsewhere in the Bible: Jeremiah 20:7, 10; Ezekiel 14:9. We’re left with the question of why a good God would lie. There’s no clear and clean answer to satisfy everyone. Some Christians might be okay with the answer, “Why not lie if it’s for a good result?” Others could rest in their faith that God is love, God is in charge, and God knows what he’s doing. Still others would like very much to know what in the devil is going on with that “lying spirit” in heavenly places.
It’s not clear what the prostitutes were doing. The Hebrew language simply says they washed. It doesn’t say what they washed or if they washed in the blood, in perhaps a pagan ritual, or in bloodied water. Bible translators have to make their best guess.
2 Kings 21:19.
This is a lost book apparently filled with more details about the Israelite kings. Some scholars say they consider this and the History of Judah’s Kings (14:29) lost books of the Bible.
Location of Tarshish is unknown. But wherever it was, it was west of the Jewish homeland of Israel. Scholars often guess that it was a city in Spain or somewhere else at the opposite end of the Mediterranean Sea from the Jewish homeland. Some say it was a Phoenician colony called Tartessus, in Spain. Phoenicians were native to what is now Lebanon, but their merchant ships sailed through the Mediterranean Sea.
Location of Ophir is unknown. But it was famous for producing the finest gold. A broken piece of pottery found near Tel Aviv and dated to the 700s BC, a century after events in this chapter, confirms that Ophir was a location from which gold was exported. The fragment reads “30 shekels…gold of Ophir for Beth-Horon.” Scholars have speculated that the gold was somewhere in Arabia or Africa or India. That narrows the search from seven continents to three.
Baal was considered a god of fertility in family, flocks, and fields. Some scholars say the idea behind one worship ritual was to entertain Baal by letting him watch people have sex. They did this so he would make it rain. It’s a tad gross, but some taught that the rain was Baal’s semen. So, if the sex of worshipers got Baal stimulated enough, he would make it rain in this predominately dry part of the world. Priests apparently served as sacred prostitutes assigned to helping worshipers please their god.
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