Ahab, who doesn’t realize even he heard the truth

Ahab, who didn’t even “inquire first for the word of the Lord” before the war with the king of Aram (1 Kgs. 22:5),

listened to the Jehoshaphat king of Judah (1 Kgs. 22:5) and Ahab’s in-law (2 Kgs. 8:18; 2 Chron. 18:1) and gathered about 400 prophets (v. 6).

But those 400 prophets were the false prophets who were enticed by a deceiving spirit (v. 22)

and were uniformly favorable to King Ahab (v. 13)

and said “the Lord will give it into the hand of the king” (vv. 6, 11-12).

Ahab loved to hear the words of false prophets who prophesied only good things for him.

But he didn’t like the true prophet of God Michiah whom he thought only prophesised “evil” (v. 8).

But after he heard what Jehoshaphat said (v. 7),

Ahab called an officer and told him to bring Micaiah quickly (v. 9).

Meanwhile, Ahab sat on the throne with Jehoshaphat and listened to all the false prophets (vv. 10-12).

“Then the messenger who went to summon Michiah spoke to him saying,

‘Behold now, the words of the prophets are uniformly favorable to the king.  

Please let your word be like the word of one of them, ans speak favorably” (v. 13).

But Micaiah said, “As the Lord lives, what the Lord says to me, that I shall speak” (v. 14).

But the strange thing is that the prophet Micaiah said to King Ahab the same thing as the false prophets:

“Go up and succeed, and the LORD will give it into the hand of the king” (v. 15).

The reason why he said like this was to point out foolishness of Ahab

who liked to listen to the false prophets (Park Yoon-sun).

That was why Ahab said to Micaiah, “How many times must I adjure you

to speak to me nothing but the truth in the name of the LORD?” (v. 16)

Isn’t this little bit funny that Ahab, who liked to listen to the 400 false prophets

who only prophesised good things to him but didn’t like to listen to 1 true prophet Micaiah

whom he though prophesised bad things to him and thus hated him (v. 8)

said to Michiah “to speak to me nothing but the truth in the name of the Lord?” (v. 16)

This reminds me 2 Timothy 4:3-4:

“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine;

but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers

in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth

and will turn aside to myths.”

The Word of God is the sword of the Spirit (Eph. 6:17)

and it’s natural to listen to His word and be pierced by the word (Acts 2:37; 6:54).

But instead of repenting (2:38) when they heard this,

 they began gnashing their teeth at him (7:54) and cried out with a loud voice,

covered their ears and rushed at him with one impulse (v. 57) and began stoning him (v. 58).

As they do do, like Ahab they want us to speak nothing but the truth

in the name of the Lord (1 Kgs. 22:16).

At least in the days of Prophet Jeremiah, the Israelites said,

“Whether it is pleasant or unpleasant, we will listen to the voice of the LORD our God

to whom we are sending you, so that it may go well with us

when we listen to the voice of the LORD our God” (v. 6).

Is this not us?