Shownotes Transcript
Hey Bible Readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble and I'm your host for The Bible Recap. Today we finished our 16th book of the Bible. Congratulations! We spent some time in the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah today. But we start out in the north with wicked king Ahab. Yesterday God sent Elijah to pronounce death on Ahab and his family, but then showed mercy on Ahab when he repented. When we open today, we see the kings of the two kingdoms make an alliance.
They want to capture Ramoth-Gilead, a city that was taken by Syria. Before they put a strategy together, Jehoshaphat asks that they can seek God for counsel. Smart move. Ahab brings in 400 prophets, and they all say God will grant them success. Then Jehoshaphat is like, but are there any other prophets we can ask? They just asked 400 prophets who were all in agreement, so why does he need another opinion? If 400 out of 400 dentists agree on the best toothpaste, I'm not looking for the opinion of 401. I'm just buying it.
But the thing is, and this is only kind of obvious in the original text, these prophets weren't inquiring of Yahweh. They were almost certainly the same 400 prophets of Asherah mentioned in 1 Kings 18.
Remember how Ahab had 450 prophets of Baal and 400 prophets of Asherah when Elijah called him up to the showdown on Mount Carmel? But only the 450 prophets of Baal showed up. Elijah killed them, but we never heard anything from the 400 prophets of Asherah. So these are almost certainly those prophets. Wicked King Ahab, even though he repented under the consequence of death, doesn't seem to fully grasp the concept of following Yahweh.
And wise King Jehoshaphat seems to be discerning about that, so he wants a godly opinion. Ahab says there's a prophet named Micaiah, but he doesn't like Micaiah because he never says what he wants to hear. Some commentators believe it was Micaiah who intentionally got himself beat up before he talked to Ahab yesterday. Micaiah appears before Ahab and says, "...go up and triumph. The Lord will give it into the hand of the king."
Ahab doesn't believe him because this sounds too good to be true, especially coming from Micaiah. So Ahab basically says, are you joking? And that's when things get really confusing. Micaiah's first response had been mocking the king and his prophets. So he shoots straight. He tells a story about how evil spirits came to Yahweh and asked permission to mislead Ahab by speaking lies through the 400 prophets. This may have reminded you of when Satan appeared before Yahweh and asked for permission to test Job.
Evil spirits are subject to God's authority. They're on a leash, and they can only do what God allows and what ultimately fits into his sovereign plan. And God's plan, as he has already said, is to remove King Ahab and his family. The means by which God plans to do this is through this war. And the false prophets had prophesied falsely. Israel will meet with disaster, and Ahab will die in battle. Ahab does not like this, of course, so he orders Micaiah to be imprisoned.
When Ahab and Jehoshaphat go to war, Ahab tries to be tricky. He plans to wear a disguise, but tells Jehoshaphat to wear his royal robes, which will make him stand out as more of a target. For whatever reason, Jehoshaphat agrees to this plan. One noteworthy thing here is that Micaiah's prophecy said the sheep of Israel had no shepherd. And here's Ahab trying to blend in with the sheep. He's certainly not a wise leader.
His plan to disguise himself seems to work at first, because the Syrian archers go after Jehoshaphat in his royal robes, but when they see it's not Ahab, they withdraw. Then, one of the archers accidentally fires off one arrow and it strikes and kills King Ahab, and things with his death unfold in the ways Micaiah prophesied today and Elijah prophesied yesterday. His son Ahaziah takes the throne after him, and he's basically Ahab 2.0, Baal-worshipping and wicked in all the ways his dad was.
What was your God shot today? Mine was in 2 Chronicles 18, 30-33. I want to read it to you, then I'll tell you what I saw about God in it. It says,
As soon as the captains of the chariot saw Jehoshaphat, they said, "'It is the king of Israel!' So they turned to fight against him. And Jehoshaphat cried out, and the Lord helped him. God drew them away from him. For as soon as the captains of the chariot saw that it was not the king of Israel, they turned back from pursuing him. But a certain man drew his bow at random and struck the king of Israel between the scale armor and the breastplate." First of all, we see here that God helped Jehoshaphat when he cried out to him. He rescued the righteous in his time of need.
But we also see how God has laser focus on accomplishing his plan. Nothing thwarts him. Not Ahab's disguise, not the Syrians mistaking Jehoshaphat for Ahab, and not even the call to stop firing. Because the one man who failed to stop firing hit the very man God had appointed to die in the very spot that would kill him. The man may have drawn his bow at random, which can also be translated in his innocence or even on accident.
But this just goes to show that nothing is random where God is concerned. He's so intentional. He hears the cries of the righteous. He wipes out the wicked. And he can't be stopped. And that's all a great comfort to me. He's where the joy is. This month for June's bonus content, we've got an eight-song album of some of my favorite songs I've ever recorded.
Before I started D Group and the Bible Recap, I made my living as a musician. I hung up my guitar a few years ago, but I've combed through the archives and hand-selected the eight songs I'd like to share with the public. You can check out today's show notes for a link to our Patreon so you don't miss out on this. Or visit the Patreon link on our website, thebiblerecap.com. The Bible Recap is brought to you by D Group, discipleship and Bible study groups that meet in homes and churches around the world each week.