Why Did God Send a Lying Spirit_ (1 Kings 22_22) _ Bible Q

8/3/2019 Why Did God Send a Lying Spirit_ (1 Kings 22_22) _ Bible Q

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W hy do OT a nd NT t ea chings on demons a ppea r to dif fer ? W ha t is t he Apoc ry pha ?

The Bible teaches that God does not l ie (Heb.6:18), so how is this possible:

1 Kings 22:20and the Lord said, Who willentice Ahab, that he may go up and fall at

Ramoth-gilead?And one said one thing, and another saidanother.

21 Then a spirit came forward and stood beforethe Lord, saying, I will entice him.22 And the Lord said to him, By what means?

And the spirit said, I will go out, and will be alying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.

And the Lord said, You are to entice him, and

you shall succeed; go out and do so.23 Now therefore behold, the Lord has put a

lying spirit in the mouth of all these your

prophets; the Lord has declared disaster foryou.

The answer is that this did not literally happen, God did no such thing. The ideathat God really put a lying spirit in anyones mouth comes f rom not reading the

full context.

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1Kings 22:1 For three years Syria and I srael

continued without war. 2 But in the third yearJehoshaphat the king of Judah came down tothe king of Israel. 3 And the king of Israel said

to his servants, Do you know that Ramoth-gilead belongs to us, and we keep quiet and donot take it out of the hand of the king of Syria?

4 And he said to Jehoshaphat, Will you go withme to battle at Ramoth-gilead? And

Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel, I am as

you are, my people as your people, my horses

as your horses.

The context is that the king of the northern kingdom, Israel, wants to persuade

the king of the southern kingdom, Judah, to join his war. But to do so he has toconvince the doubtful, and pious, king of Judah, that the war is what God wants.

So Ahab marshals his house prophets, the ones who say what Ahab wants. Thisevent appears to be after Ahabs repentance from Baal worship (1 Kings 21:25), sothese appear to be prophets of Yahweh not Baal albeit it the Yahweh who was

worshipped in golden calves at Bethel and Dan, rather than the true Yahweh whowas worshipped in the temple at Jerusalem.

1 Kings 22:5And Jehoshaphat said to the kingof Israel, Inquire first for the word of the Lord.6 Then the king of I srael gathered the prophets

together, about four hundred men, and said tothem, Shall I go to battle against Ramoth-

gilead, or shall I refrain? And they said, Go up,for the Lord will give it into the hand of theking.

However the king of Judah is nervous how can he believe these prophets of theLord who eat at Ahabs table and worship at Bethel and Dan? So Ahab reluctantly is

forced to send for Micaiah, a real prophet.

1 Kings 22:7But Jehoshaphat said, Is there not

here another prophet of the Lord of whom we

may inquire? 8 And the king of Israel said toJehoshaphat, There is yet one man by whom wemay inquire of the Lord, Micaiah the son of

Imlah, but I hate him, for he never prophesiesgood concerning me, but evil. And Jehoshaphat

said, Let not the king say so. 9 Then the kingof Israel summoned an officer and said, Bring

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said, Thus says the Lord, With these you shall

push the Syrians unti l they are destroyed. 12And all the prophets prophesied so and s aid,

Go up to Ramoth-gilead and triumph; the Lord

will give it into the hand of the king.

Following this performance, the guards bring, under protest, Micaiah:

1 Kings 22:13And the messenger who went to

summon Micaiah said to him, Behold, thewords of the prophets with one accord arefavorable to the king. Let your word be like the

word of one of them, and speak favorably. 14

But Micaiah said, As the Lord lives, what theLord says to me, that I will speak. 15 And when

he had come to the king, the king said to him,Micaiah, shall we go to Ramoth-gilead tobattle, or shall we refrain? And he answered

him, Go up and triumph; the Lord will give it

into the hand of the king. 16 But the king saidto him, How many times shall I make youswear that you speak to me nothing but the

truth in the name of the Lord?

It is not clear why Micaiahs pos itive answer brings anger from the king. Perhaps itis far too easy . Or perhaps there was a note of sarcasm in the response, which wedo not pick up in writing. Or alternatively the king realised that Go up and

triumph is not the same as You will surely triumph, and that Micaiah did not saywhich king he may secretly have meant the king of Syria! In any case Micaiahsnext comment is wholly negative:

17 And he said, I saw all Israel scattered on themountains, as sheep that have no shepherd.

And the Lord said, These have no master; leteach return to his home in peace.18 And the

king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, Did I not tellyou that he would not prophesy goodconcerning me, but evil?

So he was predicting the victory of the king of Syria not of Ahab.

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19 And Micaiah said, Therefore hear the word

of the Lord: I saw the Lord sitting on his throne,and all the host of heaven standing beside himon his right hand and on his left; 20 and the

Lord said, Who will entice Ahab, that he may goup and fall at Ramoth-gilead? And one said one

thing, and another said another. 21 Then aspirit came forward and stood before the Lord,saying, I will entice him. 22 And the Lord said

to him, By what means? And he said, I will goout, and will be a lying spirit in the mouth of allhis prophets. And he said, You are to entice

him, and you shall succeed; go out and do so.

23 Now therefore behold, the Lord has put alying spirit in the mouth of all these your

prophets; the Lord has declared disaster for

you.

There are several indications that this vision is ironic, if not sarcastic.

First, the context; does a prophet of God suddenly produce a visi on to order?

Prophecies can be spur of the moment, but visions generally come at night or indeep prayer (2 Sam.7:4,Job 33:15, Ezekiel 1:1). The instant nature of this visionsuggests the false prophet visions ofJer.23:16.

Second; the prophets of Ahab have already said what Ahab wants to hear, and it isevident that the prophets of Ahab need no encouragement from angels to lie.

Third; nowhere in the Bible do we find t he teaching that the court of heaven is anindecisive democracy with God asking for advice or ideas from the host of

heaven (Hebrew, Sabaoth). Nor do we have one angel saying one thing, one s ayinganother. This sort of heavenly court is found in Canaanite myth for example inthe little we know about Baal but totally unknown in the Bible, since God is a

God who does not take advice (who hath been his counsellor? Isa 40:13-14, etc.).

Then God agrees to be behind a lie, a deception. Again this is almost unheard of inBible (Let God be true though every one were a liar Rom.3:4, etc.) until theexception of the great delusion of2Thess.2:11.

Theres a particular oddness about the use of host here rather than angels. Thebasic meaning of angels (messengers, malakim) is appropriate to the sending of alying spirit, whereas host (sabaoth, armies) is not always positive in the Old

Testament. The first reference to the host of heaven (De.4:19, 17:3) is to forbid

their worship, then we have positive mention of the Lord of Hosts at Shiloh(1Sam.1:3) but then again negative references associating their worship with Baal

(2Kings 17:6, 21:3,Jeremiah 8:2, Acts 7:42). In fact, of 18 uses of the phrase host

of heaven, at l east 15 are negative, and of the remaining 3, 2 probably refer toliteral stars in the sky.

Fourth; Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah clearly understood it as sarcastic, andaimed at himself:

1 Kings 22:24Then Zedekiah the son of

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you peoples!

Note in particular: How did the Spirit of the Lord go from me to speak to you?.The meaning is clear enough you Micaiah say that Im lying with a spirit from

the host of heaven in my mouth, well who is to say that you are not lying yourself?And to go with that, slap!

The end of the story is predictable enough. Despite Ahab having disguised himselfand put Jehoshaphat in the line of danger, a random arrow struck Ahab, but

Jehoshaphat survived. We do not read of the end of Zedekiah the son ofChenaanah on the day when he goes into an inner chamber to hide himself, butthis too is assumed. It would not be unlikely that Ahabs widow Jezebel had him

killed for the lying prophecy which killed her husband. Its not as if she needed

an excuse to k ill a prophet of the Lord, even one of the Lord who was worshippedin the golden calves.

Aml ajsqgmlIn sum, theres nothing in the above that suggests that there was a literal meetingof the Sabaoth in heaven where God asked for their suggestions. Or that thatshow Gods court works at all. Its simply an ironic prophecy, like so many of the

prophecies of Elijah and Isaiah. Its also possible that Micaiah may have sown inthe irony some commentary about the religious views of the prophets of thegolden calves, the ones who worshipped at Bethel and Dan. We simply dont know

we have no information on the religion of the northern kingdom other than afew glimpses in Kings and Chronicles and Isaiah-period prophecies against

Ephraim. Its also poss ible that the later comment comparing Manassehsbuilding of altars to the host of heaven in Jerusalem being like Ahab (2Kings21:3-5) indicates that Ahab had done the same at Bethel and Dan.

It also i snt out of the question that these northern prophets had, during the yearswhen they were forced to worship Baal by Ahabs wife Jezebel, absorbed some of

the Canaanite ideas about a heavenly court with an indecisive and fallible god(Baal), and let that distort their view of t he God of Israel. At least we know thatDe.4:19 predicts and Acts 7:42 confirms that worship of the host of heaven was

a continuing problem in Israel and Judah. In either case, the context and strangelanguage looks like Micaiah is attacking Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah with his

own beliefs much as Jesus parodied Pharisee beliefs in the parable of the rich

man and Lazarus.

In all, this vision is not a secure base to argue that God literally helps falseprophets to do what comes naturally lie.

Topics: false prophets, lies, prophets, spirit

This answer was provided by Steven on Monday, 23 November 2009. You can follow a ny r esponses to

this entry through RSS 2.0.

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Thanks for this article; I always wondered about why the

Lord would send a lying spirit out!

#1 byJeffrey Loweon December 20th, 2009

Your analysis makes perfect sense, especially as Jesus

himself used such an illustration. Question: what

specifically were the Pharisee belief concerning the

parable?

#2by Vertyl SamsVertyl SamsVertyl SamsVer tyl Sams on January 2nd, 2010




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Why Did God Send a Lying Spirit_ (1 Kings 22_22) _ Bible Q