I. THE COURAGE HE DISPLAYED. (Vers. 9-13.) He delivered Jehovah's message under circumstances that might and probably would have intimidated him had he not been a hero.

1. Before two kings to whom that message was unacceptable. The scene was calculated to steal away Micaiah's fortitude, could anything have done so. In an open space or threshing-floor, at the entering in of the gate of Samaria, Ahab and Jehoshaphat, arrayed in royal robes, sat each. upon.his throne. Immediately encircling them were the four hundred prophets; while each, king was attended by his army (Josephus 'Ant' 8:15. 3.) Ordinarily, "there is such a divinty doth hedge a king," that Micaiah might have been excused had he trembled when ushered into the presence of two such royal personages, decked out with the trappings of lofty station, waited on by bowing courtiers, and escorted by battalions of warriors; much more when one of them was Ahab, whose displeaure he had already felt, and the might of whose arm he had lately experienced; most of all when he knew or suspected that his words could not be acceptable to the kingly auditors on whose ears they were about to fall. Yet Micaiah flinched not. Composed as if he stood before peasants, he told out the message Jehovah put into his lips. Compare the attitudes of Hanani before Asa (2 Chronicles 16:7), of Elijah before Ahab (1 Kings 18:18; 1 Kings 21:20), of Daniel before Belshazzar (Daniel 5:13), of John the Baptist before Herod (Matthew 14:4), of Paul before Felix and Agrippa (Acts 24:25; Acts 26:28), of Polycarp before Antoninus, of Luther before the Diet of Worms, of John Knox before the court of Mary.

2. In the presence of four hundred false prophets whom that message opposed. Had numbers been a test of truth, then was Micaiah wrens, since he stood alone against the united body of the Israelitish prophets. Their answer to Ahab's question was unanimous. Without one dissenting voice they had assured him Jehovah would reward his efforts with victory. Ramoth-Gilead would be delivered into his hand, and the power of Syria crushed. Zedekiah, one of these prophets, playing the clown on the occasion, putting iron horns on his head and butting like an ox, added, "Thus saith the Lord, With these horns thou shalt push Syria until they be consumed; "while all his brother-prophets, applauding his performance, urged the king to "go up to Ramoth-Gilead, and prosper." Micaiah, however, knew that all that was false, and in spite of appearing singular, non-complaisant, obstinate, perverse, would not cry, "Amen!" would not shape his words either to please the king or accord with the fashion of the hour. It mattered nothing to Micaiah that he stood alone - his feet were planted on the rock of truth; or that men might regard him as "odd," "punctilious," "over-scrupulous," provided he was right. Compare Elijah on Mount Carmel before the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal, with the four hundred prophets of the grove (1 Kings 18:19).

3. Though he knew that message would not improve his own prospects. On the way from prison to the king's presence he had obtained a hint from his conductor what kind of "oracle" would best suit - would most gratify the king and recompense himself. All the state-prophets had observed in what quarter the wind sat, and had prophesied accordingly. They discerned what their royal master wanted, and why should they who ate his bread decline to gratify his whims? With one consent had they declared "good" to Ahab. If he, Micaiah, consulted for "good" to himself he would act upon that hint; taking his cue from the "prophets," he would let his word be as theirs. But Micaiah was too honest to play the knave. Micaiah understood not the art of studying self. Micaiah knew his duty was to speak the word given him by God, without regarding consequences to any, least of all to himself. And he did it!

II. THE ORACLE HE DELIVERED. (Vers. 14-22.)

1. A seeming permission. Micaiah answered Ahab in the words of the false prophets (ver. 14), in, irony (Keil, Bertheau), or in reproof of Ahab's hypocrisy (Bahr). Either Micaiah meant the opposite of what he said - that the advice Ahab had received was worthless; or he intended to be understood as declining to give other oracle than that already spoken by the prophets, which was the one Ahab wanted. But in any case Ahab suspected Micaiah's sincerity.

2. symbolic warning. Adjured to speak the truth, he related to the king a vision he had seen - "all Israel scattered upon the mountains as sheep without a shepherd;" and a voice he had heard - "These have no master; let them return every man to his house in peace." Whether the words of Moses (Numbers 27:17) were in Micaiah's mind when he described his vision or not, the import of the vision and the voice was as patent to Ahab as to him. Ahab was to fall at Ramoth-Gilead; Israel to become like a flock without a shepherd; the campaign to end in failure and shame.

3. A serious explanation. Accused by Ahab of speaking from a spirit of malignant hatred towards him, Micaiah depicted another vision, which let the king see the real deceivers were his own prophets, not he, Micaiah. The vision, most likely received some time before and not then only for the first time, consisted of a dramatic representation of the Divine government, in which were set forth the following truths:

(1) That God works by means of secondary agents. The prophet saw Jehovah, as Isaiah (Isaiah 6:1) afterwards beheld him, seated upon his throne, with all the host of heaven, standing on his right hand and on his left. The host of heaven was the innumerable company of angels of which David sang (Psalm 68:17), two battalions of which met Jacob at Mahanaim (Genesis 32:2), and many regiments of which protected Elisha and his servant at Dothan (2 Kings 6:17). Their designation "host" indicated their number and order; their position, "on his right hand and on his left," marked their submission and readiness to execute Jehovah's will (Psalm 103:20, 21).

(2) That agencies of evil equally with those of good are under the Divine control. Though God is not and cannot be the author of sin, he may yet, through the wicked actions of his creatures, accomplish his designs. His purpose was that Ahab should fall at Ramoth-Gilead; he effected that purpose by suffering Ahab to be misled by his false prophets, and these to be deceived by a lying spirit. Neither could the prophets have spoken to Ahab, nor the lying spirit whispered to the prophets, without the Divine permission. This truth Micaiah dramatically portrayed by representing Jehovah as taking counsel with his angels, and asking, "Who shall entice Ahab King of Israel, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-Gilead?"

(3) That God does not always hinder from being deceived those who wish to be deceived. Ahab and his prophets desired to believe Jehovah in favour of the campaign, and Jehovah allowed them to be persuaded by the lying spirit that he was. Having wilfully turned their backs upon Jehovah and become worshippers of idols, Jehovah now left them to reap the fruit of their folly - gave them up to strong delusion to believe a lie (Isaiah 66:4; 2 Thessalonians 2:11). "Not by any sudden stroke of vengeance, but by the very network of evil counsel which he has woven for himself, is the King of Israel to be led to his ruin" (Stanley, 'Jewish Church,' p. 316).

(4) That God, in permitting the wicked to be the victims of their own evil machinations, only exercises upon them righteous retribution. "It is just that one sin should be punished by another" (Bishop Hall). This principle universally operative in Providence.

4. A solemn denunciation. Without further parley, or veiling of his thoughts in metaphorical speech, he declares that the king had been imposed upon by his prophets, and that Jehovah had spoken evil against him. There are times when God's messengers must deliver God's messages to their hearers with utmost plainness and directness of speech.

III. THE RECOMPENSE HE RECEIVED. (Vers. 23-27.)

1. Insult from the prophets, through their leader Zedekiah, the son of Chenaanah.

(1) What it was. A blow from the fist, and a stroke from the tongue - the first hard to bear, the second harder; the first a common resort of cowards, the second of persons overcome in argument. For Zedekiah to smite Micaiah on the cheek, as afterwards the soldiers smote Jesus in Pilate's praetorium (Matthew 26:27), and later the bystanders Paul in the council chamber at Ananias's command (Acts 23:2), was "intolerably insolent - much more to do so in the presence of two kings." "The act was unbeseeming the person, more the presence; prophets may reprove, they may not smite" (Hall). It was, besides, painfully like a confession that Zedekiah was conscious of having been found out.

(2) Why it was. To gratify his thirst for revenge. It was easier to do so in this way than by attempting to disprove the truth of Micaiah's oracle. Any fool can exercise his fist; it takes a wise man to use his tongue with effect. Zedekiah probably imagined he did so when he mockingly inquired, "Which way went the Spirit of the Lord from me to speak unto thee?' That in so saying he claimed to be as much under the Spirit of Jehovah as Micaiah, may be true; that Micaiah understood him to be talking lightly seems apparent from the reply returned him: "Thou shalt see on that day when thou shalt go into an inner chamber to hide thyself." The event would decide which of the two predictions was correct. When the people rose up against the prophets who had raise led their king, Zedekiah, as he fled for safety to some inner chamber, or from chamber to chamber, would understand how to answer his own jest.

2. Punishment from the king. Micaiah was remanded back to his confinement in the city jail. Amen the governor of the city, and Joash the king's son - not necessarily a son of Ahab, but a prince of the blood - as commandants of the prison, were instructed to thrust him back into his old cell, and "feed him with bread of affliction and water of affliction;" in modern phrase, to subject him to imprisonment with hard labour, until Ahab should return in peace (ver. 26). It was severe upon Micaiah, yet he retracted not. Without a murmur at his hard fate, he cheerfully returned to his cell, only calling the people to observe that if Ahab returned home from the war in peace, he was not a true prophet (ver. 27). Learn:

1. The nobility of true courage.

2. The certainty that good men will suffer for their goodness.

3. The reality of an overruling Providence.

4. The infallibility of God's Word. - W.

I. THE POWER OF THE POPULAR VOICE. We see the multitude accommodating itself to the wishes of the king. How easy and how congenial it is to human nature to float with the tide. As a rule it pays best to suffer yourself to be carried along by the current. Light things and feeble things can travel this way with small demand on strength and skill. But dead things and all manner of refuse go this way, too. There is something to be feared in a great popular cry. I have heard men say that they dreaded a crowd as much as they did a contagion. If men had as wholesome a fear of going with the stream because it is the stream, society would be healthier. "Everybody" is a fearful tyrant.

II. HERE IS ONE MAN OPPOSED TO THE POPULAR SENTIMENT. He valued truth. Of Micaiah it may be said, as it was of another more illustrious, "Of the people there were none with him." He esteemed truth to be more precious than gold or any other earthly consideration. He was a hero of no common mould. Men are often misunderstood by those who should know them best.

III. MEN OF SUCH MORAL HEROISM HAVE OFTEN TO SUFFER FOR THEM PRINCIPLES. Suffering for conscience sake is not yet obsolete.

IV. Such men as Micaiah are morally brave and heroic because THEY ARE MEN OF PRAYER. We are apt to take low views of the nature of prayer. It is more than simply an appointed means of telling God our wants, and of beseeching Him to supply. It is "waiting upon God "as a personal attendant waits upon his master with whom he converses, and from whose lips he receives commands and instructions. It is more than that, it is communion, fellowship, interchange of thought and sentiment. We may go a step further, and say it is a union of kindred minds — the Divine so flowing into the human that it becomes transformed, that God's will and mind become its governing law. So life becomes one great connected prayer. A man who understands and enjoys this is one of the strongest and bravest of men. Stephen was such a man of prayer. A man of prayer is prepared to do deeds of holy heroism which put to the blush the vaunted deeds of chivalry.

V. A CONSCIOUSNESS OF MORAL WEAKNESS IS CLOSELY ALLIED TO MORAL COWARDICE. Without a scruple Ahab put the life of Jehoshaphat in jeopardy to save his own. "Conscience makes cowards of us all." What a noble tribute was that which was paid to Havelock and his pious soldiers more than once during the Indian Mutiny! When our army was hard pressed, or some specially perilous work had to be done, the command was given, "Call out Havelock and his praying men; if this work can be done at all, they are the men to do it."

VI. RETRIBUTION SOMETIMES OVERTAKES MEN IN THIS LIFE, Ahab was left alone to pursue his course of hardened folly until he was ripe for retribution; then God met him and ignominiously closed his career.

(J. T. Higgins.)