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. Note THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THAT ONE OBDURATE VOICE, rising clearly above the four hundred unanimous in their approval.

1. That is a voice which we hear again and again in our life; we hear it most loudly at special crises of our career.

2. When one solitary voice flatly contradicts the voice of a multitude, and contradicts it on matters of serious moment — which voice are we to believe? Sometimes the question is practically decided, as in Ahab's case, by the mood with which we come to think of the unsilenced prophet. "I hate him."(1) That tribute of hatred sprang from Ahab's conscience. It is the precise method by which weak and cruel men are wont to confess that not the man, but the message has found them out.(2) Notice also Ahab's device for suppressing an unwelcome truth.

II. THIS NARRATIVE SYMBOLISES MAN'S FREQUENT ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE TRUTH. It is a test case.

1. Young men and women starting in life with abundant promise, amid the acclamation of hosts of friends, you may be irritated by perhaps one grim, dissenting voice, critical, dissatisfied, implacable, which sadly challenges the place in this universe to which general opinion reads your title clear. Be very careful how you treat that voice! It may be the voice of an ignorant, envious, churlish man, but, on the other hand, it may be the voice of one who has pierced to the secret of your inner life, and who, if you would only listen, might spare you an idle journey, might rescue you from misery and shame.

2. Again, there are books or teachers whom we have to deal with, and who sadly irritate us, and we say, like Marguerite to Faust, but often, alas, without her simplicity: "Thou art not a Christian." Let us patiently ask: are we really angry in the name of the Lord of hosts? or, are we angry because these books or voices spoil our own theories, wound our prejudices, smile at our favourite catch-words, wither our ideas of success, and are, in the name of the Truth of God, relentless amid our flatterers? Do they simply offend our self-love, and rebuke our calculated prudence? Let us be careful. These books and voices may be wrong; if so, their's the loss and the penalty. But, very often, conscience would tell us there is a possibility that they are right.

3. There is one solemn application of this incident which has, no doubt, occurred to us already. In every human heart disobedient to Christ, impenitent and unreconciled, there is a voice as of Micaiah the son of Imla; but it is really the voice of the Lord Himself, speaking to that heart, amid all its distractions and its earthly pleasures, the message of evil and not of good. And men may come to chafe so angrily under that patient, ever-haunting warning, and appeal, that finally they may cry: "I hate it, I hate it!" If that be so, remember Ahab's doom.

(T. Rhys Evans.)