However, in the third year, Jehoshaphat king of Judah went down to visit the king of Israel, HoweverThis word serves as a transition, indicating a shift in the narrative. It suggests a contrast or continuation from previous events. In the context of 1 Kings, the preceding chapters detail the reigns of various kings and the spiritual state of Israel and Judah. The use of "however" here signals a new development in the ongoing account of the divided kingdoms. in the third year
This phrase provides a specific time frame, grounding the events in a historical context. The "third year" refers to the third year of Jehoshaphat's reign, which is significant because it marks a period of relative peace and stability in Judah. This timing is crucial as it sets the stage for the political and military alliances that follow. Jehoshaphat king of Judah
Jehoshaphat was a king known for his piety and efforts to reform Judah according to God's laws. His name, meaning "Yahweh has judged," reflects his commitment to divine justice. As a ruler, Jehoshaphat sought to strengthen his kingdom spiritually and politically, often seeking alliances with neighboring nations, including Israel. went down
The phrase "went down" is geographically accurate, as Jerusalem (the capital of Judah) is situated at a higher elevation than Samaria (the capital of Israel). This descent is not just physical but also symbolic, as it represents Jehoshaphat's willingness to engage with the northern kingdom, despite its history of idolatry and apostasy. to visit
The act of visiting implies a purpose beyond mere social interaction. In the ancient Near Eastern context, such visits often had political or diplomatic motives. Jehoshaphat's visit to the king of Israel suggests a desire to discuss matters of mutual interest, possibly including military alliances or trade agreements. the king of Israel
At this time, the king of Israel was Ahab, a ruler infamous for his idolatry and marriage to Jezebel, which led Israel further away from God. Ahab's reign was marked by conflict with prophets like Elijah, who called the nation back to faithfulness. Jehoshaphat's interaction with Ahab highlights the tension between political expediency and spiritual integrity. Persons / Places / Events 1. JehoshaphatThe king of Judah, known for his efforts to follow the ways of the Lord and for his reforms to strengthen the spiritual and military state of Judah. His visit to the king of Israel marks a significant political and spiritual event. 2. King of IsraelAt this time, the king of Israel is Ahab, known for his idolatry and opposition to the prophets of the Lord. His reign is marked by conflict with the prophets and alliances that often lead Israel away from God. 3. JudahThe southern kingdom, distinct from Israel, often more faithful to the worship of Yahweh, though not without its own struggles with idolatry and disobedience. 4. IsraelThe northern kingdom, frequently led by kings who did not follow the ways of the Lord, often engaging in idolatry and political alliances that compromised their faith. 5. The Third YearThis time marker indicates a period of relative peace between Israel and Judah, setting the stage for Jehoshaphat's visit and the subsequent events. Teaching Points The Danger of Unequal AlliancesJehoshaphat's visit to Ahab serves as a cautionary tale about forming alliances with those who do not share a commitment to God. Believers should be discerning in their relationships and partnerships. The Influence of LeadershipThe contrasting leadership styles of Jehoshaphat and Ahab highlight the impact leaders have on their nations' spiritual health. Godly leadership can lead to blessings, while ungodly leadership can lead to downfall. Seeking God's GuidanceBefore making significant decisions or alliances, it is crucial to seek God's guidance. Jehoshaphat's later insistence on consulting a prophet of the Lord ( 1 Kings 22:5) underscores the importance of divine counsel. The Consequences of CompromiseCompromising one's values for political or social gain can lead to spiritual decline. Jehoshaphat's alliance with Ahab ultimately brought negative consequences for Judah. Bible Study Questions 1. What can we learn from Jehoshaphat's decision to visit Ahab about the importance of choosing our alliances wisely? 2. How does the relationship between Jehoshaphat and Ahab illustrate the potential pitfalls of compromising one's faith for political or social reasons? 3. In what ways does the leadership of Jehoshaphat and Ahab affect their respective kingdoms, and what lessons can we draw for leadership today? 4. How does Jehoshaphat's later insistence on seeking a prophet of the Lord (1 Kings 22:5) inform our understanding of the importance of seeking God's guidance in decision-making? 5. Reflect on a time when you faced a decision about forming an alliance or partnership. How can the lessons from Jehoshaphat's visit to Ahab guide you in future decisions? Connections to Other Scriptures 2 Chronicles 18This chapter provides a parallel account of Jehoshaphat's visit to Ahab, offering additional details about their alliance and the subsequent battle at Ramoth-gilead. 1 Kings 16:30-33These verses describe Ahab's reign and his marriage to Jezebel, highlighting the idolatry and evil practices that characterized his rule, providing context for Jehoshaphat's visit. 2 Chronicles 17:3-6These verses describe Jehoshaphat's faithfulness to God and his reforms in Judah, contrasting with Ahab's idolatry and setting the stage for the tension in their alliance. People Ahab, Ahaziah, Amon, Aram, Asa, Azubah, Chenaanah, David, Geber, Imlah, Jehoram, Jehoshaphat, Jeroboam, Joash, Micah, Micaiah, Nebat, Ophir, Shilhi, Sodomites, Syrians, Tarshish, Tharshish, ZedekiahPlaces Edom, Ezion-geber, Jerusalem, Ophir, Ramoth-gilead, Samaria, Syria, TarshishTopics Jehoshaphat, Jehosh'aphat, Judah, Pass, ThirdDictionary of Bible Themes 1 Kings 22:2 5976 visiting 1 Kings 22:1-4 7233 Israel, northern kingdom 1 Kings 22:1-5 7245 Judah, kingdom of 1 Kings 22:1-28 7774 prophets, false 1 Kings 22:1-38 8131 guidance, results Library Unpossessed Possessions
'And the king of Israel said unto his servants, Know ye that Ramoth in Gilead is ours, and we be still, and take it not out of the hand of the king of Syria?'--1 KINGS xxii. 3. This city of Ramoth in Gilead was an important fortified place on the eastern side of the Jordan, and had, many years before the date of our text, been captured by its northern neighbours in the kingdom of Syria. A treaty had subsequently been concluded and broken a war followed thereafter, in which Ben-hadad, King of Syria, …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy ScriptureAhab and Micaiah
'And Jehoshaphat said, Is there not here a prophet of the Lord besides, that we might enquire of him? 8. And the king of Israel said unto Jehoshaphat, There is yet one man, Micaiah the son of Imlah, by whom we may enquire of the Lord: but I hate him; for he doth not prophesy good concerning me, but evil.'--1 KINGS xxii. 7,8. An ill-omened alliance had been struck up between Ahab of Israel and Jehoshaphat of Judah. The latter, who would have been much better in Jerusalem, had come down to Samaria …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture The Prophet Micah.
PRELIMINARY REMARKS. Micah signifies: "Who is like Jehovah;" and by this name, the prophet is consecrated to the incomparable God, just as Hosea was to the helping God, and Nahum to the comforting God. He prophesied, according to the inscription, under Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. We are not, however, entitled, on this account, to dissever his prophecies, and to assign particular discourses to the reign of each of these kings. On the contrary, the entire collection forms only one whole. At …
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament The Poetical Books (Including Also Ecclesiastes and Canticles).
1. The Hebrews reckon but three books as poetical, namely: Job, Psalms, and Proverbs, which are distinguished from the rest by a stricter rhythm--the rhythm not of feet, but of clauses (see below, No. 3)--and a peculiar system of accentuation. It is obvious to every reader that the poetry of the Old Testament, in the usual sense of the word, is not restricted to these three books. But they are called poetical in a special and technical sense. In any natural classification of the books of the …
E. P. Barrows—Companion to the Bible The Assyrian Revival and the Struggle for Syria
Assur-nazir-pal (885-860) and Shalmaneser III. (860-825)--The kingdom of Urartu and its conquering princes: Menuas and Argistis. Assyria was the first to reappear on the scene of action. Less hampered by an ancient past than Egypt and Chaldaea, she was the sooner able to recover her strength after any disastrous crisis, and to assume again the offensive along the whole of her frontier line. Image Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bas-relief at Koyunjik of the time of Sennacherib. The initial cut, …
G. Maspero—History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, V 7 Use to be Made of the Doctrine of Providence.
Sections. 1. Summary of the doctrine of Divine Providence. 1. It embraces the future and the past. 2. It works by means, without means, and against means. 3. Mankind, and particularly the Church, the object of special care. 4. The mode of administration usually secret, but always just. This last point more fully considered. 2. The profane denial that the world is governed by the secret counsel of God, refuted by passages of Scripture. Salutary counsel. 3. This doctrine, as to the secret counsel of …
John Calvin—The Institutes of the Christian Religion The Shepherd of Our Souls.
"I am the good Shepherd: the good Shepherd giveth His life for the sheep."--John x. 11. Our Lord here appropriates to Himself the title under which He had been foretold by the Prophets. "David My servant shall be king over them," says Almighty God by the mouth of Ezekiel: "and they all shall have one Shepherd." And in the book of Zechariah, "Awake, O sword, against My Shepherd, and against the man that is My fellow, saith the Lord of Hosts; smite the Shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered." …
John Henry Newman—Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII Of Councils and their Authority.
1. The true nature of Councils. 2. Whence the authority of Councils is derived. What meant by assembling in the name of Christ. 3. Objection, that no truth remains in the Church if it be not in Pastors and Councils. Answer, showing by passages from the Old Testament that Pastors were often devoid of the spirit of knowledge and truth. 4. Passages from the New Testament showing that our times were to be subject to the same evil. This confirmed by the example of almost all ages. 5. All not Pastors who …
John Calvin—The Institutes of the Christian Religion That the Employing Of, and Associating with the Malignant Party, According as is Contained in the Public Resolutions, is Sinful and Unlawful.
That The Employing Of, And Associating With The Malignant Party, According As Is Contained In The Public Resolutions, Is Sinful And Unlawful. If there be in the land a malignant party of power and policy, and the exceptions contained in the Act of Levy do comprehend but few of that party, then there need be no more difficulty to prove, that the present public resolutions and proceedings do import an association and conjunction with a malignant party, than to gather a conclusion from clear premises. …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning Of Passages from the Holy Scriptures, and from the Apocrypha, which are Quoted, or Incidentally Illustrated, in the Institutes.
TO THE AUTHORS QUOTED IN THE INSTITUTES PREFATORY ADDRESS TO HIS MOST CHRISTIAN MAJESTY, THE MOST MIGHTY AND ILLUSTRIOUS MONARCH, FRANCIS, KING OF THE FRENCH, HIS SOVEREIGN; [1] JOHN CALVIN PRAYS PEACE AND SALVATION IN CHRIST. [2] Sire,--When I first engaged in this work, nothing was farther from my thoughts than to write what should afterwards be presented to your Majesty. My intention was only to furnish a kind of rudiments, by which those who feel some interest in religion might be trained to …
John Calvin—The Institutes of the Christian Religion He Does Battle for the Faith; He Restores Peace among those who were at Variance; He Takes in Hand to Build a Stone Church.
57. (32). There was a certain clerk in Lismore whose life, as it is said, was good, but his faith not so. He was a man of some knowledge in his own eyes, and dared to say that in the Eucharist there is only a sacrament and not the fact[718] of the sacrament, that is, mere sanctification and not the truth of the Body. On this subject he was often addressed by Malachy in secret, but in vain; and finally he was called before a public assembly, the laity however being excluded, in order that if it were …
H. J. Lawlor—St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh Sovereignty of God in Administration
"The LORD hath prepared His Throne In the heavens; and His Kingdom ruleth over all" (Psa. 103:19). First, a word concerning the need for God to govern the material world. Suppose the opposite for a moment. For the sake of argument, let us say that God created the world, designed and fixed certain laws (which men term "the laws of Nature"), and that He then withdrew, leaving the world to its fortune and the out-working of these laws. In such a case, we should have a world over which there was no intelligent, …
Arthur W. Pink—The Sovereignty of God Tit. 2:06 Thoughts for Young Men
WHEN St. Paul wrote his Epistle to Titus about his duty as a minister, he mentioned young men as a class requiring peculiar attention. After speaking of aged men and aged women, and young women, he adds this pithy advice, "Young men likewise exhort to be sober-minded" (Tit. 2:6). I am going to follow the Apostle's advice. I propose to offer a few words of friendly exhortation to young men. I am growing old myself, but there are few things I remember so well as the days of my youth. I have a most …
John Charles Ryle—The Upper Room: Being a Few Truths for the Times General Principles of Interpretation. 1 Since the Bible Addresses Men in Human Language...
CHAPTER XXXIV. GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF INTERPRETATION. 1. Since the Bible addresses men in human language, and according to human modes of thinking and speaking, the interpreter's first work is to ascertain the meaning of the terms employed. Here he must proceed as in the case of other writings, seeking by the aid of grammars, lexicons, cognate languages, ancient versions, ancient interpreters, and whatever other outward helps are available, to gain a thorough knowledge of the language employed by …
E. P. Barrows—Companion to the Bible Commerce
The remarkable change which we have noticed in the views of Jewish authorities, from contempt to almost affectation of manual labour, could certainly not have been arbitrary. But as we fail to discover here any religious motive, we can only account for it on the score of altered political and social circumstances. So long as the people were, at least nominally, independent, and in possession of their own land, constant engagement in a trade would probably mark an inferior social stage, and imply …
Alfred Edersheim—Sketches of Jewish Social Life The Figurative Language of Scripture.
1. When the psalmist says: "The Lord God is a sun and shield" (Psa. 84:11), he means that God is to all his creatures the source of life and blessedness, and their almighty protector; but this meaning he conveys under the figure of a sun and a shield. When, again, the apostle James says that Moses is read in the synagogues every Sabbath-day (Acts 15:21), he signifies the writings of Moses under the figure of his name. In these examples the figure lies in particular words. But it may be embodied …
E. P. Barrows—Companion to the Bible Instruction for the Ignorant:
BEING A SALVE TO CURE THAT GREAT WANT OF KNOWLEDGE, WHICH SO MUCH REIGNS BOTH IN YOUNG AND OLD. PREPARED AND PRESENTED TO THEM IN A PLAIN AND EASY DIALOGUE, FITTED TO THE CAPACITY OF THE WEAKEST. 'My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.'--Hosea 4:6 ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR. This little catechism is upon a plan perfectly new and unique. It was first published as a pocket volume in 1675, and has been republished in every collection of the author's works; and recently in a separate tract. …
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3 Kings
The book[1] of Kings is strikingly unlike any modern historical narrative. Its comparative brevity, its curious perspective, and-with some brilliant exceptions--its relative monotony, are obvious to the most cursory perusal, and to understand these things is, in large measure, to understand the book. It covers a period of no less than four centuries. Beginning with the death of David and the accession of Solomon (1 Kings i., ii.) it traverses his reign with considerable fulness (1 Kings iii.-xi.), …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament Links 1 Kings 22:2 NIV1 Kings 22:2 NLT1 Kings 22:2 ESV1 Kings 22:2 NASB1 Kings 22:2 KJV
1 Kings 22:2 Commentaries
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