Micaiah's vision
This is what Micaiah said to Ahab (once Ahab had agreed to summon him):
I saw the LORD sitting on his throne with all the host of heaven standing on his right and on his left. And the LORD said, 'Who will entice Ahab king of Israel into attacking Ramoth Gilead and going to his death there?'I don't get it. It seems to be saying, pretty blatantly, that YHWH was behind the deception of the prophets. Also, since he was trying to trick Ahab into attacking Ramoth Gilead, why did he let Micaiah know what was really going on? I suppose he knew that Ahab hated Micaiah, and wouldn't want to listen to him, but I'm still confused.
One suggested this, and another that. Finally, a spirit came forward, stood before the LORD and said, 'I will entice him.'
'By what means?' the LORD asked.
'I will go and be a lying spirit in the mouths of all his prophets,' he said.
'You will succeed in enticing him,' said the LORD. 'Go and do it.'
So now the LORD has put a lying spirit in the mouths of these prophets of yours. The LORD has decreed disaster for you.
Micaiah, 2 Chronicles 18:18-22
3 comments:
Other places in the Bible contain similar thoughts:
The conversation that takes place in 2 Chronicles 18:18-21 is similar to the conversation between God and Satan in Job 1:6-12.
Habakkuk had a similar difficulty when God told him, that He was going to use the wicked Babylonians to punish the wicked Jews because the Babylonians were actually more wicked than the Jews. Habakkuk complains and says (1:13)"Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrong. Why then do you tolerate the treacherous? Why are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves?"
Interestingly Job and Habakkuk come to the same conclusion - God is Sovereign.
Isaiah 45:7 is also interesting in this regard, it says: "I bring propsperity and create disaster."
I was thinking about this again on the weekend, and remembered that in the Gospels, demons had to get out of people when Jesus told them to.
I just read this passage tonight and was kind of confused, but it could very well be Satan. There are times in the bible where God and Satan work for the same things, but for different reasons - like with Job. Satan wanted Job to fall away, God wanted to prove that Job wouldn't fall away.
Maybe Ahab has been put into Satan's hands simply because he wants nothing to do with God?
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