So he asked Jehoshaphat, "Will you go with me to fight against Ramoth-gilead?" Jehoshaphat answered the king of Israel, "I am like you, my people are your people, and my horses are your horses." So he asked JehoshaphatThis phrase introduces us to the interaction between two kings: Ahab of Israel and Jehoshaphat of Judah. The Hebrew root for "asked" is "שָׁאַל" (sha'al), which implies a request or inquiry. This is not merely a casual question but a strategic political and military proposal. Historically, Jehoshaphat was known for his piety and alliance with Ahab through marriage, which reflects the complex political landscape of the time. The alliance between the northern and southern kingdoms, though fraught with spiritual compromise, was seen as a means to strengthen their position against common enemies. Will you go with me
The phrase "go with me" signifies a call for unity and cooperation. The Hebrew word "יָלַךְ" (yalak) means to walk or go, indicating a journey or mission. This request for partnership highlights the importance of alliances in ancient Near Eastern warfare. From a spiritual perspective, it raises questions about the wisdom of forming alliances with those who do not share the same commitment to God, as Jehoshaphat was a godly king, while Ahab was known for his idolatry. to fight against
The term "fight" comes from the Hebrew "לָחַם" (lacham), meaning to engage in battle or warfare. This reflects the constant state of conflict in the region during this period. Theologically, it underscores the reality of spiritual warfare and the need for discernment in choosing battles. The historical context reveals that battles were often fought for territorial control, resources, or political dominance. Ramoth-gilead
Ramoth-gilead was a strategically significant city located east of the Jordan River. Its name in Hebrew, "רָמוֹת גִּלְעָד" (Ramoth Gil'ad), means "heights of Gilead," indicating its elevated position, which was advantageous for military defense. Archaeologically, this site has been identified with Tell er-Rumeith, and its significance is underscored by its repeated mention in biblical narratives. Spiritually, Ramoth-gilead represents the contested areas of our lives where we must choose whether to engage in battles that align with God's purposes. Historically, it was a city of refuge, adding layers of meaning to its role in this narrative. Persons / Places / Events 1. AhabThe king of Israel, known for his idolatry and marriage to Jezebel. He seeks an alliance with Jehoshaphat to reclaim Ramoth-gilead. 2. JehoshaphatThe king of Judah, noted for his faithfulness to God. He is approached by Ahab for military support. 3. Ramoth-gileadA strategic city east of the Jordan River, historically contested between Israel and Aram (Syria). 4. AllianceThe proposed military alliance between Ahab and Jehoshaphat to fight against the Arameans for control of Ramoth-gilead. Teaching Points The Danger of Unequal AlliancesJehoshaphat's alliance with Ahab serves as a cautionary tale about forming partnerships with those who do not share the same faith values. Believers should seek God's guidance before entering into alliances that may compromise their spiritual integrity. The Importance of Seeking God's CounselBefore making significant decisions, it is crucial to seek God's wisdom and guidance. Jehoshaphat's later request for a prophet of the Lord ( 1 Kings 22:5) highlights the importance of divine counsel. Unity Among BelieversWhile Jehoshaphat's response to Ahab emphasizes unity, it also reminds us that true unity should be grounded in shared faith and obedience to God, rather than mere political or social convenience. The Consequences of CompromiseCompromising with ungodly influences can lead to negative consequences, as seen in the eventual outcome of the battle. Believers are called to stand firm in their convictions. Bible Study Questions 1. What can we learn from Jehoshaphat's initial willingness to ally with Ahab, and how does this apply to our relationships today? 2. How does the account of Jehoshaphat and Ahab challenge us to consider the influences in our lives and their alignment with our faith? 3. In what ways can we ensure that our decisions are guided by God's wisdom, as Jehoshaphat sought to do later in the chapter? 4. How does the concept of being "unequally yoked" apply to modern-day partnerships, whether in business, friendships, or marriage? 5. Reflect on a time when you faced a decision about forming an alliance or partnership. How did your faith influence your decision-making process? Connections to Other Scriptures 2 Chronicles 18This chapter provides a parallel account of the events in 1 Kings 22, offering additional details about the alliance and the subsequent battle. Proverbs 13:20This verse warns about the influence of companions, which can be related to Jehoshaphat's decision to ally with Ahab. 2 Corinthians 6:14This New Testament passage advises against being unequally yoked with unbelievers, which can be applied to Jehoshaphat's alliance with Ahab. 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 Battle, Fight, Gilead, Horses, Jehoshaphat, Jehosh'aphat, Ramoth, Ramothgilead, Ramoth-gilead, Replied, War, WiltDictionary of Bible Themes 1 Kings 22:4 5424 nationalism 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 22:4 NIV1 Kings 22:4 NLT1 Kings 22:4 ESV1 Kings 22:4 NASB1 Kings 22:4 KJV
1 Kings 22:4 Commentaries
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