PART SECOND.-The Lord's Gracious Opposition, 1 Kings xxii. 7-22.

We come now to consider the Lord's opposition to Ahab's purpose; for God did not yet leave this infatuated man to himself. He interposed to warn him by the mouth of a faithful servant.

The king of Israel is satisfied with the oracular answer of the prophets. Not so, however, the king of Judah. He suspects something wrong, missing probably among the four hundred some one of whom he has heard. Hence his question (ver. 7), “Is there not here a prophet of the Lord besides, that we might inquire of him?" And hence the pains he takes to overcome Ahab's prejudice against Micaiah (ver. 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. And Jehoshaphat said, Let not the king say so." The king of Judah, it is true, does not venture to speak very boldly; for that he is too timid, or too temporizing. Still he persuades Ahab, and so far prevails as to have Micaiah summoned from the prison in which, for his freedom of speech, he had been confined. "Then the king of Israel called an officer, and said, Hasten hither Micaiah the son of Imlah."

This Micaiah is supposed to be the prophet who reproved Ahab at first on the occasion of his compromise with the Syrian king; and it was probably his boldness on that occasion that caused him to be imprisoned. For that he was at this time a prisoner, seems to be plainly implied, both in the king's manner

of summoning him, and in the terms in which afterwards he is remanded to confinement (ver. 26, 27). To please, then, his over-scrupulous ally, Ahab calls Micaiah into his councils. But mark in what spirit ; not willingly, but reluctantly; not out of a candid desire to hear him, but with a fixed prejudice and predetermination against him.

And is not this the spirit in which good advice is too often asked, and the word of God consulted, when it is too late, when a man's mind is already made up? You go when your conscience will not otherwise let you alone, or when the remonstrances of pious friends trouble you; you go to some man of God, to God himself, by prayer and the searching of his word :-for what? what is it that you want?-light for duty, however self-denying?—or light to justify your doubtful course? Alas! alas! it may be all a mere form, gone through to satisfy some scruple of a friend. Or it may be a desperate effort to catch at any semblance of Divine permission for what you have, at any rate, set your heart on doing.

Look at Ahab, for example. See how he is occupied while his messengers are gone for Micaiah. Instead of preparing himself to judge impartially, he is still lending an itching ear to the prophets of smooth things, one of whom goes so far as to mock and mimic the symbolic mode of prophecy adopted by the true prophets, and to represent, by the similitude of two pushing horns, the supposed successes of the allied kings. "And the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat the king of Judah sat each on his throne, having put on their robes, in a void place in the entrance of the gate of Samaria; and all the prophets prophesied before them.

And Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah made him horns of iron and he said, Thus saith the Lord, With these shalt thou push the Syrians, until thou have consumed them. And all the prophets prophesied so, saying, Go up to Ramoth-gilead, and prosper: for the Lord shall deliver it into the king's hand" (ver. 10, 11, 12). Thus Ahab is confirmed in his purpose, and is still farther prejudiced against Micaiah.

Meantime that man of God is called. He is advised, in friendship perhaps, to accommodate himself to the humour of the king, and to fall in with the rest of the prophets (ver. 13): "And the messenger that was gone to call Micaiah spake unto him, saying, Behold now, the words of the prophets declare good unto the king with one mouth: let thy word, I pray thee, be like the word of one of them, and speak that which is good." His answer is noble (ver. 14): "As the Lord liveth, what the Lord saith unto me, that will I speak." And full nobly does he redeem his pledge.

He stands before the princes, undaunted by their royal state. First of all, he rebukes the prejudice of Ahab, by seeming to flatter it (ver. 15): "So he came to the king. And the king said unto him, Micaiah, shall we go against Ramoth-gilead to battle, or shall we forbear? And he answered him, Go, and prosper : for the Lord shall deliver it into the hand of the king." He this in bitter irony and sarcasm, says taunting the king, and using the very words of the prophets to whom he delighted to listen. What is the use of consulting me? They have given you already the advice and the promise which you desire. Doubtless they are to be believed, and you have resolved to believe them. They bid you go; yes! go by all

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means. They assure you of success; certainly they must know best.

The irony conveys a cutting reproof, and a merited one; and with this the holy prophet might leave the prince to believe his own and his flatterers' lie.

Micaiah, therefore,
Ahab discerns the

But the mercy of God and the sin of Ahab are to be yet more signally brought out. when again adjured, speaks plainly. sharp and keen ridicule of the prophet's first address, and feels the rebuke. He presses him more closely— "How many times shall I adjure thee that thou tell me nothing but that which is true in the name of the Lord?" (ver. 16.) In reply, the prophet first describes what he saw in vision-a scene of desolation —the king lost, and the people dispersed the shepherd smitten, and the sheep scattered;-an expression which became proverbial and prophetic of another scene when another shepherd was smitten-" And he said, I saw all Israel scattered upon the hills, as sheep that have not a shepherd: and the Lord said, These have not a master: let them return every man to his house in peace" (ver. 17). And then, still farther to awaken and alarm the king, the prophet, by a striking revelation of what is at that moment passing in the unseen world, denounces the falsehood of his other advisers, and unveils to him the crisis of his fate" And he said, Hear thou therefore the word of the Lord: I saw the Lord sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing by him on his right hand and on his left. And the Lord said, Who shall persuade Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead? And one said on this manner, and another said on that manner. And there came forth

a spirit, and stood before the Lord, and said, I will persuade him. And the Lord said unto him, Wherewith? And he said, I will go forth, and I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And he said, Thou shalt persuade him, and prevail also: go forth, and do so. Now therefore, behold, the Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets, and the Lord hath spoken evil concerning thee" (ver. 19, 23).

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Thus Micaiah describes the Lord sitting on the throne of judgment, and in judgment sending forth a spirit of delusion to lure and decoy Ahab to his fall; not that God ever seeks and desires the destruction of his creatures, or influences them by any necessity to be destroyed; but that, both as the natural consequence, and also as the just punishment of their verseness, when he sees them, in spite of all remonstrances, enamoured of destruction, he suffers them to destroy themselves. He leaves them, when willing to be deceived, at the mercy of the great deceiver. He causes blindness to fall on those who will not see, and hardness of heart on those who will not believe; and when men are ready to grasp a lie, sends a lying spirit to put a lie in their right hands.

And yet even to the last, in judgment God remembers mercy. The very scene of judgment which the prophet discloses does not imply any fixed and irrevocable design of wrath against Ahab ;—with such a design, indeed, the disclosure of the scene would be incompatible and inconsistent. We speak of the revealed, not the secret will of God-with the revealed will alone Ahab had to do. And accordingly this scene, while it indicates a fearful trial, appointed in just wrath-God himself sending forth a lying spirit—indi