1 Kings 22:6-8 -

So the king of Israel brought together the prophets—about four hundred men—and asked them, “Shall I go to war against Ramoth Gilead, or shall I refrain?”  ”Go,” they answered, “for the Lord will give it into the king’s hand.”

But Jehoshaphat asked, “Is there not a prophet of the Lord here whom we can inquire of?”    The king of Israel answered Jehoshaphat, “There is still one man through whom we can inquire of the Lord, but I hate him because he never prophesies anything good about me, but always bad. He is Micaiah son of Imlah.”

“The king should not say that,” Jehoshaphat replied.

This is a lesson about hearing from God and knowing God’s will for our lives.  This story occurs during a period when the Israelites were divided into two kingdoms – a northern kingdom, usually called “Israel” or “Samaria” (Samaria was the capital), and a southern kingdom, called “Judah,” headquartered in Jerusalem.  Sometimes the northern and southern kingdoms were at war, and sometimes they were allies, as in this chapter.  The kings of Judah, the southern kingdom, were physical descendants of David, and a few of them (not the majority) were righteous, godly men.  Jehoshaphat was one of their most godly kings.  The kings of Samaria, the northern kingdom, were all bad, except for a mixed character named Jehu.  Ahab was one of their worst kings.  Jehoshaphat apparently felt intimidated by Ahab, and was willing to do almost anything to forge a deeper alliance between their kingdoms.  During a summit between the two leaders, Ahab proposes that they launch a war against  Aram (a people group from modern-day Syria and Iraq), to retake part of Israel’s territory (Ramoth-Gilead in modern-day Jordan) that the army of Aram had occupied.

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1 Kings 12:12-15 – Three days later Jeroboam and all the people returned to Rehoboam, as the king had said, “Come back to me in three days.” The king answered the people harshly. Rejecting the advice given him by the elders, he followed the advice of the young men and said, “My father made your yoke heavy; I will make it even heavier.  My father scourged you with whips; I will scourge you with scorpions.” So the king did not listen to the people, for this turn of events was from the Lord, to fulfill the word the Lord had spoken to Jeroboam son of Nebat through Ahijah the Shilonite.

Rehoboam made an egotistical decision that ended the unity of the Israelite nation for hundreds of years.  As a result, God’s chosen nation splintered into a northern kingdom called “Samaria” or “Israel,” and a southern kingdom called “Judah,” which actually included the tribes of Judah, Benjamin, Levi, and Simeon.  The Lord foretold this catastrophe, however, years before through a prophet.  It was a punishment for the disobedience of the leaders and the people during the later years of Solomon’s reign.

“Three days later” is a common occurrence in Scripture.  Prophetically, it points to God’s eternal time, moments in God’s Project of Salvation.

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1 Kings 3:26-27 – “The woman whose son was alive was filled with compassion for her son and said to the king, ‘Please, my lord, give her the living baby!  Don’t kill him!’”  But the other said, ‘Neither I nor you shall have him. Cut him in two!; Then the king gave his ruling: ‘Give the living baby to the first woman. Do not kill him; she is his mother…’”

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1 Kings 1:38-40 - “So Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet, Benaiah son of Jehoiada, the Kerethites and the Pelethites went down and put Solomon on King David’s mule and escorted him to Gihon.  Zadok the priest took the horn of oil from the sacred tent and anointed Solomon. Then they sounded the trumpet and all the people shouted, ‘Long live King Solomon!’  And all the people went up after him, playing flutes and rejoicing greatly, so that the ground shook with the sound.”  

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1 Kings 10:1-9 – “When the queen of Sheba heard about the fame of Solomon and his relation to the name of the Lord, she came to test him with hard questions.  Arriving at Jerusalem with a very great caravan-with camels carrying spices, large quantities of gold, and precious stones-she came to Solomon and talked with him about all that she had on her mind.  Solomon answered all her questions; nothing was too hard for the king to explain to her.  When the queen of Sheba saw all the wisdom of Solomon and the palace he had built,  the food on his table, the seating of his officials, the attending servants in their robes, his cupbearers, and the burnt offerings he made at the temple of the Lord, she was overwhelmed…”

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1 Kings 18:5-6 - ”Ahab had said to Obadiah, ‘Go through the land to all the springs and valleys. Maybe we can find some grass to keep the horses and mules alive so we will not have to kill any of our animals.’ So they divided the land they were to cover, Ahab going in one direction, and Obadiah in another.”

This was a dark time in Israel’s history. Through the prophet Elijah the Lord had declared that there would be a drought in the land. No rain nor dew would fall. The result was a nationwide famine.

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