Today, I am reading and commenting on  1 Kings 20-22.

Since I have no idea where I am going with today’s blog, I will start by noting that there appear to have been four prophets of God mentioned in this passage: two anonymously, and two by name.  First, we have the anonymous prophet who offered King Ahab the predictions of his victories over Ben-Haddad.  Then we have the anonymous prophet who condemned King Ahab for entering into a treaty with Ben-Haddad after defeating him instead of killing him.   Followed by Elijah re-appearing and condemning King Ahab for allowing his wife, Jezebel, to have Naboth killed so that King Ahab could claim Naboth’s vineyard.  Finally, we have Micaiah, who predicted King Ahab’s death in battle against the king of Aram.

The thing that strikes me about the story involving Micaiah is the way in which King Ahab attempts to substitute prophets of Baal for a prophet of God…and how King Jehoshaphat completely dismisses them as prophets of God.   Further, the prophets of Baal presented themselves as prophets of God, or, more precisely as interchangeable with prophets of God.  From reading this, it seems to me that the worshipers of Baal claimed that Baal was just another name for Yahweh.  It would follow from this that they claimed that their worship of Baal was just another way of worshiping Yahweh.  When pushed on the issue, people like King Ahab knew full well that Baal was not the same as Yahweh, but he liked what the prophets of Baal told him better than what the prophets of Yahweh told him.  Perhaps of most interest, we learn from this passage that the prophets of Baal appear to have considered themselves to be worshiping the same God as the prophets of Yahweh.  Also of note, the prophets of Baal outnumbered the prophets of Yahweh.  In the same way today, there are many who believe they are teaching about God, who are in fact calling on people to worship false gods.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.