1 Kings 22:28

22:15-28 The greatest kindness we can do to one that is going in a dangerous way, is, to tell him of his danger. To leave the hardened criminal without excuse, and to give a useful lesson to others, Micaiah related his vision. This matter is represented after the manner of men: we are not to imagine that God is ever put upon new counsels; or that he needs to consult with angels, or any creature, about the methods he should take; or that he is the author of sin, or the cause of any man's telling or believing a lie. Micaiah returned not the blow of Zedekiah, yet, since he boasted of the Spirit, as those commonly do that know least of the Holy Spirit's operations, the true prophet left him to be convinced of his error by the event. Those that will not have their mistakes set right in time, by the word of God, will be undeceived, when it is too late, by the judgments of God. We should be ashamed of what we call trials, were we to consider what the servants of God have endured. Yet it will be well, if freedom from trouble prove not more hurtful to us; we are more easily allured and bribed into unfaithfulness and conformity to the world, than driven to them.

And Micaiah said, if thou return at all in peace, the Lord hath not spoken by me,.... I am content to be reckoned a false prophet, and to be punished as such: and, he said, hearken, O people, everyone of you; he called aloud unto them to observe what he had predicted, and mark the issue of it, and to bear testimony for him, or against him, as things should be.

1 Kings 22:28 . Micaiah said, If thou return, &c., the Lord hath not spoken by me — Let me incur the reproach and punishment of a false prophet; and he — Namely, Micaiah; said, Hearken, O people, every one of you — Knowing in whom he had believed, and being fully assured of the truth of his prophecy, he calls all the people to be witnesses of it.

28 . Hearken, O people, every one of you ] R.V. Hear, ye peoples, all of you . This sentence is omitted by the LXX. as are also the words ‘And he said’ which precede. In consequence it has been thought that they are no part of the original text, but a marginal note of a later time, which some one put down to shew that the Micaiah here spoken of was the same with Micah the author of the prophecy. For that prophecy ( Micah 1:2 ) opens with this same sentence, and beside this, in 2 Chronicles 18:14 the name Micah occurs in the text for Micaiah. No one however thinks that Micah the prophet lived in Ahab’s days. The R.V. however very properly translates in both places by the same English. For it may be that Micah at his opening took up the burden with which the Scripture record of Micaiah closes. The plural rendered ‘peoples’ is very frequent in the O. Test., and the R.V. has introduced this rendering commonly. It signifies sometimes the various nations of the world at large, but often, as here, the tribes of Israel. Cf. Genesis 49:10 ; Deuteronomy 32:8 , &c.

Feed him with bread of affliction ... - Micaiah is to be once more put in prison, but, in order to punish him for his uncomplying spirit, upon a poorer and scantier diet than he had been previously allowed. This is to continue until Ahab returns in peace. Ahab introduces this expression purposely, in order to show his entire disbelief of Micaiah's prophecy.

Verse 28. - And Micaiah said, If thou return at all in peace, the Lord hath not spoken by me. And he said, Hearken, O people [Rather, O nations . Audite, populi crones , Vulgate. He appeals, so to speak, to the world], every one of you. [It is a curious circumstance that these same words are found at the beginning of the prophecy of Micah ( 1 Kings 1:2 ). The coincidence may be purely accidental, or the words may have been borrowed by the prophet, not, indeed, from our historian, but from some record, the substance of which is embodied in this history. Micah lived about a century and a half after Micaiah; about a century before the Book of Kings was given to the world. 1 Kings 22:28

In his consciousness of the divine truth of his announcement, Micah left the king with these words: "If thou come back safe, Jehovah has not spoken by me. Hear it, all ye nations." עמּים does not mean people, for it is only in the antique language of the Pentateuch that the word has this meaning, but nations; and Micah thereby invokes not only the persons present as witnesses of the truth of his words, but the nations generally, Israel and the surrounding nations, who were to discern the truth of his word from the events which would follow (see at Micah 1:2 ).