◄ 1 Kings 22:2 ►
However, in the third year, Jehoshaphat king of Judah went down to visit the king of Israel,
Study Bible
However, in the third year,

However, in the third year of peace between Israel and Syria, attention turned again to Ramoth-gilead. Syria still held the city despite Ben-hadad’s earlier promise to restore Israelite cities.

2Ki 18:1 In the third year of the reign of Hoshea son of Elah…
1Ki 15:2 and he reigned in Jerusalem three years.…

Jehoshaphat king of Judah

Jehoshaphat ruled Judah with a general commitment to the worship of the Lord and maintained peaceful relations with Israel.

2Ch 18:1 Now Jehoshaphat had an abundance of riches and honor,…
2Ch 17:3 Now the LORD was with Jehoshaphat because he walked…

went down to visit

Ahab at Samaria. The journey from Jerusalem descended from Judah’s highlands into the northern kingdom and marked a diplomatic visit between the two kings.

2Ch 18:2 And some years later he went down to visit Ahab…
2Ki 8:29 So King Joram returned to Jezreel to recover…

the king of Israel,

Ahab, whose rule was marked by Baal worship and resistance to the Lord’s prophets. His meeting with Jehoshaphat led to an alliance that would soon involve both kingdoms in the campaign against Syria.

2Ch 18:3 Ahab king of Israel asked Jehoshaphat, “Will you go with me…
1Ki 16:30 However, Ahab son of Omri did evil in the sight…

Persons / Places / Events
1. Jehoshaphat
The king of Judah, known for his efforts to follow the ways of the Lord and for his reforms to strengthen the spiritual and military state of Judah. His visit to the king of Israel marks a significant political and spiritual event.

2. King of Israel
At this time, the king of Israel is Ahab, known for his idolatry and opposition to the prophets of the Lord. His reign is marked by conflict with the prophets and alliances that often lead Israel away from God.

3. Judah
The southern kingdom, distinct from Israel, often more faithful to the worship of Yahweh, though not without its own struggles with idolatry and disobedience.

4. Israel
The northern kingdom, frequently led by kings who did not follow the ways of the Lord, often engaging in idolatry and political alliances that compromised their faith.

5. The Third Year
This time marker indicates a period of relative peace between Israel and Judah, setting the stage for Jehoshaphat's visit and the subsequent events.
Teaching Points
The Danger of Unequal Alliances
Jehoshaphat's visit to Ahab serves as a cautionary tale about forming alliances with those who do not share a commitment to God. Believers should be discerning in their relationships and partnerships.

The Influence of Leadership
The contrasting leadership styles of Jehoshaphat and Ahab highlight the impact leaders have on their nations' spiritual health. Godly leadership can lead to blessings, while ungodly leadership can lead to downfall.

Seeking God's Guidance
Before making significant decisions or alliances, it is crucial to seek God's guidance. Jehoshaphat's later insistence on consulting a prophet of the Lord (1 Kings 22:5) underscores the importance of divine counsel.

The Consequences of Compromise
Compromising one's values for political or social gain can lead to spiritual decline. Jehoshaphat's alliance with Ahab ultimately brought negative consequences for Judah.
Bible Study Questions
1. What can we learn from Jehoshaphat's decision to visit Ahab about the importance of choosing our alliances wisely?

2. How does the relationship between Jehoshaphat and Ahab illustrate the potential pitfalls of compromising one's faith for political or social reasons?

3. In what ways does the leadership of Jehoshaphat and Ahab affect their respective kingdoms, and what lessons can we draw for leadership today?

4. How does Jehoshaphat's later insistence on seeking a prophet of the Lord (1 Kings 22:5) inform our understanding of the importance of seeking God's guidance in decision-making?

5. Reflect on a time when you faced a decision about forming an alliance or partnership. How can the lessons from Jehoshaphat's visit to Ahab guide you in future decisions?
Connections to Other Scriptures
2 Chronicles 18
This chapter provides a parallel account of Jehoshaphat's visit to Ahab, offering additional details about their alliance and the subsequent battle at Ramoth-gilead.

1 Kings 16:30-33
These verses describe Ahab's reign and his marriage to Jezebel, highlighting the idolatry and evil practices that characterized his rule, providing context for Jehoshaphat's visit.

2 Chronicles 17:3-6
These verses describe Jehoshaphat's faithfulness to God and his reforms in Judah, contrasting with Ahab's idolatry and setting the stage for the tension in their alliance.
Sermons
Bad CompanyJ.A. Macdonald 1 Kings 22:1-8
Crime Brings its Own PunishmentJ. Urquhart 1 Kings 22:1-28
Character of JehoshaphatR. S. Candlish, D. D.1 Kings 22:2-50
The Character of AhabR. S. Candlish, D. D.1 Kings 22:2-50
People
Ahab, Ahaziah, Amon, Aram, Asa, Azubah, Chenaanah, David, Geber, Imlah, Jehoram, Jehoshaphat, Jeroboam, Joash, Micah, Micaiah, Nebat, Ophir, Shilhi, Sodomites, Syrians, Tarshish, Tharshish, Zedekiah
Places
Edom, Ezion-geber, Jerusalem, Ophir, Ramoth-gilead, Samaria, Syria, Tarshish
Topics
Jehoshaphat, Jehosh'aphat, Judah, Pass, Third
Dictionary of Bible Themes
1 Kings 22:2

     5976   visiting

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 Scripture

Ahab 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

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