Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for the Bible Recap.

Today we finished our 16th book of the Bible. Congratulations. We spent some time in the Northern

Kingdom of Israel and the Southern Kingdom of Judah today, but we start out in the north with wicked king Ahab.

Yesterday, God sent Elijah to pronounce death on Ahab at his family, but then showed mercy on

Ahab when he repented.

When we opened today, we see the kings of the two kingdoms make an alliance.

They want to capture Ramoth Gilead, a city that was taken by Syria. Before they put a

strategy together, Jehoshaphat asked that they can seek God for counsel. Smart move. Ahab brings in

400 prophets, and they all say God will grant them success. Then Jehoshaphat is like,

but are there any other prophets we can ask? They just asked 400 prophets who were all in agreement, so why does he need another opinion?

If 400 out of 400 dentists agree on the best toothpaste, I'm not looking for the opinion of 401.

I'm just buying it.

But the thing is, and this is only kind of obvious in the original text, these prophets weren't inquiring of Yahweh. They were almost

certainly the same 400 prophets of Asherah mentioned in 1st Kings 18. Remember how Ahab had 450 prophets of

Baal and 400 prophets of Asherah when Elijah called him up to the showdown on Mount Carmel?

But only the 450 prophets of Baal showed up. Elijah killed them,

but we never heard anything from the 400 prophets of Asherah. So these are almost certainly those

prophets. Wicked King Ahab, even though he repented under the consequence of death, doesn't seem to

fully grasp the concept of following Yahweh. And wise King Jehoshaphat seems to be discerning about that,

so he wants a godly opinion.

Ahab says there's a prophet named Micaiah, but he doesn't like Micaiah,

because he never says what he wants to hear.

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