Day 180 (1 Kings 22, 2 Chronicles 18) - Year 8

Tara-Leigh Cobble· Host0:00

[upbeat music] Hey, Bible readers. I'm Tara-Leigh Cobble, and I'm your host for The Bible Recap. Today we finish 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 and his family, but then showed mercy on Ahab when he repented. When we open 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 asks if 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 1 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,