The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Kings — Section 529

for the vox Dei, but probably the working of their minds was this: "The king wishes it. Jehoshaphat assents to it. The people are set upon it, Wo should be going against common sense and our own interests to resist it." And so the king was a second time paid in his own coin. Those martial pr!!• phecies hn,d been minted in his own brain. He wished for lies and he had them. His own passions and pride were reflected, were echoed, in the voices of his four hundred soothsayers. It is the case of which both sacred and profane history supply so many examples, Homo vult decipi et decipiatur. It is thus God deals with deceivers still, He leaves them to be deceived, to be the prey of their own disordered fancies. It is notorious how men find in the Bible what they wish to find there • how all un- suspectingly they read their own meanings into the words of Scrip~e; how they interpret its injunctions by the rule of their own inclinations. '' He feedeth on ashes ; o, deceived heart hath turned him aside that he cannot deliver his soul nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand?" (Isa. xliv. 20). "Ephraim is joined'unta idols: let him o,lone" (Hosea iv. 17). 3. The silence of the Lord's prophets. Why was it, we cannot help asking here, why was it that there were no true prophets present, at this crisis in the history of Israel, to step forth and warn the king against this undertaking ? Why were the four hundred deceivers left to have their own way? We see here the fruit of perse• cution, the recompense of those fierce dragonnades which Jezebel bad mainto,ined o,gainst the prophetic order. Of the men who might have interposed to prevent this disastrous expedition, some were dead, others were banished; king and queen bo,d wickedly silenced them. They now reap the fruit of those repressive measures. Tbeu: curses come home to roost. Elijah might have saved king and country, but be is hiding from the wrath of Jezebel, or is withdrawn by God from the arena of history. Micaiah the son of Im.lab foresaw the end, but Ahab had imprisoned him, and could not brook to take bis o,dvice, and had persuaded himself that his admonitions were the outcome of personal enmity. It is true this prophet was not silent, but plainly foretold defeat and death; but Ahab was in a manner bound not to regard his warnings. He had told Jehoshaphat it would be so. It would look like cowardice to be influenced by hill vaticinations. And so he is left to the prophets of his choice : no hand is raised to stop him : he goes straight into the jaws of death, the victim of his own folly and cruelty and sin. II. The INSTRUMENTS of retribution were- I. The king whom Ahab had wickedly spared. We have already seen in what the sin of sparing the tyrant Ben.hadad consisted (p. 492). It is now for us to observe that this foolish and impious deed brought its own peculiar Nemesis. It was Ben-hadad himself who said, " Fight neither with small nor great, but with the king of Israel only." Ahab's ill-advised clemency procures his own destruction. With base natures, it only needs that we should put them under obligations which they cannot possibly discharge, in order to provoke their bitter enmity. But it is much more material to observe here that in Ben·hadad's conduct we may see a parable of the cruel revenge which a cherished sin will often take on those who have once conquered and then trilled with it. The devil that was cast out returns bringing with him seven other devils more wicked than himself (Matt. xii. 45). We are constantly as tender to the sins which tyrannized over us as was Ahab to Ben• hadad. Instead of slaying them-hewing them in pieces before the Lord-we leave the roots of bitterness in the heart's soil, and they sprin~ up !l'nd trouble us. It is like that peo,sant of whom we have all read, who found a viper m the field, benumbed with the winter's cold, and put the venomous beast into his bosom to warm it baok into life. The first use it made of its restored power was to wound and destroy its benefactor. How dearly have we often paid for our pleasant vices I 2. The Syrians who were once subjects of Iarael. It is well to remember here that these enemies who gave Aho.b his death-wound at Ro.moth were onoe under the !leel of Israel (2 Saw. viii. 6). No11 we see their relations reversed. Syrfa has now become the standing oppressor of the chosen people. We ho.ve o.lready pointed out some of the steps which led to this resul~. The sin of Solomon (see P: 228) o,?d the unfo.ithfulness of Asa alike were factors 1D the change. But the moat influeut1~ OB. xx.11. 1-53.l THE FIRST BOOK OF KINGS. 1.143