Matthew Henry on 1 Kings 22:29-40
The matter in contest between God's prophet and Ahab's prophets is here soon determined, and it is made to appear which was in the right. Here,
I. The two kings march with their forces to Ramoth-Gilead, Kg1 22:29. That the king of Israel, who hated God's prophet, should so far disbelieve his admonition as to persist in his resolution, notwithstanding, is not strange; but that Jehoshaphat, that pious prince, who had desired to enquire by a prophet of the Lord, as disrelishing and discrediting Ahab's prophets, should yet proceed, after so fair a warning, is matter of astonishment. But by the easiness of his temper he was carried away with the delusion (as Barnabas was with the dissimulation, G…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on 1 Kings 22:29
went up to Ramoth-gilead--The king of Israel, bent on this expedition, marched, accompanied by his ally, with all his forces to the siege; but on approaching the scene of action, his courage failed, and, hoping to evade the force of Micaiah's prophecy by a secret stratagem, he assumed the uniform of a subaltern, while he advised Jehoshaphat to fight in his royal attire. The Syrian king, with a view either to put the speediest end to the war, or perhaps to wipe out the stain of his own humiliation (Kg1 20:31), had given special instructions to his generals to single out Ahab, and to take or kill him, as the author of the war. The officers at first directed their assault on Jehoshaphat, but, b…
Read the whole note in the consoleAdam Clarke on 1 Kings 22:39
Ivory house - A royal palace which he built in Samaria, decorated with ivory, and hence called the ivory house. Amos the prophet speaks against this luxury, Amo 3:15.
John Gill on 1 Kings 22:39
Now the rest of the acts of Ahab, and all that he did, and the ivory house which he made,.... Which, being a very curious and extraordinary thing, is particularly mentioned; though perhaps it might not be made wholly of ivory, but inlaid with it; we read of ivory houses in Amos 3:15,
and all the cities that he built, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel? in which the acts of his predecessors were recorded, see 1 Kings 14:19 not the Scripture book of Chronicles, for there none of these things are related.
