1 Kings 22:29-40

Ahab Killed at Ramoth Gilead

29 So the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat king of Judah went up to Ramoth Gilead.

30 The king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, “I will enter the battle in disguise, but you wear your royal robes.” So the king of Israel disguised himself and went into battle.

31 Now the king of Aram had ordered his thirty-two chariot commanders, “Do not fight with anyone, small or great, except the king of Israel.”

32 When the chariot commanders saw Jehoshaphat, they thought, “Surely this is the king of Israel.” So they turned to attack him, but when Jehoshaphat cried out,

33 the chariot commanders saw that he was not the king of Israel and stopped pursuing him.

34 But someone drew his bow at random and hit the king of Israel between the sections of his armor. The king told his chariot driver, “Wheel around and get me out of the fighting. I’ve been wounded.”

35 All day long the battle raged, and the king was propped up in his chariot facing the Arameans. The blood from his wound ran onto the floor of the chariot, and that evening he died.

36 As the sun was setting, a cry spread through the army: “Every man to his town. Every man to his land!”

37 So the king died and was brought to Samaria, and they buried him there.

38 They washed the chariot at a pool in Samaria (where the prostitutes bathed),^[a] and the dogs licked up his blood, as the word of the LORD had declared.

39 As for the other events of Ahab’s reign, including all he did, the palace he built and adorned with ivory, and the cities he fortified, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Israel?

40 Ahab rested with his ancestors. And Ahaziah his son succeeded him as king.

1 Kings 22:29-40 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO 1 KINGS 22

This chapter relates, that after three years' peace with the king of Syria, Ahab was inclined to go to war with him, to take Ramothgilead out of his hands; and he drew in Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, to join him in it, 1Ki 22:1-4, but before they went into it, they took advice, Ahab of his four hundred prophets, which Jehoshaphat not being satisfied with, a true prophet of the Lord, Micahah, was sent for, 1Ki 22:5-14 who, when he came, jeered Ahab with what his prophets had said to him; intimated that he should be killed, and explained it to him how he came to be deceived by his prophets, 1Ki 22:15-23 upon which he was smitten on the cheek by Zedekiah, one of the false prophets, and imprisoned by the order of Ahab, 1Ki 22:24-28, after which the two kings went to the battle, and Jehoshaphat was in great danger of his life; but Ahab was wounded, and died, 1Ki 22:29-40, and the chapter is concluded with an account of the reign of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, 1Ki 22:41-50, and of Ahaziah king of Israel, 1Ki 22:51-53.

Cross References

• 1. S 1 Samuel 28:8; 2Ch 35:32
• 2. S Genesis 10:22; S 2 Samuel 10:19
• 3. S 2 Samuel 17:2
• 4. 2 Kings 9:24; 2 Chronicles 35:23
• 5. 2 Kings 14:12
• 6. S 1 Kings 21:19
• 7. 2 Chronicles 9:17; Psalms 45:8; Amos 3:15

Footnotes

• [a]. Or "Samaria and cleaned the weapons"