This is an answer which can not be understood in print. It was evident, however, that Ahab was in no doubt as to its meaning, for the tone of the prophet was a tone of almost contemptuous irony. If King Ahab had taken Micaiah’s literal answer, he would have gone forth to the battle comforting himself with the thought that he was carrying out the will of Heaven; but he knew in his own soul that Micaiah was not uttering that which expressed the reality of the case. With anger the king said unto him: “How many times shall I adjure thee that thou tell me nothing but that which is true in the name of the Lord?”
Then Micaiah replied in symbolic language, the full meaning of which was vividly clear to the mind of Ahab; for, turning to Jehoshaphat, he said: “Did I not tell thee that he would prophesy no good concerning me, but evil?”
Thereupon Micaiah charged the whole band of prophets with being under the inspiration of a lying spirit, and thus he put a stigma upon their judgment and extracted from it every particle of dignity and authority.
But this was not to be borne, for Zedekiah went near and smote Micaiah on the cheek and taunted him as being the only prophet in Israel. Micaiah had to bear the sarcasm conveyed in the inquiry: “Which way went the Spirit of the Lord from me to speak unto thee?”
Micaiah, like a true prophet, leaves his judgment to the decision of time. He will not stoop to argue, or to exchange words either of anger or of controversy; he simply says that Zedekiah will one day see the meaning of the whole prophecy, and until that day controversy would be useless.
Micaiah had to pay for his intrepidity. He was carried unto Amon, the governor of the city, and to Joash, the king’s son, and was to be put in prison and fed with the bread of affliction and with the water of affliction until Ahab returned in peace.
Micaiah thus disappears from history. Of his fate we know nothing; but there can be no difficulty in forecasting it a cruel death. Micaiah knew well the meaning of the king’s message. It may be difficult for the commentator to explain the expression, “bread of affliction and water of affliction,” but Micaiah knew the full meaning of the terms, and yet, while their cruel sound was in his ears, he looked at the king and said: “If thou return at all in peace, the Lord hath not spoken by me.”
Micaiah also made his appeal to the people, and thus committed himself to the verdict of history, saying: “Hearken, O people, every one of you.”
See whether it is not a moment to be proud of when Micaiah turns away in the custody of his persecutors, having delivered his soul with a fearlessness that did not cower or blanche, even at the sight of death in its most ghastly form. Surely, it is due to history to recognize the fact that there have been men who have not counted their lives dear unto themselves when they were called upon to testify for truth and goodness.
The martyrs must never be forgotten.