Micaiah in Fausset's Bible Dictionary

MICAIAH or MICHAIAH. Son of Imlah (1 Kings 22:8). Consulted by Ahab at Jehoshaphat's request when undertaking the joint expedition against Ramoth Gilead, which Benhadad had engaged to restore (1 Kings 20:34). The 400 prophets whom Ahab gathered together to "inquire the word of Jehovah" (1 Kings 22:5) were prophets of Jeroboam's symbolic calf worship of Jehovah not of Baal. (See JEROBOAM.) Jehoshaphat begged for some "prophet of Jehovah besides," unconnected with the calf symbolism forbidden by the second commandment. Ahab mentioned Micaiah, adding "I hate him, for he doth not prophesy good concerning me but evil" (compare 1 Kings 21:20; Jeremiah 36:28). Ahab had Micaiah already in prison, as 1 Kings 22:26 implies, "carry him back ... prison." Josephus (Ant. 8:15, sec. 6) says that it was Micaiah who predicted ("in the word of Jehovah," Haggai 1:13) death by a lion to the neighbor who would not smite him, and who, disguised with ashes, under the parable of one letting go a prisoner entrusted to him made Ahab in his hour of triumph, when the mortification would be the greater, condemn himself out of his own mouth, to lose his life for letting Benhadad escape (1 Kings 20:35- 43). Zedekiah, one of the 400, at the gate of Samaria where the two kings sat in state, symbolically putting horns or iron spikes on his head, foretold the transfer of Ephraim's blessing (Deuteronomy 33:17) to Ahab; "with the horns of the buffalo (or wild ox, reem) he shall push the people."...