1 Kings 22:23

Now therefore, behold, th e Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth Of all these thy [Cf. ὁ οἷκος ὑμῶν , Matthew 23:38 ] prophets [This statement, especially to those who have taken the narrative literally, and who have seen in "the spirit" either one of the angels of God, or Satan himself, has presented almost insuperable difficulties. The main difficulty lies in the fact that the Almighty and All Holy is here made to give His sanction to deceit and lying, for the purpose of tempting Ahab to his death. We have precisely the same difficulty, though, if possible, more directly expressed in Ezekiel 14:9 : "If the prophet be deceived… I the Lord have deceived that prophet." Cf. Jeremiah 20:7 ; 1 Samuel 16:15 . But this difficulty vanishes if we remember that this is euthropopathic language, and is merely meant to convey that God had "taken the house of Israel in their own heart," because they were "estranged from Him through their idols" ( Ezekiel 14:5 ). Ahab wished to be guided by false prophets, and the justice of God decreed that he should be guided by them to his ruin. Sin is punished by sin. "God proves His holiness most of all by this, that He punishes evil by evil, and destroys it by itself" (Bähr). Ahab had chosen lying instead of truth: by lying—according to the lex talionis— he should be destroyed. The difficulty, in fact, is that of the permission of evil in the world; of the use of existent evil by God to accomplish His purposes of good], and the Lord [not I alone, 1 Samuel 16:18 ] hath spoken [ i.e; decreed] evil concerning thee.