Texts in Conversation
1 Kings 22 places Micaiah inside a heavenly court like El's in the Baal Cycle, giving his warning to Ahab the authority of a decision made in heaven.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
KTU 1.2 I:20
Cuneiform Texts from Ugarit
Ancient Near East
Yamm sent messengers, Ruler Nahar an embassy. With great rejoicing they flew heavenwards their nostrils flaring. Depart, divine assistants, do not stay! Indeed, set your faces towards the convocation of the Council, towards the divine mountain. At the feet of El you shall fall you shall honour the convocation of the Council! Standing upright, you shall then speak, declaring your message. And you shall say to Bull your father El, declare to the convocation of the Council: Message of Yamm, your master, of your lord, Ruler Nahar: Give up the god whom you obey, the one whom you obey, Tempest! Give up Baal and his retinue, the Son of Dagan, whose gold I shall seize! The divine assistants depart; they do not delay. Then they set their faces towards the divine mountain, towards the convocation of the Council. Now the gods were sitting to eat, the sons of the Holy One to dine. Baal stood by El. Lo, the gods saw them,
1 Kings 22:19
Hebrew Bible
19 Micaiah said, “That being the case, listen to the Lord’s message. I saw the Lord sitting on his throne, with all the heavenly assembly standing beside him on his right and on his left. 20 The Lord said, ‘Who will deceive Ahab, so he will attack Ramoth Gilead and die there?’ One said this and another that. 21 Then a spirit stepped forward and stood before the Lord. He said, ‘I will deceive him.’ 22 The Lord asked him, ‘How?’ He replied, ‘I will go out and be a lying spirit in the mouths of all his prophets.’ The Lord said, ‘Deceive and overpower him. Go out and do as you have proposed.’ 23 So now, look, the Lord has placed a lying spirit in the mouths of all these prophets of yours, but the Lord has decreed disaster for you.”
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Notes and References
“... Although the Psalms largely consist of prayer and praise, they also contain classic
type-scenes attested in the Ugaritic texts. One well-known scene in both the Psalms and
the Ugaritic texts is the divine council. In KTU 1.2 I ( SAC 111–13), El presides over this
meeting of “the Assembly in council,” as it is called, when the messengers of the god
Sea arrive and demand that the council surrender the god Baal. El then makes his judg-
ment and decides to meet their demands. Th e Psalms contain rather dramatic exam-
ples of a divine assembly scene in Psalms 82 and 89 (esp. vv. 5–7; cf. 1 Kgs. 22:19; Isa. 6;
Dan. 7; cf. “the seat of the gods” in Ezek. 28:2). ...”
Smith, Mark S.
"Canaanite Backgrounds to the Psalms" in Brown, William P. (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of the Psalms
(p. 48) Oxford University Press, 2014
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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