“Then Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah came near and struck Micaiah on the cheek and said, ‘How did the Spirit of the LORD pass from me to speak to you?'” (1 Kings 22:24).
In this extraordinary passage, we see a profile of a true prophet and a prefiguration of our Messiah. Although King Ahab preferred to have his ears tickled by four hundred false prophets (v. 6), King Jehoshaphat insisted a true prophet of the LORD be brought before them (vv. 7-9). When the prophet Micaiah spoke God’s uncomfortable truth to King Ahab, one of his servants struck him in the face and began to mock him.
And so it is the case for all God’s true prophets. Like Micaiah, Jeremiah, the prophet, was hated, rejected, and despised (Jer 11:18-19). This repeated pattern served as a sign for Israel’s Messiah, who would also be rejected (Isa 53:3) and led like a lamb to the slaughter (Isa 53:7-8), not for his sins, but for ours (Isa 53:6). So it comes as little surprise that Israel’s leaders did not lovingly embrace Yeshua, for Yeshua had to carry the calling card of every true prophet of Israel. And meditating upon Micaiah and Jeremiah’s ill-treatment, we see a prefiguration of our Prophet-Savior-Messiah who, just like them, was mocked, rejected, and despised.
“Now the men who were holding Jesus in custody were mocking Him and beating Him, and they blindfolded Him and were asking Him, saying, ‘Prophesy, who is the one who hit You?’ And they were saying many other things against Him, blaspheming” (Luke 22:63-65).
