THE ATHEIST'S COMPLAINT:
PART 2 – Is lying wrong? Some verses seem to approve lying, while others seem to condemn it. This week we will look at 1 Kings 22:21-23 and 2 Kings 8:10. Is there a contradiction?

RESPONSE:
In 1 Kings 22:20-23, the Lord sought someone to convince wicked Ahab to go up to Ramoth Gilead, where he would be destroyed. This spirit said one thing, another spirit another, until one came saying that he would go and be a “lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.” The Lord permitted this spirit to go forth and to do what had been said, and thus the prophet Micaiah said to Ahab, “The LORD has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these prophets of yours, and the LORD has declared disaster against you.”

This is indeed a perplexing text, though perhaps by comparison with other texts we might see what the Lord has done. In Job 1-2, God allowed Satan to afflict Job, destroying all his possessions, his family and his health. It was not the Lord’s idea, but Satan’s, however, God allowed it to be so. What was Job’s deduction? “The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.” (1:21). In 1 Chronicles 21:1, we’re told that Satan provoked David to number Israel. In a parallel text (2 Samuel 24:1), it is said that the Lord moved David to do so. The Lord is sometimes described in Scripture as doing what He permits to occur (ie. Exodus 7:13; Psalm 105:25).

Did the Lord put a lying spirit in the prophets of Ahab? No, he permitted it to be so. Did He use the results of this lying spirit for His own purpose? Yes, the Lord always works out His own will by the use of man’s and various spirits actions. If the Lord allowing this lying spirit to affect the prophets of Ahab is proof of the Lord lying, then equally, the Lord allowing Satan to destroy Job’s goods is proof that the Lord did so.

In 2 Kings 8:10, Elisha commanded Hazael, servant of the king of Syria, Ben-Hadad, to tell his master that he (the king) would recover from the disease which plagued him. Yet in the same breath, the prophet told Hazael that the LORD had revealed that Ben-Hadad would die. Did Elisha lie? The questioner needs to read the context. Ben-Hadad did not die because of the disease which he had. He would have recovered from it. However, Hazael killed the king, and reigned in his place. He did die, as the Lord revealed to Elisha, but not from the disease.

There is no contradiction.

This article is a response to Skeptic's Annotated Bible

---