That the LORD thy God may shew us the way wherein we may walk, and the thing that we may do.
They consulted God, like many, not so much to know what was right, as wishing Him to authorize what they had already determined on, whether agreeable to His will or not. So the messenger of Ahab in consulting Micaiah (1 Kings 22:13). Compare Jeremiah's answer (Jeremiah 42:4) with Micaiah's (1 Kings 22:14).