Reflections on 1 Kings 20

1 Kings 20 (Contemporary English Version)

1. King Benhadad of Syria called his army together. He was joined by thirty-two other kings with their horses and chariots, and together they marched to Samaria and attacked.
   
2. Benhadad sent a messenger to tell King Ahab of Israel,
   
3. "Ahab, give me your silver and gold, your wives, and your strongest sons!"
   
4. "Your Majesty," Ahab replied, "everything I have is yours, including me."
   
5. Later, Benhadad sent another messenger to say to Ahab, "I already told you to give me your silver and gold, your wives, and your children.
   
6. But tomorrow at this time, I will send my officials into your city to search your palace and the houses of your officials. They will take everything else that you own."
   
7. Ahab called a meeting with the leaders of Israel and said, "Benhadad is causing real trouble. He told me to give him my wives and children, as well as my silver and gold. And I agreed."
   
8. "Don't listen to him!" they answered. "You don't have to do what he says."
   
9. So Ahab sent someone to tell Benhadad, "Your Majesty, I'll give you my silver and gold, and even my wives and children. But I won't let you have anything else." When Benhadad got his answer,
   
10. he replied, "I'll completely destroy Samaria! There won't even be enough of it left for my soldiers to carry back in their hands. If I don't do it, I pray that the gods will punish me terribly."
    
11. Ahab then answered, "Benhadad, don't brag before the fighting even begins. Wait and see if you live through it."
    
12. Meanwhile, Benhadad and the other kings had been drinking in their tents. But when Ahab's reply came, he ordered his soldiers to prepare to attack Samaria, and they all got ready.
    
13. At that very moment, a prophet ran up to Ahab and said, "You can see that Benhadad's army is very strong. But the LORD has promised to help you defeat them today. Then you will know that the LORD is in control."
    
14. "Who will fight the battle?" Ahab asked. The prophet answered, "The young bodyguards who serve the district officials." "But who will lead them into battle?" Ahab asked. "You will!" the prophet replied.
    
15. So Ahab called together the two hundred thirty-two young soldiers and the seven thousand troops in Israel's army, and he got them ready to fight the Syrians.
    
16. At noon, King Ahab and his Israelite army marched out of Samaria, with the young soldiers in front. King Benhadad of Syria and the thirty-two kings with him were drunk when the scouts he had sent out ran up to his tent, shouting, "We just now saw soldiers marching out of Samaria!"
    
17. (SEE 20:16)
    
18. "Take them alive!" Benhadad ordered. "I don't care if they have come out to fight or to surrender."
    
19. The young soldiers led Israel's troops into battle,
    
20. and each of them attacked and killed an enemy soldier. The rest of the Syrian army turned and ran, and the Israelites went after them. Benhadad and some others escaped on horses,
    
21. but Ahab and his soldiers followed them and captured their horses and chariots. Ahab and Israel's army crushed the Syrians.
    
22. Later, the prophet went back and warned Ahab, "Benhadad will attack you again next spring. Build up your troops and make sure you have some good plans."
    
23. Meanwhile, Benhadad's officials went to him and explained: Israel's gods are mountain gods. We fought Israel's army in the hills, and that's why they defeated us. But if we fight them on flat land, there's no way we can lose.
    
24. Here's what you should do. First, get rid of those thirty-two kings and put army commanders in their places.
    
25. Then get more soldiers, horses, and chariots, so your army will be as strong as it was before. We'll fight Israel's army on flat land and wipe them out. Benhadad agreed and did what they suggested.
    
26. In the spring, Benhadad got his army together, and they marched to the town of Aphek to attack Israel.
    
27. The Israelites also prepared to fight. They marched out to meet the Syrians, and the two armies camped across from each other. The Syrians covered the whole area, but the Israelites looked like two little flocks of goats.
    
28. The prophet went to Ahab and said, "The Syrians think the LORD is a god of the hills and not of the valleys. So he has promised to help you defeat their powerful army. Then you will know that the LORD is in control."
    
29. For seven days the two armies stayed in their camps, facing each other. Then on the seventh day the fighting broke out, and before sunset the Israelites had killed one hundred thousand Syrian troops.
    
30. The rest of the Syrian army ran back to Aphek, but the town wall fell and crushed twenty-seven thousand of them. Benhadad also escaped to Aphek and hid in the back room of a house.
    
31. His officials said, "Your Majesty, we've heard that Israel's kings keep their agreements. We will wrap sackcloth around our waists, put ropes around our heads, and ask Ahab to let you live."
    
32. They dressed in sackcloth and put ropes on their heads, then they went to Ahab and said, "Your servant Benhadad asks you to let him live." "Is he still alive?" Ahab asked. "Benhadad is like a brother to me."
    
33. Benhadad's officials were trying to figure out what Ahab was thinking, and when he said "brother," they quickly replied, "You're right! You and Benhadad are like brothers." "Go get him," Ahab said. When Benhadad came out, Ahab had him climb up into his chariot.
    
34. Benhadad said, "I'll give back the towns my father took from your father. And you can have shops in Damascus, just as my father had in Samaria." Ahab replied, "If you do these things, I'll let you go free." Then they signed a peace treaty, and Ahab let Benhadad go.
    
35. About this time the LORD commanded a prophet to say to a friend, "Hit me!" But the friend refused,
    
36. and the prophet told him, "You disobeyed the LORD, and as soon as you walk away, a lion will kill you." The friend left, and suddenly a lion killed him.
    
37. The prophet found someone else and said, "Hit me!" So this man beat him up.
    
38. The prophet left and put a bandage over his face to disguise himself. Then he went and stood beside the road, waiting for Ahab to pass by.
    
39. When Ahab went by, the prophet shouted, "Your Majesty, right in the heat of battle, someone brought a prisoner to me and told me to guard him. He said if the prisoner got away, I would either be killed or forced to pay seventy-five pounds of silver.
    
40. But I got busy doing other things, and the prisoner escaped." Ahab answered, "You will be punished just as you have said."
    
41. The man quickly tore the bandage off his face, and Ahab saw that he was one of the prophets.
    
42. The prophet said, "The LORD told you to kill Benhadad, but you let him go. Now you will die in his place, and your people will die in place of his people."
    
43. Ahab went back to Samaria, angry and depressed.
    

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God chose to take a different approach than usual in dealing with the sin of Ahab, king of Israel. Ahab was Israel's most evil king to this point and God had determined to deal with him, but rather than remove Ahab, God thought it more beneficial to further demonstrate His own power before Ahab, offering him the opportunity to repent and turn to Him, leading Israel back to God.

Ben-hadad king of Aram enlisted the cooperation of 32 other kings to join their armies and go against Israel. This would seem to be God's judgment about to descend on Ahab. Israel was greatly outnumbered with no apparent solution. Ben-hadad sent messengers to Ahab telling him, "Your silver and your gold are mine! And your best wives and children are mine as well!" (20:3) Ahab readily agreed realizing he had little choice. But then Ben-hadad sent messengers a second time with a greater demand, "at this time tomorrow I will send my servants to you, and they will search your palace and your servants' houses. Whatever is precious to you, they will lay their hands on and take away." (20:6) Now Ben-hadad wanted not only what belonged to the king, but anything he could get his hands on. Ahab thought this demand too great and that Ben-hadad was only looking for trouble and sent back the message to Ben-hadad that, "Everything you demanded of your servant the first time, I will do, but this thing I cannot do." (20:9) Evidently Ahab would rather have died than submit for the odds had not changed.

While Ben-hadad prepared to attack, a prophet of the Lord went to Ahab telling him, "Do you see this entire immense horde? Watch, I am handing it over to you today so that you may know that I am the LORD." (20:13) Rather than destroy Ahab because of his sin, God chose to be merciful, not because Ahab deserved it but to show that He was God. As usual, the Lord's strategy for victory utilized small human forces leaving no doubt from where the victory came. God had Ahab send a force of only 232 young men out against Ben-hadad's forces. They caught the Arameans by surprise at mid-day, the hottest time of the day, when Ben-hadad and his troops were resting and getting drunk. This small Israelite force routed the Arameans and then a larger force of 7,000 Israelites came in and cleaned up.

Following this defeat of Ben-hadad and his coalition of 32 kings, the prophet again went to Ahab and told him his problems with Ben-hadad were not over. He would be back the next spring. Meanwhile, Ben-hadad's advisors told him their defeat at the hands of the smaller Israelite forces was due to their gods being "gods of the hill country." (20:23) The solution was to attack them on the plains where they had no gods to defend them. Then they advised Ben-hadad to amass a force just as strong as before but to do it without the other 32 kings. The following spring Ben-hadad showed up with his huge army, this time attacking Israel at Aphek, a city in the plains. But the prophet of the Lord again went to Ahab and told him that, "Because the Arameans have said: The LORD is a god of the mountains and not a god of the valleys, I will hand over this entire immense horde to you. Then you will know that I am the LORD." (20:28) Again, the Lord chose to demonstrate to Ahab that He was the true God, giving him the opportunity to repent and turn to Him. It was also a demonstration to Ben-hadad who credited Israel's strength to hill gods rather than the true God.

When Israel went out to fight the Arameans, their troops looked like "flocks of goats" compared to the huge Aramean army. But when battle got underway, the Israelites struck down 100,000 Aramean foot soldiers. The remaining Aramean army fled into the city of Aphek where the Lord caused the wall to fall on the remaining 27,000 troops and kill them. Ben-hadad hid in an inner room in the city.

With the Aramean army miraculously annihilated, Ahab's wise choice would have been to praise God and worship Him, turning from his worship of Baal. What he did instead was to again disobey God. Though we are not told in this chapter, God had given Ahab clear instructions to destroy Ben-hadad. But when Ben-hadad came to Ahab in surrender and offered to restore all that had previously been taken from Israel and to make a trade agreement, Ahab evidently thought this more beneficial than obeying God and released Ben-hadad in acceptance of his offer. Following this, Ahab had another visit by a prophet who told him, "Because you released from your hand the man I had devoted to destruction, it will be your life in place of his life and your people in place of his people." (20:42)