Chapter Twenty

1–43. Ahab’s successes in war with the Syrians.

1 Kings 20:1. And Ben-Hadad, king of Syria, gathered all his forces, and with him were thirty-two kings, and horses and chariots, and he went up and besieged Samaria and fought against it. 1 Kings 20:2. And he sent messengers to Ahab, king of Israel, to the city, 1 Kings 20:3. and said to him: Thus says Ben-Hadad: Your silver and your gold are mine, and your wives and your best sons are mine. 1 Kings 20:4. And the king of Israel answered and said: As you say, my lord the king: I and all that is mine are yours. 1 Kings 20:5. And again the messengers came and said: Thus says Ben-Hadad: I sent to you saying, “Your silver and your gold, and your wives and your sons, you shall give to me”; 1 Kings 20:6. therefore tomorrow at this time I will send my servants to you, and they will search your house and the houses of your servants, and they will take everything precious in your sight and put it in their hands and carry it away. 1 Kings 20:7. And the king of Israel called all the elders of the land and said: Mark and see how he is seeking trouble; when he sent to me for my wives and my sons, and for my silver and my gold, I did not refuse him. 1 Kings 20:8. And all the elders and all the people said to him: Do not listen and do not agree. 1 Kings 20:9. And he said to the messengers of Ben-Hadad: Tell my lord the king: All that you asked your servant to do in the first place, I am ready to do, but this I cannot do. And the messengers went and brought him the answer. The war with the Syrians, whose narrative interrupts the biblical account of the prophet Elijah (chapters XVII-XIX) until the next chapter (XXI), by the very character of this subject, relating to the political life of Israel rather than the religious and moral, as the history of the prophet Elijah, naturally belongs to events described in another historical source, rather than that from which the narrative of the prophet Elijah is drawn (chapters XVII-XIX, XXI). Naturally, therefore, the chief actor in chapter XX is king Ahab and is depicted here in considerably more attractive traits: as a politician and leader of the people, and the ungodly king could have valuable civil, natural qualities and virtues: readiness for self-sacrifice for the good of the state (verse 7), ability to listen to the wise voice of the people (verses 7–8), courage (verse 14), magnanimity toward defeated enemies (verses 31–34). Both by content and by character of the narrative, chapter XX closely adjoins chapter XXII, which is why the LXX place this chapter after the story of Naboth, chapter XXI (according to the LXX: XX). But in the chronological sequence of the history of the Syrian war (chapter XX), it must be supposed, preceded the story of Naboth (chapter XXI), in which is contained a threatening prediction of the end of the house of Ahab (verse 20), more fitting to the end of his reign. Ben-Hadad (verse 1), a contemporary of Ahab, is usually called Ben-Hadad II and is considered the son and successor of the Syrian king of this name – a contemporary of the Judean kings Asa and the Israelite king Baasha (1 Kgs 15:18). According to verse 34 of this chapter, the father of Ben-Hadad, contemporary with Ahab, warred with Omri, the father of Ahab, and took from him several cities. It is possible that from that time the Israelite kingdom stood in vassal relations to the Syrian king (as the 32 kings accompanying Ben-Hadad, verse 1) as this apparently is presupposed in the demands of Ben-Hadad (verse 3) and confirmed by the knowledge of Assyrian documents (in Schrader’s and Winkler’s works) of the participation of Ahaz (that is, by vassalage duties) in the forces of the Syrian king Bir-idri in his battle with Shalmaneser the Assyrian at the city of Karkar in 854 B.C. An attempt on the part of Ahab to break these vassal relations to the Syrian king might have provoked this campaign of Ben-Hadad. Josephus (Jewish Antiquities VIII, 14, 1) thus supplements the biblical account of this (verse 1): “not being equal to his opponent in military forces, Ahab did not dare to engage him in battle, but ordered all the population of his country to seek refuge in the most fortified cities, and he himself shut himself up in Samaria, which was strongly fortified with the strongest walls and in general seemed almost inaccessible.” The unpreparedness of Ahab for war – Samaria had only 7,000 troops (verse 15) – explains the confusion and faint-heartedness of Ahab, generally quite courageous, especially after the repetition of Ben-Hadad’s demands in heightened form (verses 5–6). But, encouraged by the advice of the “elders of the land” (verse 7 – not elders of the city only), (1 Kgs 21:8), Ahab has the courage to answer Ben-Hadad’s ever-increasing demands with a refusal: willing to sacrifice his own possession, he refuses to surrender what belongs to his subjects (verse 9).

1 Kings 20:10. And Ben-Hadad sent to him saying: May the gods do thus to me and more also, if the dust of Samaria shall suffice for handfuls for all the people that follow me. 1 Kings 20:11. And the king of Israel answered and said: Tell him: Let not the one who puts on armor boast like the one who takes it off. 1 Kings 20:12. Hearing this word, Ben-Hadad, who was drinking with the kings in the booths, said to his servants: Assault the city. And they assaulted the city. Ben-Hadad swears an oath (concerning the formula of oath compare (1 Kgs 19:2)) to destroy Samaria with purely Eastern boastfulness (compare 2 Sam 17:13): after the destruction of Samaria, in the heaps of its ruins there will not be enough debris for even a handful for each of his soldiers. The LXX (the accepted text) erroneously read the Hebrew shealim (from the singular sho’al, handful), compare (Isa 40:12), as shu’alim (from shu’al – fox, jackal) and rendered the second half of verse 10 thus: εἰ ἐκποιήσει ὁ χοῦς Σαμαρείας ταῖς ἀλώπεξι πάντι τῷ λαῷ τοῖς πεζοῖς μου. But in many manuscripts (such as: 19, 52, 55, 92, 93, 108, 158, 236, 242, 246, in Holmes) it reads correctly: ταῖς δραξί. So too the blessed Theodoret (question 62) and Josephus incorrectly paraphrases Ben-Hadad’s figurative speech, seeing in it “a threat to erect a wall much higher than that which surrounds Samaria and over which he scoffs: it would be enough for him to order each of his soldiers to throw one handful of earth” (Jewish Antiquities VIII, 14, 2). To the boastful speech of the Syrian king Ahab responds (verse 11) with a proverb, having (like the Latin saying: ne triumphum canas ante victoriam) the meaning that one going to battle (“putting on armor,” that is, with sword or weapons in general (Judg 18:11; 1 Sam 17:39; 2 Sam 21:16; 2 Kgs 3:21)) should not boast as one who has won victory and returned from the field of battle (“taking off armor,” that is, removing weapons). This wise rule Ahab himself did not follow later, when, going into a fateful battle with the Syrians, he boasted and threatened the prophet Micaiah (1 Kgs 22:27). Ben-Hadad, intoxicated with wine and pride, gives the order to assault the city (the indefinite Hebrew simu, arrange! – the LXX replace with the more definite: καὶ κοδομήσατε χάρακα; Vulgate: circumdate civitatem, Slavonic: “make a rampart”).

1 Kings 20:13. And behold, a prophet came near to Ahab, king of Israel, and said: Thus says the Lord: Do you see all this great multitude? Behold, I will give it into your hand today, that you may know that I am the Lord. 1 Kings 20:14. And Ahab said: By whom? He said: Thus says the Lord: By the servants of the governors of the districts. And he said: Who will start the battle? He said: You. 1 Kings 20:15. [Ahab] mustered the servants of the governors of the districts, and found them to be two hundred thirty-two; after them he mustered all the people, all the sons of Israel, seven thousand. 1 Kings 20:16. And they went out at noon. Now Ben-Hadad was drinking himself drunk in the booths, he and the kings, the thirty-two kings who were helping him. 1 Kings 20:17. And the servants of the governors of the districts went out first. And Ben-Hadad sent out scouts, and they reported to him, saying, “Men have come out from Samaria. 1 Kings 20:18. He said: If they have come out for peace, take them alive; and if they have come out for war, take them alive. 1 Kings 20:19. The servants of the governors of the districts went out from the city, and the army followed them. 1 Kings 20:20. And every man struck down his opponent; and the Syrians fled, and Israel pursued them. And Ben-Hadad, king of Syria, escaped on a horse with horsemen. 1 Kings 20:21. And the king of Israel went out, and took horses and chariots, and he struck the Syrians with a great slaughter. To encourage Ahab, a certain prophet is sent, whom the rabbis arbitrarily identify as Micaiah (1 Kgs 22:8); the very fact of the sending of a prophet to Ahab testifies that the rebukes of the prophet Elijah did not pass unheeded for Ahab: evidently, at least, persecutions of prophets no longer occurred now (concerning the whereabouts of the prophet Elijah at the time of the Syrian invasion there is no information; his special mission was the denunciation of the ungodliness and violence of Israelite society and chiefly of Ahab, but the civil and political life of Israel was not the subject of his attention). The prophet promises Ahab in the name of Jehovah and for the confirmation of his faith in Jehovah (verse 13), and together points out the tactics in the coming battle: its outcome will be decided by the participation of servants, more precisely young armor-bearers, of the governors of the districts (compare 2 Sam 18:15); there proved to be only 232 of them, and the whole garrison of the city was small too – 7,000 (verse 15; arbitrarily Rabbi Yarhi identified these 7,000 soldiers with the 7,000 true worshippers of Jehovah, who did not honor Baal), (1 Kgs 19:18)). A favorable circumstance for the success of the Israelites was the behavior and disposition of Ben-Hadad: he continued to get drunk (verses 16, compare 12) with his confederates and at the same time in complete carelessness was confident of victory (verse 18); the LXX and Slavonic incorrectly render the Hebrew sukkot, booths, verse 16, with the proper name Σοκχώθ, Slavonic “Sokkhof” – the name of a city on the eastern side of the Jordan (Gen 33:17), in the tribe of Gad (Josh 13:27; Judg 8:5; 1 Kgs 7:46; Compare Onomast. 884); but in this place, where the siege of Samaria is spoken of, it could not of course be about Sokkhof beyond the Jordan. Thanks to the sudden assault on the Syrian camp by selected armed young Israelites, followed by the garrison of Israel (verse 19), after a brief battle (verse 20: every man struck down his opponent; the LXX and Slavonic add here: καὶ ἐδεευτέρωσεν ἕκαστος τὸν παρ’ αὐτοῦ, “and each doubled his opponent”), victory remained with the Israelites, and Ahab, who now came out, finished the victory (verse 21).

1 Kings 20:22. And the prophet came near to the king of Israel and said to him: Go, strengthen yourself, and know and see what you must do, for at the return of the year the king of Syria will come up against you. 1 Kings 20:23. The servants of the king of Syria said to him: God of theirs is a god of the hills, [and not a god of the valleys,] therefore they prevailed over us; if we fight with them on the plain, then surely we shall overcome them. 1 Kings 20:24. And thus do this: remove the kings, each from his place, and put governors in their places; 1 Kings 20:25. and gather an army for yourself as large as the army that you have lost, and horses as many as the horses you had, and chariots as many as the chariots you had; and we will fight with them on the plain, and then surely we shall overcome them. And he listened to their voice and did so. Immediately after the victory over the Syrians, that same prophet (verse 22 compare 13; in the second case “navi” (“prophet”) has the article with it) comes again to Ahab and, warning him against complacency, urges him to be ready for a new invasion of the king of Syria “at the return of the year,” Hebrew: litshuvat ha-shana, LXX: ἐπιστρέφοντας ἐνιαυτοῦ, Slavonic: “as the year returns” – probably in spring “when kings go out to war” (1 Chr 20:1). Meanwhile among the Syrians preparations are being made for a new campaign. The Syrians attribute their failure in battle with the Israelites to the fact that, in their opinion, the God of the Israelites is “a god of the hills” (the LXX add: καὶ οὐ θεὸς κοιλάδας, Slavonic: “and not a god of valleys, and not a god of the plains”) – one of the known pagan antiquity dii montium (gods of the mountains), whose power extends only over hills but not over plains, where his worshippers suffer defeat. “Since they thus esteemed their own gods, they thought that the true Creator of all is also a divisional God. But He showed His power to both his own and foreign people” (the blessed Theodoret, question 63). The very idea of the Syrians about the God of Israel as a god of hills might have arisen from observation of the mountainous nature of Palestine, as well as from the fact that the Jews, not having well-organized cavalry and chariots, avoided battles in the plains and preferred to fight in the hills. At the same time the counselors of Ben-Hadad advised him to remove the allied kings from the army, perhaps seeming unreliable or in some way having incurred suspicion in the previous campaign; instead of foreigners the king, on the advice of his counselors, gathered new detachments within his own country, subjecting them to native governors (Hebrew pecha, perhaps pasha, professor Gulyaev, p. 272).

1 Kings 20:26. At the return of the year, Ben-Hadad gathered the Syrians and went up to Aphek, to fight with Israel. 1 Kings 20:27. The children of Israel were mustered and provisioned, and they went to meet them. And the children of Israel encamped before them like two small flocks of goats, while the Syrians filled the land. 1 Kings 20:28. And a man of God came near and spoke to the king of Israel, saying: Thus says the Lord: Because the Syrians have said, “The Lord is a god of the hills and not a god of the valleys,” I will give all this great multitude into your hand, that you may know that I am the Lord. 1 Kings 20:29. They encamped opposite one another for seven days. On the seventh day the battle was engaged, and the children of Israel struck down of the Syrians one hundred thousand foot soldiers in one day. 1 Kings 20:30. And the rest fled into the city of Aphek; there a wall fell upon the remaining twenty-seven thousand men. And Ben-Hadad fled into the city and hid in an inner chamber. Having decided, as a result of his belief, that the God of Israel is a god of hills and has no power on plains (verses 23, 25), to give battle to Israel on the plain, Ben-Hadad at the beginning of the new year undertook a new campaign against the Israelites and encamped on the plain near the city of Aphek (verse 26). Aphek – not the city of the tribe of Asher near the Libanus (Josh 13:4; Judg 1:31), which formed the extreme limit of Israel on the north (Onomast. 178), but a city of this name in the tribe of Issachar, on the greatest plain of Palestine – the Jezreel, which from ancient times has been the arena of great battles, such as the battle with the Philistines at the time of the high priest Eli (1 Sam 4:1) and at the time of Saul (1 Sam 29:1-11). This Aphek they place not far from Sunem, lying on the southwestern slope of Mount Gilboa, at the place of the present el-Fule (Onomast. 179. Robinson, Palestinal III, p. 477). Some researchers, however, taking into account the direction of movement of the Syrian forces (from the northeast), see here Aphek beyond the Jordan (Onomast. 180), where now is the village of Fik, at the beginning of Wadi Fik, descending to the Sea of Tiberias, on the road to Damascus (Robinson. Palestinal. III, 512. Kittel. Die Bucher der Konige, p. 167 168. I. Pomyalovskiy, Orthodox. Palestin. Sbornik. issue 37, p. 179. Note). Again the Syrian forces presented a vast army before the insignificant detachments of the Israelites: the latter, in comparison with the former, seemed like two small flocks of goats (verse 27). However, a prophet of God encourages the Israelite king, saying that precisely for the refutation of the superstition of the Syrians (verses 23, 25), and even more for the confirmation of Israel in faith in Jehovah, He grants Israel victory over the enormous multitude of Syrians (verse 28). Indeed, on the 7th day (compare Josh 6:15) a decisive battle occurred, in which victory remained with the Israelites (verse 29): the number 100,000 or (according to the Greek manuscript 19, 64, 71, 82, 93, 108, 158 in Holmes, in the Complutensian, Aldine Bibles, Slavonic text) 120,000 slain Syrians means, probably, the total number of the Syrian forces or is a corrupted date. The remains of the Syrian army together with their king Ben-Hadad hid in Aphek, but there a collapsing wall (either by miracle or from the undermining of the inhabitants) brought death to many of the forces: 27,000 – a figure probably corrupted. Ben-Hadad, in fear, hid in the most inner chamber of one house (Hebrew: heder be-heder, LXX: εἰς τόν οἴκον τοῦ κοιτῶνος, εἰς τὸ ταμίεον; Slavonic: “into the house of the bed, into the chamber” (verse 30) according to Josephus (Jewish Antiquities VIII, 13, 4) – into an underground cave.

1 Kings 20:31. And his servants said to him: We have heard that the kings of the house of Israel are merciful kings; let us put sackcloth on our loins and ropes on our heads and go to the king of Israel; perhaps he will spare your life. 1 Kings 20:32. So they girded sackcloth on their loins and ropes on their heads, and came to the king of Israel and said: Your servant Ben-Hadad says: “I pray, let me live.” And he said: Is he still alive? He is my brother. 1 Kings 20:33. The men took this as a good sign and quickly adopted the word from his mouth and said: Your brother Ben-Hadad. And he said: Go, bring him. And Ben-Hadad came to him, and he seated him on the chariot. 1 Kings 20:34. And he said to him: The cities which my father took from your father, I will return, and you can set up markets for yourself in Damascus, as my father had in Samaria. And Ahab said: I will send you away on these terms. And he made a covenant with him and sent him away. Ahab did not take advantage of the second victory over Ben-Hadad that had been won: yielding to a magnanimous impulse of clemency toward the defeated enemy, or perhaps to a vain desire to justify the flattering opinion of the Syrians about the humanity of Israelite kings (verse 31), Ahab showed a weakness unworthy of a victor and of a theocratic king in his relations toward the defeated Ben-Hadad, the enemy of God (verse 42). When the messengers of the latter came to Ahab with the usual Eastern signs of slavish submission of captives to the victor – dressed in sackcloth (Hebrew: sak, Greek: σάκκος) and with ropes on their necks (compare Nowack. Lehrbuch der hebraischer Archaologie, Bd. I, p. 125), Ahab hastened to declare friendly sentiments toward Ben-Hadad (calling him “brother,” verse 32, Ahab acknowledges him as an equal king, as though nothing hostile had been between them), compare (1 Kgs 9:13) and showed him royal honors (verse 33). In return for this, Ben-Hadad promises Ahab: 1) to return the cities taken by his father from the Israelite kingdom at the time of Omri (among them might have been, for example, Ramoth-Gilead, (1 Kgs 22:3); from chapter 22 it is evident that the Syrian king had no intention of returning it, certainly, and other cities to Ahab); 2) to grant to Israelite merchants the right and guarantees of remaining on special streets (in the East in cities, for example in Jerusalem, people of different nationalities, as well as of certain professions settled in special quarters, with special squares and markets (Hebrew huzot)) and duty-free trade, of course, on the condition of granting such same rights and to the Syrians in the Israelite capital (verse 34). (In the LXX and Slavonic texts the Hebrew word huzot is rendered imprecisely: ἐξόδους, “exodus”; because of which the thought of verse 34 appeared obscured). On these conditions a treaty was concluded, and Ben-Hadad was sent away.

1 Kings 20:35. Then a certain man of the sons of the prophets said to another by the word of the Lord: Strike me. But the man refused to strike him. 1 Kings 20:36. And he said to him: Because you have not obeyed the voice of the Lord, a lion shall strike you down as you go from me. And he went from him, and a lion met him and struck him down. 1 Kings 20:37. Then he found another man and said: Strike me. And the man struck him, wounding him severely. 1 Kings 20:38. And the prophet went and stood by the road waiting for the king, covering his eyes with a bandage. 1 Kings 20:39. As the king was passing by, he cried out to the king and said: Your servant went into the midst of the battle, and behold, a man turned aside and brought a man to me and said, “Guard this man; if he is missing, then your life shall be in place of his life, or else you shall pay a talent of silver. 1 Kings 20:40. While your servant was busy here and there, he disappeared. And the king of Israel said to him: So shall it be to you; you yourself have decided. 1 Kings 20:41. Then he quickly removed the bandage from his eyes, and the king of Israel recognized him, that he was of the prophets. 1 Kings 20:42. And he said to him: Thus says the Lord: Because you have let escape from your hand the man whom I had devoted to destruction, your life shall go for his life, and your people for his people. 1 Kings 20:43. And the king of Israel departed home troubled and discouraged, and arrived at Samaria. The frivolous deed of Ahab toward Ben-Hadad, as once a similar deed of Saul toward Agag, king of the Amalekites (1 Sam 15:9-11), immediately found condemnation from prophecy, namely from one “of the sons of the prophets,” bene-nebiim (Josephus identifies him with the prophet Micaiah of chapter XXII). “Sons of the prophets” (compare the blessed Theodoret, question 6 on 4 Kings), appearing especially under the prophets Elijah and Elisha (2 Kgs 2:3; compare Amos 7:14), but, presumably, tracing their origin even to the prophet Samuel (1 Sam 10:5), constituted societies – both of young men and of married men (2 Kgs 4:1), for purposes of religious instruction and education (study of the Law, the art of sacred singing, exercises for religious inspiration) under the guidance of some well-known prophet: their subordinate relation to him was expressed by the name “sons” (the prophet – the guide – was called “father” (2 Kgs 2:11-12)). The multiplication of these societies of “sons of the prophets” (called, also, though not quite precisely, prophetic schools or orders) at the time of the spread of idol-worship in the Israelite kingdom testifies that the chief task of these societies or unions of prophets was the struggle for the integrity of the religion of Jehovah from the encroachment of paganism, the propagation in the people of a truly theocratic spirit. But at the same time the “sons of the prophets,” like the prophets themselves, were the most faithful guardians of the true welfare of their native country; in this capacity a certain son of the prophet appears here, verses 35–42. The meaning and purpose of the symbolic action he employed (taking wounds upon himself, verses 35, 37) and his symbolic speech to Ahab (verses 39–40) are analogous to the well-known denunciation of David by the prophet Nathan (2 Sam 12:1-12): in both cases the prophets employ symbols and parables “so that those hearing these words, not knowing that they are pronouncing judgment upon themselves, judge righteously” (the blessed Theodoret, question 64). The symbolic action (verse 37) and the parable speech (verses 39–40) are revealed by the prophet, verse 42: Ahab released Ben-Hadad, who had been placed under God’s curse (“herem”), did not take advantage of the victory to weaken and permanently incapacitate Syria for Israel; by this he decided the destruction not of himself alone (compare 1 Kgs 22:35), but of all Israel. This prophetic verdict greatly disturbed Ahab (verse 43). The fate of the other son of the prophet episodically introduced into the narrative (verses 35–36) both in character and in meaning reminds one of the fate of the Judean prophet at Bethel (1 Kgs 13:21-24).