1 And Ben-Hadad king of Syria assembled all his host; and there were thirty-two kings with him, and horses and chariots; and he went up and besieged Samaria, and fought against it.
And Asa took all the silver and the gold that were left in the treasures of the house of Jehovah, and in the treasures of the king's house, and gave them into the hand of his servants; and king Asa sent them to Ben-Hadad, the son of Tabrimmon, the son of Hezion, king of Syria, who dwelt at Damascus, saying,
And the king of Syria commanded the thirty-two captains of his chariots saying, Fight neither with small nor great, but with the king of Israel only.
And Elisha came to Damascus; and Ben-Hadad the king of Syria was sick; and it was told him saying, The man of God is come hither. And the king said to Hazael, Take a present in thy hand, and go, meet the man of God, and inquire of Jehovah by him, saying, Shall I recover from this disease? And Hazael went to meet him, and took with him a present, even of every good thing of Damascus, forty camels' burden; and he came and stood before him, and said, Thy son Ben-Hadad king of Syria has sent me to thee, saying, Shall I recover from this disease? And Elisha said to him, Go, say to him, Thou wilt certainly recover. But Jehovah has shewn me that he shall certainly die.
And I will send a fire into the house of Hazael, and it shall devour the palaces of Ben-Hadad.
For thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I will bring from the north, against Tyre, Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, the king of kings, with horses, and with chariots, and with horsemen, and an assemblage, and much people.
And I will kindle a fire in the wall of Damascus, and it shall consume the palaces of Ben-Hadad.
By thy servants thou hast reproached the Lord, and hast said, With the multitude of my chariots am I come up to the height of the mountains, to the recesses of Lebanon; and I will cut down its tall cedars, the choice of its cypresses; and I will enter into its furthest height, [into] the forest of its fruitful field.
Artaxerxes, king of kings, to Ezra the priest, an accomplished scribe of the law of the God of the heavens, and so forth.
And Asa brought out silver and gold out of the treasures of the house of Jehovah and of the king's house, and sent to Ben-hadad king of Syria, who dwelt at Damascus, saying, There is a league between me and thee, and between my father and thy father: behold, I send thee silver and gold; go, break thy league with Baasha king of Israel, that he may depart from me. And Ben-hadad hearkened to king Asa, and sent the captains of his forces against the cities of Israel; and they smote Ijon and Dan and Abelmaim, and all the store-magazines of the cities of Naphtali.
And the king of Assyria overran the whole land, and went up against Samaria, and besieged it three years. In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away into Assyria, and placed them in Halah and by the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.
And it came to pass in the days of Amraphel the king of Shinar, Arioch the king of El-lasar, Chedorlaomer the king of Elam, and Tidal the king of nations, [that] they made war with Bera the king of Sodom, and with Birsha the king of Gomorrah, Shinab the king of Admah, and Shemeber the king of Zeboim, and the king of Bela, which is Zoar. All these were joined in the vale of Siddim, which is the salt sea. Twelve years had they served Chedorlaomer; and in the thirteenth year they rebelled. And in the fourteenth year came Chedorlaomer and the kings that were with him, and smote the Rephaim in Ashteroth-karnaim, and the Zuzim in Ham, and the Emim in Shaveh-Kirjathaim,
And it came to pass after this that Ben-Hadad king of Syria gathered all his army, and went up and besieged Samaria. And there was a great famine in Samaria; and behold, they besieged it, until an ass's head was worth eighty silver-pieces, and the fourth part of a cab of dove's dung five silver-pieces. And it came to pass as the king of Israel was passing by upon the wall, there cried a woman to him saying, Help, my lord O king! And he said, If Jehovah do not help thee, whence should I help thee? Out of the threshing-floor, or out of the winepress? And the king said to her, What aileth thee? And she said, This woman said to me, Give thy son, that we may eat him to-day, and we will eat my son to-morrow. And we boiled my son, and ate him: and I said to her on the next day, Give thy son, that we may eat him; and she has hidden her son.
And do this: take the kings away, every man out of his place, and put governors in their stead;
And they went out at noon; and Ben-Hadad drank himself drunk in the tents, he and the kings, the thirty-two kings that helped him.
And the Philistines were assembled together to fight with Israel, thirty thousand chariots, and six thousand horsemen, and people as the sand which is on the sea-shore in multitude; and they came up, and encamped in Michmash, eastward from Beth-Aven.
Then the people of Israel cried to the LORD for help; for he had nine hundred chariots of iron, and oppressed the people of Israel cruelly for twenty years.
And he shall besiege thee in all thy gates, until thy high and strong walls wherein thou trustedst come down, throughout all thy land; and he shall besiege thee in all thy gates in all thy land, which Jehovah thy God hath given thee.
When thou goest out to war against thine enemies, and seest horses, and chariots, [and] a people more numerous than thou, thou shalt not fear them; for Jehovah thy God is with thee, who brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on 1 Kings 20
Commentary on 1 Kings 20 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 20
This chapter is the history of a war between Ben-hadad king of Syria and Ahab king of Israel, in which Ahab was, once and again, victorious. We read nothing of Elijah or Elishain all this story; Jezebel's rage, it is probable, had abated, and the persecution of the prophets began to cool, which gleam of peace Elijah improved. He appeared not at court, but, being told how many thousands of good people there were in Israel more than he thought of, employed himself, as we may suppose, in founding religious houses, schools, or colleges of prophets, in several parts of the country, to be nurseries of religion, that they might help to reform the nation when the throne and court would not be reformed. While he was thus busied, God favoured the nation with the successes we here read of, which were the more remarkable because obtained against Ben-hadad king of Syria, whose successor, Hazael, was ordained to be a scourge to Israel. They must shortly suffer by the Syrians, and yet now triumphed over them, that, if possible, they might be led to repentance by the goodness of God. Here is,
1Ki 20:1-11
Here is,
1Ki 20:12-21
The treaty between the besiegers and the besieged being broken off abruptly, we have here an account of the battle that ensued immediately.
1Ki 20:22-30
We have here an account of another successful campaign which Ahab, by divine aid, made against the Syrians, in which he gave them a greater defeat than in the former. Strange! Ahab idolatrous and yet victorious, a persecutor and yet a conqueror! God has wise and holy ends in suffering wicked men to prosper, and glorifies his own name thereby.
1Ki 20:31-43
Here is an account of what followed upon the victory which Israel obtained over the Syrians.