20 And they slew every one his man; and the Syrians fled, and Israel pursued them; and Ben-Hadad the king of Syria escaped on a horse with the horsemen.
and five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight; and your enemies shall fall beside you by the sword.
And the three companies blew the trumpets and broke the jars, holding in their left hands the torches, and in their right hands the trumpets to blow; and they cried, "A sword for the LORD and for Gideon!" They stood every man in his place round about the camp, and all the army ran; they cried out and fled. When they blew the three hundred trumpets, the LORD set every man's sword against his fellow and against all the army; and the army fled as far as Beth-shit'tah toward Zer'erah, as far as the border of A'bel-meho'lah, by Tabbath.
And Jonathan climbed up upon his hands and upon his feet, and his armour-bearer after him; and they fell before Jonathan; and his armour-bearer slew after him. And that first slaughter which Jonathan and his armour-bearer wrought was about twenty men, as it were on the half-furrow of an acre of land. And there was trembling in the camp, in the field, and among all the people; the garrison, and the ravagers, they also trembled, and the earth quaked; for it was a trembling [from] God.
And he brought him down, and behold, they were spread over the whole land, eating and drinking, and dancing, because of all the great spoil that they had taken out of the land of the Philistines, and out of the land of Judah. And David smote them from the twilight even to the evening of the next day; and there escaped not a man of them, save four hundred young men, who rode upon camels, and fled.
And they caught every one his fellow by the head, and [thrust] his sword in his fellow's side, and they fell down together. And that place was called Helkath-hazzurim, which is by Gibeon.
For the Lord had made the army of the Syrians to hear a noise of chariots, and a noise of horses, a noise of a great host; and they said one to another, Behold, the king of Israel has hired against us the kings of the Hittites, and the kings of the Egyptians, to come upon us. And they rose up and fled in the dusk, and left their tents, and their horses, and their asses, the camp as it was, and fled for their life.
And Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and went and returned, and abode at Nineveh.
The king is not saved by the multitude of [his] forces; a mighty man is not delivered by much strength.
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.