Dear Friends,

Today’s devotional are the study notes on I Kings 20-21. Read the chapters first, than re-read them looking at the notes that apply to the verses. These chapters show how gracious and how merciful our God is. Lord bless you.

Because of Calvary,

John Janney

Grace Bible Fellowship Church

Adult SS Elective: I Kings 20:1-21:29                                                                                                                                              May 22, 2016

e. The King Warned (20:1-30)

“The account of Elijah’s ministry is interrupted to deal with Ahab’s military problems. Benhadad, king of Syria, is an enemy of Ahab and Israel. The enmity was initiated by Judah’s King Asa, who requested and paid Benhadad to attack Baasha when he was king in Israel, Ahab is given another opportunity to see the Lord’s favor upon Israel and to serve him. Ahab again rejects the Lord’s gracious help and message.” [Van Groingen, p. 249]

“Even if the impression which the miracle upon Carmel had made upon Ahab, who was weak rather than malevolent, remained without any lasting fruit, the Lord did very quickly manifest His mercy towards him, by sending a prophet with a promise of victory when the Syrians invaded his kingdom, and by giving the Syrians into his power. This victory was a fruit of the seven thousand who had not bent their knee before Baal. Elijah was also to learn from this that the Lord of Sabaoth had not yet departed from the rebellious kingdom.” [Keil, p. 185]

“In His grace, God gave wicked King Ahab two victories over the enemy. The first victory was to teach Ahab that the Lord was the true God (v.13), and the second was to show the enemy that Jehovah was not weak and limited like the heathen idols (v. 28)…” [Wiersbe, With the Word, p. 208]

“First Kings 20…teaches me that I must get clear about God: about his grace (vv. 1-22)…; about his power (vv. 21-30)…; about his judgment (vv. 31-43)…” [Davis, p. 299]

i. The Siege (20:1-21)

(A)  Man’s Malice (20:1-12)

“It appears from verse 34 that this Ben-hadad was the son of a king who made war upon Omri, and took from him a number of cities. He is, therefore, certainly not identical with the Ben-hadad who assisted Asa against Baasha, but is probably the son of that monarch. …All the Syrian kings of the period were called Hadad, or Ben-hadad, on their ascending the throne, just as the Egyptian kings were called Pharaoh.” [Rawlinson, p. 602]

“thirty and two kings with him.] We see from verse 24 that these kings were not allies, but feudatories. It is therefore evident that Damascus had in the reign of this Ben-hadad become the center of an important monarchy, which may not improbably have extended from the Euphrates to the northern border of Israel.” [Rawlinson, p. 602]

(I)    The Demand (20:1-3)

“…If we suppose a considerable time to have passed in the siege, and the city to be reduced to an extremity…we can quite understand that Ben-hadad might make such a demand… He would expect and intend his demand to be rejected, since the voluntary surrender of his seraglio by an Oriental monarchy would be regarded as so disgraceful, that no prince of any spirit could for a moment entertain the idea. The rejection of his demand would have left him free to plunder the town, which was evidently what he desired and purposed.” [Rawlinson, p. 603]

(II)   The Response (20:4)

“The answer was beyond measure tame and submissive, even to abjectness ― furnishing another illustration of the yielding temper of this king to any force put upon him from without.” [Kitto in Gray & Adams Bible Commentary I, p. 901]

Ahab “will rather live a beggar than…die a prince.” [Matthew Henry’s Commentary II, p. 534]

(III)  The “Re-interpretation” (20:5-6)

“Disappointed by Ahab’s consent to an indignity which he had thought no monarch could submit to, and prevented by honor and custom from going back from his word, Ben-hadad proceeds to put a construction on his former demands, which at the first they were certainly not intended to bear, and explains that by Ahab’s silver and gold he meant all the wealth of the whole town. He will therefore next day send ‘his servants’ into the place, and they shall be at liberty to search, not only the royal palace, but the houses of Ahab’s servants, i.e.. of his subjects generally, and to carry off whatever valuables they please.” [Rawlinson, p. 603]

(IV)  The Council (20:7-8)

“Apparently the king had not thought it necessary to summon the Council when the first terms were announced to him, but had considered himself entitled, as they touched only himself, to signify at once his acceptance of them. But when demands came which affected the people at large, it became necessary, or at any rate fitting, that the ‘Elders’ should be consulted…” [Rawlinson, p. 603]

“The elders and all the people, i.e., the citizens of Samaria. Advised that his demand should not be granted…whereupon Ahab sent the messengers away with this answer, that he would submit to the first demand, but that the second he could not grant.” [Keil, p. 185]

(V)    The Reply (20:9)

“Ahab, bent on inducing Ben-hadad to relent, phrases his refusal as gently as possible. ‘Tell,’ he says, ‘my lord the king,’ rather than your lord,’ or ‘your kings,’ thus continuing the acknowledgment of suzerainty which he had made when he accepted Ben-hadad’s first terms… Note also the use of the expression ‘servant’ (or slave) in the next clause; and the pointed contrast between the two phrases ‘I will do’ and ‘I may not (or cannot) do,’ at the close of the message.” [Rawlinson, p. 604]

(VI)   The Threat (20:10)

“Ben-hadad then attempted to overawe the weak-minded Ahab by strong threats, sending fresh messengers to threaten him with the destruction of the city, and confirming it by a solemn oath: ‘The gods do so to me — if the dust of Samaria should suffice for the hollow hands of all the people that are in my train.’ The meaning of this threat was probably that he would reduce the city to ashes, so that scarcely a handful of dust should be left; for his army was so powerful and numerous, that the rubbish of the city would not suffice for every one to fill his hand.” [Keil, p. 185-186]

(VII)  The Answer (20:11)

“Do not count your chickens before they are hatched.” [Aesop]

“It is no wisdom to triumph before the victory, and to sell the hide before the beast is taken…” [Trapp I, p. 582]

Ahab’s reply to Benhadad is in words that “have a dash of contempt and sarcasm, all the more galling because of their unanswerable common-sense. ‘The time to crow and clap your wings is after you have fought. Samaria is not a heap of dust just yet. Threatened men live long.’” [Maclaren, “Expositions of Holy Scripture II, p. 269]

(VIII) The Action (20:12)

“The Syrians, the besiegers, had their directions from a drunken king, who gave orders over his cups, as he was drinking (v. 12), drinking himself drunk (v. 16) with the kings in the pavilions, and this at noon.” [Matthew Henry’s Commentary II, p. 535]

(B) God’s Mercy (20:13-21)

“…Grace — undeserved, unasked, unacknowledged.” [Davis, p. 291]

“Who can wonder enough at this unweariable mercy of God? After the fire and rain fetched miraculously from heaven, Ahab had promised much, performed nothing, yet again will God bless and solicit him with victory: one of those prophets, whom he persecuted to death, shall comfort his dejection with the news of deliverance and triumph. Had this great work been wrought without premonition, either chance, or Baal, or the golden calves had carried away the thanks. Beforehand, therefore, shall Ahab know…the author…of his victory…” [Hall, Contemplations II, p. 213-214]

“Ahab’s idolatry shall be punished hereafter, but Ben-hadad’s haughtiness shall be chastised now; for God resists the proud…” [Matthew Henry’s Commentary II, p. 535]

“Ahab was told to start the battle with the servants of the governors of the districts. There were 232 of them. Behind them Ahab could muster another 7000 soldiers. That was all there was left of Israel’s army, which had taken cover behind Samaria’s walls.

“When Ben-hadad was drunk in his tent and the Syrian army unprepared for battle, Ahab attacked in the way the prophet had told him to. In drunken recklessness Ben-hadad issued orders to take alive all who came through the gate, whether they had come for war or for peace. But things did not turn out as he had expected. The unprepared army of Ben-hadad was defeated. Ben-hadad barely managed to escape on horseback with some of his horsemen.” [De Graff, Promise and Deliverance II, p. 269]

“A suicide squad of junior officers of the provincial commanders (14, 15, 17) goes out as if to surrender. Ben-Hadad gives his lordly orders (18) but as each one struck down his opponent…Arameans fled in general panic and the main army under Ahab completed the rout and collected spoil (21).” [Martin, p. 363]

“As He did on Mount Carmel, so Jehovah would do on the battlefield: He would demonstrate that He alone is God (18:36-37).” [Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary II, p. 483]

“It was clear that this victory was the Lord’s doing. Ben-hadad’s advisors saw it that way too.” [De Graff, Promise and Deliverance II, p. 269] See verse 23

ii. The Return (20:22-30)

”After this victory the prophet came to Ahab again, warning him to be upon his guard, for at the turn of the year, i.e., the next spring (see at 2 Sam. 11: 1), the Syrian king would make war upon him once more.” [Keil, p. 187]

“Go, strengthen thyself.] That is, ‘collect troops, raise fortifications, obtain allies ― take all the measures thou canst to increase thy military strength.’” [Rawlinson, p. 605]

“God had decreed the end, but Ahab must use the means, else he tempts God…” [Matthew Henry’s Commentary II, p. 536]

“The servants (ministers) of Benhadad persuaded their lord to enter upon a fresh campaign, attributing the defeat they had sustained to two causes, which could be set aside, viz., to the supposed nature of the gods of Israel, and to the position occupied by the vassal-kings in the army. The gods of Israel were mountain gods: when fighting with them upon the mountains, the Syrians had had to fight against and succumb to the power of these gods, whereas on the plain they would conquer, because the power of these gods did not reach so far…. The servants of Benhadad were at any rate so far right, that they attributed their defeat to the assistance which God had given to His people Israel; and were only wrong in regarding the God of Israel as a local deity, whose power did not extend beyond the mountains. They also advised their lord (v. 24) to remove the kings in his army from their position, and appoint governors in their stead… The vassal-kings had most likely not shown the desired self-sacrifice for the cause of their superior in the war. And, lastly (v. 25), they advised the king to raise his army to its former strength, and then carry on the war in the plain…. But these prudently-devised measures were to be of no avail to the Syrians; for they were to learn that the God of Israel was not a limited mountain-god.” [Keil, p. 187]

“Nothing they said to him of his drunkenness, or their own dastardliness; but tell him a tale of their tutelary gods, that they were gods of the plains and valleys only, not of the mountains, as the Israelites’ gods were: and hence the miscarriage…” [Trapp I, p. 583]

“With the new year (see v. 22) Benhadad advanced to Aphek again to fight against Israel. Aphek is neither the city of that name in the tribe of Asher (Josh. 19:30 and 13: 4), nor that on the mountains of Judah (Josh. 15:53), but the city in the plain of Jezreel not far from Endor (1 Sam. 29: 1 compared with 28: 4); since Benhadad had resolved that this time he would fight against Israel in the plain.” [Keil, p. 187]

“The Israelites, mustered and provided for (…supplied with ammunition and provisions), marched to meet them, and…they looked like two miserable flocks of goats in contrast with the Syrians who filled the land.” [Keil, p. 187]

“After seven days the battle was fought. The Israelites smote the Syrians, a hundred thousand men in one day; and when the rest fled to Aphek, into the city, the wall fell upon twenty-seven thousand men… The flying Syrians had probably some of them climbed the wall of the city to offer resistance to the Israelites in pursuit, and some of them sought to defend themselves by taking shelter behind it. And during the conflict, through the special interposition of God, the wall fell and buried the Syrians who were there. The cause of the fall is not given…. Benhadad himself fled into the city ‘room to room,’ i.e., from one room to another (cf. 1 Kings 22:25, 2 Chron. 18:24).” [Keil, p. 187-188]

“God is jealous for his own honor. The Israelites do not deserve deliverance, but the Syrians have blasphemed Him by denying his attributes of omnipotence and omnipresence, and this sin of theirs must be punished. By destroying the Syrians Jehovah will show in the eyes of all the nations round that He is not the God of the hills only, but also of the valleys.” [Rawlinson, p. 606-607]

f. The King Flattered  (20:31:43)

“If Satan doesn’t succeed as the lion who devours (I Peter 5:8), he will come as a serpent who deceives (2 Cor. 11:3).” [Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary II, p. 484]

“If ever a man ought to have been made harmless once for all, it was this Ben-hadad, who had twice wantonly commended war for the mere sake of robbing and exercising power…and who proposed to change Samaria into a heap of ruins and utterly exterminate Israel. This is no question of relations between private individuals just as Ahab was not so much victor as Jehovah, so Ben-hadad was not Ahab’s but Jehovah’s prisoner. Ahab had then no right to let him go free and unpunished, for by so doing he arbitrarily interfered with the righteous decision of God, and instead of being an instrument of divine justice he became the toy of his own foolishness and imbecility.” [Bahr, p. 238-239]

“Ahab, without ‘inquiring of the Lord,’ who had given him so great a victory (verse 28), whether he should let Ben-hadad go or no, at once agrees to the terms offered; and, without even taking any security for their due observance, allows the Syrian monarch to depart and to return to his own country. Considered politically, the act was one of culpable carelessness and imprudence. It let loose and enemy whose talent and personal ambition, and personal influence made him peculiarly formidable; and it provided no effectual security against the continuance of his aggressions…. If Ahab’s conduct was thus, politically speaking, wrong in him as the mere human head of a state, much more was it unjustifiable in once who held his crown under a theocracy.” [Rawlinson, p. 608]

“The tables are turned…. Ahab is no longer the pliant servant (v. 9); but Ben-hadad speaking by proxy through his cronies calls himself Ahab’s servant and begs for his life to be spared (v. 32)…. Ahab seems a bit surprised that Ben-hadad has survived, but without batting an eye he declares, ‘He is my brother’ (v. 32b)…. Ben-hadad came out of hiding; Ahab welcomed him into his chariot; they had a royal chat about territorial sovereignty and economic concessions (v. 34); and Ben-hadad set out for home….

“One might imagine that verse 34 could adequately conclude the story. Everything seems resolved at this point. Such is not the case, however. Verse 35 opens the whole thing up again…. 1 Kings 20, verses 1-34 are a long introduction to the main section of the story (=vv. 35-43)… And what does not meet in this climactic section? Another prophet (v. 35a)….

“We meet this prophet before Ahab does and in his very first vignette he depicts for us the seriousness of Yahweh’s word (vv. 35-37). Before this unnamed prophet encounters the king of Israel, he orders a companion to strike him. The text clearly stated that his order was given ‘by the word of Yahweh’ (v. 35)… The man refused to strike him. The prophet did not thank him for being considerate but condemned him for not listening to the voice of Yahweh (v. 36). He announced the fellow’s judgment: as he goes away a lion will meet him and ‘strike’ him — mortally (v. 36b)…. And so it happened. The next candidate cooperated and bashed the prophet with desired severity (v. 37)….

“It is not safe to ignore the word of Yahweh…. The disobedience companion (vv. 35-36) becomes a preliminary paradigm of the disobedient king (v. 42); ‘if disobedient prophets cannot escape God’s judgment, then disobedient kings certainly will not.’” [Davis, p. 295-296 quotation from Iain W. Provan, “1 and 2 Kings,” New International Biblical Commentary, (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995), p. 156]

“By the law of dakheel any one is entitled to put himself under the protection of another, be that other his friend or greatest enemy; and if the man applied to does not at once reject him, if the slightest form of friendly speech pass between them, the bond is complete, and must not be broken.” [Rawlinson, p. 607]

“This was not courtesy, but foolery. Brother Ben-hadad will ere long fight against Ahab with that life which he had given him (chap. xxii.31).” [Trapp I, p. 584]

“A few years after, Ahab met his death in battle with the very king whom he thus befriended, and under the orders of that king to his soldiers to aim their weapons exclusively against the life of the man who had spared his own.” [Kitto in Gray & Adams Bible Commentary I, p. 904] Cf. I Kings 22:31

“So dangerous a thing it is for a man to prefer his own reason before God’s command.” [Trapp I, p. 585]

“The word of God had stirred him but had not tamed him. However, this was not the failure of the word of God but the failure of Ahab.” [Davis, p. 300]

g. The King Transgressing  (21:1-16)

“Ben-hadad was the man Ahab should have killed, but he set him free; and Naboth was the man Ahab should have protected, but Ahab killed him!” [Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary II, p. 485]

“…Lately, had the king of Israel been twice victorious over the Syrians; no sooner is he returned home, than he is overcome with evil desires…” [Hall, Contemplations II, p. 221]

i.   Thou shalt not covet (21:1-4, cf. Exodus 20:17)

“Great wealth and content seldom live together.” [Thomas Fuller (1608-1661), English writer, in The Doubleday Christian Quotation Collection 17.52.20, p. 121]

“Riches have made more covetous men than covetousness hath made rich men.” [Thomas Fuller (1608-1661), English writer, in The Doubleday Christian Quotation Collection 17.52.19, p. 121]

“Every time King Ahab looked at this fine property, he broke the tenth commandment…” [Phelps, Human Nature in the Bible, p. 166]

“It is human nature always to want more.” [Dillard, Faith in the Face of Apostasy, p. 72]

“‘A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone,’ wrote Henry David Thoreau in chapter two of Walden. Then he added later in the book, ‘Superfluous wealth can buy superfluities only. Money is not required to buy one necessity of the soul.’” [Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary II, p. 485]

“Ahab would have been wise to have sold his palace rather than sell his soul — rather than go “on gazing on the forbidden thing day after day until the flame of desire was blazing at a white heat.”  [George B. Duncan, Mystery in the Storm, (Fort Washington, PA: Christian Literature Crusade, 1965), p. 76]

“Every time King Ahab looked at this fine property, he broke the tenth commandment…” [Phelps, Human Nature in the Bible, p. 166]

“Naboth refused to part with the vineyard, because it was the inheritance of his fathers, that is to say, on religious grounds…because the sale of a paternal inheritance was forbidden in the law (Lev. 25:23-28; Num. 36: 7ff.). He was therefore not merely at liberty as a personal right to refuse the king’s proposal, but bound by the commandment of God.” [Keil, p. 191]

“Here was a man upon whose brow was written, ‘Not For Sale.’… Cynics have said that every man has his price…. But not this man; not Naboth.” [Macartney, The Woman of Tekoah, p. 30]

“Naboth’s refusal was the introduction to one of the strangest, most powerful, and most terrible dramas of the Bible; a drama, on one side, of innocence, courage, independence, and the fear of God, and, on the other side, of covetousness, avarice, cruelty, perjury, death, and terrible retribution. Outside the Bible itself, it would take a Shakespeare or one of the Greek tragic poets to do justice to it.” [Macartney, The Woman of Tekoah, p. 24]

“A lion sulking because it was not granted the cheese in a mouse trap.” [Robert G. Lee, From Feet to Fathoms, (Nashville: Sunday School Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, 1926), p. 169]

“Shun Ahab’s sin, as thou desirest to shun Ahab’s end.” [Ambrose in Trapp I, p. 585]

ii.  Thou shalt not bear false witness (21:5-10, cf. Exodus 20:16)

“Nothing but mischief is to be expected when Jezebel enters into the story — that cursed woman, 2 Kings 9:34.” [Matthew Henry’s Commentary II, p. 540]

“He told her what troubled him (v. 6), yet invidiously concealed Naboth’s reason for his refusal, representing it as peevish, when it was conscientious — I will not give it thee, whereas he said, I may not.” [Matthew Henry’s Commentary II, p. 540]

“She…persuades him…that there should be no bounds for sovereignty, but will.” [Hall, Contemplations II, p. 225]

“Never were more wicked orders given by any prince than those which Jezebel sent to the magistrates of Jezreel…. Had she sent witnesses to inform against him, the judges…might have been imposed upon, and their sentence might have been rather their unhappiness than their crime; but to oblige them to find the witnesses, sons of Belial, to suborn them themselves, and then to give judgment upon a testimony which they knew to be false, was such an impudent defiance to every thing that is just and sacred as we hope cannot be paralleled in any story. She must have looked upon the elders of Jezreel as men perfectly lost to every thing that is honest and honorable when she expected these orders should be obeyed.” [Matthew Henry’s Commentary II, p. 541]

“Her letter….is direct, horribly plain, and imperative. There is a perfect nest of sins hissing and coiled together in it. Hypocrisy calling religion in to attest a lie, subornation of evidence, contempt for the poor tools who are to perjure themselves, consciousness that such work will only be done by worthless men, cool lying, ferocity, and murder, — these are a pretty company to crowd into a dozen lines.” [Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture II, p. 281]

iii. Thou shalt not kill (21:21:11-13, cf. Exodus 20:13) Cf. II Kings 9:26

“There are three types of character in this story, all bad, but in different ways. Ahab is wicked and weak; Jezebel, wicked and strong; the elders of Jezreel, wicked and subservient.” [Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture II, p. 278]

“Big fish eat little fish.” [Hesiod, Greek poet in the eighth century B.C. in Richard Wolkomir, “One Proverb Is Worth a Thousand Words,” Reader’s Digest, (March 1993), p. 153]

“We read nothing of any protest on the part of anyone or of any attempted defense of Naboth. By this ‘omission’ the writer means to depict Jezreel’s leadership negatively for their slobbering subservience to the queen. These local magistrates should have stood their ground…. Why didn’t they take a stand against Jezebel, warn Naboth, and expose the whole Vineyard-gate mess?

“What would have happened had they refused? They knew…. Injustice flourishes not only by wickedness but by weakness, not merely from a lack of goodness but by a lack of guts.” [Davis, p. 307]  Cf. Matthew 10:28 and compare Pilate.

“Ordinarily we are to submit to government; always we should beware of it.” [Davis, p. 305-306]

iv. Thou shalt not steal (21:14-16, cf. Exodus 20:15)

h. The King Rebuked (21:17-26) Cf. Galatians 4:16

“In Ahab there was nothing of the Christ. Ahab was rather an antitype of the One who shed His own blood to obtain an everlasting inheritance for His people.” [De Graff, Promise and Deliverance II, p. 272]

“…The gains of ungodliness are weighted with the curse of God.” [Lee, From Feet to Fathoms, p. 289].

i.  The King Blessed (21:27-29)

“In one chapter we meet one God who is both trenchant in justice (vv. 17-26) and tender in mercy (vv. 27-29).” [Davis, p. 315]

“…Such as the penitence was, such shall be the reward; a temporary reward of a temporary penitence.” [Hall, Contemplations II, p. 230]