If there is a word I would use to sum up the events in 1 Kings 20, it would be “strange”.
This is a list of what I think are the “strange” things happening:
32 kings gather together to fight against Israel.
If we read the description in verse 27, the army of Ben-hadad filled the country whereas the army of Israel which encamped before them were like two little flocks of goats. The contrast between the size of the two armies was great. The gathering of such a great army was likely at the command of the King of Syria. The 32 kings could have been vassal states of Syria since verse 24 reveals to us that Ben-hadad could remove each king from his post and put Syrian commanders in their places.
Still, it very much feels like Ben-Hadad was using a hammer to kill an ant. Just thinking about the economics and logistics of the whole affair doesn’t make sense. Why would you need to spend money and resources to provision so many men to crush the small army of Israel?
This imagery of such a large army of 32 kings attacking the Israelites reminds me of 2 passages in the Bible. The first is Psalms 2, where the nations and the kings of the earth come together against the Lord and His Christ. The second passage is John 17:14, which tells us that the world hates us as the people of God. Therefore we should not find it strange that the world hates us because we are different from the world.
Yet from how God was with the Israelites against Ben Hadad, we learn that God will also surely be with us in every trial.
Servants of the governors going out to fight
1 Kings 20:15-20 tells us that a small force of 7323 men consisting of 232 of the servants of the governors of the districts of Israel and the 7000 people of Israel were able to take the great army of Ben-hadad head on, and overcome them. The 232 servants were not even generals or professional soldiers but servants of the governors.
How is it that the Syrians saw them coming, and were still not able to withstand the tiny army? Actually, we know that it was the hand of God that was with the small army, and it was the hand of God that brought them the victory.
What I find strange, though, is not that the army of 7232 persons were able to be victorious. After all, Gideon’s small army of 300 was also able to bring about a great victory against the Midianites by the help of God.
The strange thing is that it was left to the servants of the governors to lead the army of God out into battle, and not King Ahab, and they were brave enough to step up to be the first ones in the battle formation even though they were not professional soldiers.
This reminds us that to accomplish the work of God what matters is not your own skill or wisdom, but entirely that God is working with you and through you to accomplish His will. Therefore, in all manner of works we do for the church, we should always pray that what we are doing is in accordance with God’s will and that God work with us.
Ahab shows mercy to Ben-Hadad and spares his life
I was really confused when I read that Ahab showed Ben-Hadad mercy and spared his life. Ben-Hadad had just amassed another huge army to crush Israel.
Yet, just at the flattering words of Ben-Hadad, who called himself a “servant”, King Ahab relented and spared his life. King Ahab even called him “my brother”.
We don’t really know what Ahab was thinking when he called Ben-Hadad “my brother”. Did Ahab really feel compassion for Ben-Hadad? Perhaps Ahab was motivated by political gain. Since he spared Ben-Hadad’s life, Ben-Hadad would now become his ally along with the 32 other kings.
However, we know that God’s will was for Ahab to destroy Ben-Hadad. By sparing Ben-Hadad, Ahab defied the Lord’s will. He had completely forgotten that it was the Lord who had delivered him out of trouble and he immediately went to ally himself with the one whom God wanted to destroy.
Actually, we may be guilty of Ahab’s mistake as well. Immediately after we receive God’s help, we forget God and go back to love the things that we should not be loving as Christians.
The man of the sons of the prophets asks to be struck
Even more puzzling events occur from verse 35 onwards. Firstly, a man asks to be struck and when his friend refuses, a lion strikes him down. We might find that the punishment the friend received is so disproportionate to the wrongdoing. However, I think that this story serves to impress upon us readers how serious we should take obeying the command of the Lord.
The prophet disguises himself to pronounce judgment on Ahab
The last “strange” thing that happened is that the prophet disguised himself and concocted a story to tell Ahab. The story was part of an elaborate way to get Ahab to pronounce judgment on himself. If we think about it, actually this is similar to how Nathan the prophet told David a parable and caused David to pronounce judgment on himself after David had sinned with Bathsheba.
Sometimes, God arranges things around us to make ourselves come to a realization that we have been in the wrong. For Ahab, he realized that he was wrong, but that did not stir up repentance in his heart in the way that repentance was stirred up in the heart of David.
We should always be sensitive to what God is trying to tell us, and be quick to repent where we have fallen. May God help us.
