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1Ki_20:22-23
Believing that the God of Israel was merely a national god like their own, and that, like theirs, his power was limited by local or other circumstances, it was easy for them to infer that He was a God of the hills and not of the valleys. Their impression in this matter may have arisen from the traditional knowledge, that this God had given his law to his people from Mount Sinai; that on a mountain had died their great lawgiver, and their first High pontiff. They must also have heard of the recent miraculous manifestation of his power upon Mount Carmel; and they saw that Canaan was a mountainous country, with all its chief cities seated upon hills. All these recollections may have had their basis in the practical experience that the parts of the country into which they had ventured were unsuited to chariots, in which their military force seems to have chiefly consisted; and in the conclusion that if they kept more exclusively to the plains and valleys, a very different result might be expected.
In the parceling out of the earth among national and territorial gods, and among gods who presided over the various forms, and powers, and qualities of nature, we find many gods of the mountains, and some, but not so many, of the valleys. At the present day the Hindus have their gods of the hills, and also of the lower places. Thus Siva, Vishnu, and Murraga-Murte, are those of the high places; while Vyravar, Urruttera, and many demons, are the deities of the lower regions. So in classical antiquity we meet with Collina, the goddess of hills, and Vallina, of valleys. We also hear of the god Montinus, and of a god Peninus, who had his name from a part of the Alps, so called, where he was worshipped, and where also the goddess Penina was honored. Even Jupiter had names from mountains, as Olympius, Capitolinus, etc.; and the “great universal Pan” is called “mountainous Pan” by Sophocles. Some have expressed surprise that the Syrians should have conceived their own god to be a god of the valleys—supposing this an admission of inferiority. We see not this; and as the greater part of their territory was level country, and the capital was seated in one of the finest plains in the world, they could scarcely, when they came to this mode of reasoning, and compared the difference between the two countries, arrive at any other conclusion. This was, however, a conclusion ruinous to them; for this attempt “to limit the Holy One of Israel,” by making Him a mere God of mountains, made it necessary that He should vindicate his universal power and the honor of his own great name. This is, indeed, assigned by the prophet, who promised another and crowning victory, as the reason for the Lord’s further and decisive interposition in behalf of a people who had so little deserved His care.
The king had been forewarned of this second invasion, and was not this time taken unprepared, though his utmost preparations bore no comparison to the Syrian power. This time, however, he concluded he would not be again shut up in Samaria, but that the contest should be in the open country. The Syrians, firm to their purpose, chose a route which led them to the plains and valleys—though this was necessarily circuitous—and would not be drawn among the hills, although the presence of the Israelites attending their march upon the hills tempted them to action. Six days this caution was maintained on both sides; but on the seventh day they came to blows, as it would seem, by the Israelites venturing down from the hills to give battle, undeterred by the chariots which were so formidable in the plains. On this occasion we are told that the army of Israel appeared in comparison “like two little flocks of kids,”—a significant simile, flocks of goats being smaller than those of sheep; and they were not only flocks of goats, but small goats or kids; and not only flocks of kids, but little flocks; and not only little flocks, but “two” little flocks—not that they were necessarily of that number, but “two” being, as we have already explained, an epithet of fewness.
Again, through the might of the Lord, were the Israelites victorious. They fell upon the Syrians with great vigor, and slew large numbers of them. The rest fled, and sought shelter in Aphek, which they appear to have taken on their march. But even here many of them were crushed beneath a wall which fell upon them. The wall was cast down probably by an earthquake. Hither Benhadad himself came, and withdrew to an inner chamber to hide his sorrow and his shame. There was no chance of escape; nor, since the wall had fallen, any defence for the city against the pursuers. The case was manifestly desperate; and there was no hope but in throwing himself upon the clemency of Ahab. Remembering how roughly the old theocratists had been wont to handle their captives, there might well have been room for a doubt even in this; but the servants of Benhadad assured him that they had heard the kings of Israel were merciful kings—which we take to mean that the present and some past kings of Israel had manifested so much sympathy for, and friendly feeling towards, foreign idolaters, that the chances were greatly lessened of his being harshly treated.
Benhadad accordingly sent ambassadors to meet Ahab, and to beg the Syrian king’s life from him—nothing more than life; but with injunctions to note the manner in which the application was received, and to frame their demeanor accordingly. Ambassadors charged with such a suit are wont to present themselves in a pitiable plight, in order to express their affliction, and to move compassion. In the present case the messengers not only clad themselves in sackcloth, but appeared with ropes about their necks. This, though probably an old custom of suppliants—intended to express that their fate lay in the hands of him before whom they appear—is here for the first time mentioned in Scripture; but we see prisoners of war strung together by ropes around their necks in the sculptures of ancient Egypt and Persia. In the present and such like cases, it seems to express their entire helplessness and dependence upon the king’s mercy. He might hang them up if he liked; and here were the ropes ready for him to do it with. Or it may be that, as we see captives were thus dealt with, they appeared tied together by the necks to show that they were prisoners of war.
The language of the ambassadors corresponded with their appearance. “Thy servant Benhadad saith, I pray thee, let me live,”—language in edifying contrast with the former arrogance of this same Benhadad. But it has always been observed that the men most arrogant in prosperity, are in adversity the most abject and cast down. So it was now. The easy-tempered Ahab was moved to commiseration at this marked change of language and fortune in his greatest enemy; and yielding, as usual, to the impression of the moment, he said quickly, “Is he yet alive? He is my brother.” The men, keenly watching the impression made on his mind, caught eagerly at the words, and replied, “Thy brother Benhadad liveth.” On this, he desired him to be called, and on his appearance took him up into his chariot. Eventually he was restored to liberty on his own terms—that of allowing the Israelites to have a quarter in which they might observe their own laws, customs, and worship in Damascus, and is giving up the northern towns that had been formerly taken from Israel.
At the first view, one is rather favorably impressed with this clemency of Ahab towards the great enemy of his country. But as we afterwards perceive that it was visited with the Divine displeasure, we are obliged to examine it more closely. We may then find that what might have been magnanimity becomes in reality a gross weakness; and that this extravagant and uncalled-for generosity, which might entitle a man to praise if shown towards a private enemy, may become a crime in a king towards a public adversary. It corresponds to the case of Agag whom Saul spared, but whom Samuel slew. The Lord had appointed this man to “utter destruction;” and Ahab knew it. He was appointed to taste the utmost dregs of that calamity with which the Governor of the world so often punishes the pride of kings. He was to be taught to know, in avenging justice, the greatness of that God he had blasphemed; and the power of the state he ruled was to be so broken as to render it incapable of giving further trouble to Israel. All these public duties Ahab had neglected, to gratify a private sentiment; and, doubtless, from a sympathy with idolatry, which it ill became a king of Israel to show. It was in this that he offended; and his offence was great. To view it rightly, we must look to the misery thereafter caused Israel by the very power which he threw away this opportunity of rendering harmless; and with peculiar intensity must we regard the fact that, a few years after, Ahab met his death in battle with the very king 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.
Suppose that five-and-thirty years ago, when the great troubler of Europe was brought a prisoner to our shores, the Regent had (supposing it in his power) behaved like Ahab in setting him free. No doubt, some sentimentalist would have applauded his “magnanimity” towards the greatest enemy his country had ever known. But Europe would have mourned his “weakness;” and his people would have execrated it, if, as is likely, instead of the longest peace known in their history, the thirty-five subsequent years had been marked with trouble, distress, confusion, warfare, rapine, and blood; and the Regent would doubtless have experienced from this “Themistocles” gratitude of the same quality as that which Ahab received from the Syrian king.