1 Kings 20:12

_AND IT CAME TO PASS, WHEN BEN-HA'DAD HEARD THIS MESSAGE, AS HE WAS DRINKING, HE AND THE KINGS IN THE PAVILIONS, THAT HE SAID UNTO HIS SERVANTS, SET YOURSELVES IN ARRAY. AND THEY SET THEMSELVES IN ARRAY AGAINST THE CITY._ AS HE WAS DRINKING HE AND THE KINGS IN THE PAVILIONS - booths made of branches of trees and brushwood. which were reared for kings in the camp, as they still are for Turkish Pashas or Agas in their expeditions (Keil, in loco; see also Chandler's 'Travails in Asia Minor,' p. 149). SET YOURSELVES IN ARRAY - invest the city....

12-21 The proud Syrians were beaten, and the despised Israelites were conquerors. The orders of the proud, drunken king disordered his troops, and prevented them from attacking the Israelites. Those that are most secure, are commonly least courageous. Ahab slew the Syrians with a great slaughter. God often makes one wicked man a scourge to another....

Verse 1 Kings 20:12. _IN THE PAVILIONS_] This word comes from _papilio_, a _butterfly_, because tents, when pitched or spread out, resembled such animals; partly because of the mode of their _expansion_, and partly because of the manner in which they were _painted_. _SET YOURSELVES IN ARRAY._] The original word, שימו _simu_, which we translate by this long periphrasis, is probably a military term for _Begin the attack, Invest the city, Every man to his post_, or some such like expression....

PAVILIONS - “Booths” (Genesis 33:17 margin; Leviticus 23:42; Jonah 4:5). The term seems to be properly applied to a stationary “booth” or “hut,” as distinguished from a moveable “tent.” On military expeditions, and especially in the case of a siege, such “huts” were naturally constructed to shelter the king and his chief officers....

EXPOSITION THE INVASIONS OF ISRAEL BY THE SYRIANS AND THEIR RESULTS.—The insertion of this chapter, which contains an account of two invasions of Israel by the hosts of Syria, and of the utter defeat of the latter, and which therefore constitutes a break in the history of Elijah, which has occupied the historian up to the end of 1 Kings 19:1; and which is resumed with 1 Kings 21:1.—the insertion of this twentieth chapter in this place is apparently due to the compiler of these records, who seems to have adopted this arrangement as the more chronological. It is not absolutely certain, however, that we owe this disposition

AND IT CAME TO PASS, WHEN BENHADAD HEARD THIS MESSAGE (AS HE WAS DRINKING, HE AND THE KINGS IN THE PAVILIONS),.... Though it was at noon, or before, 1 Kings 20:16, which shows that he and they were addicted to intemperance: THAT HE SAID UNTO HIS SERVANTS; some of the principal officers of his army: SET YOURSELVES IN ARRAY; prepare for battle, betake yourselves to your arms, invest the city at once, and place the engines against it to batter it down: AND THEY SET THEMSELVES IN ARRAY AGAINST THE CITY; besieged it in form, at least prepared for it; for it seems after all that it was not properly done....

4. KING AHAB: HIS WICKED REIGN AND END CHAPTER 20 Ahab's War with the Syrians and His Victory _ 1. The siege and relief of Samaria (1 Kings 20:1)_ 2. The victory at Aphek (1 Kings 20:22) 3. A prophet's symbolical action and his message (1 Kings 20:35) Two expeditions of Ben-hadad (son of the Sun) against Israel are recorded in this chapter. When Ben-hadad forced the war and insulted the King of Israel, Ahab prepared for the battle. Then a prophet came to Ahab, most likely one of those who had been hidden by Obadiah. He brought a message from the Lord. “Thus saith Jehovah, Hast thou seen all this great multitude? behold I will deliver it into thine hand this day; and thou sha

AHAB'S VICTORY OVER BEN-HADAD. Chs. 20 and 22 come from another source. Elijah does not appear, the religious interest is less prominent, and Ahab is presented in a far less hostile light. He acts as a brave and chivalrous king, bold in the battle and merciful in victory. In the Book of Kings the kings of Israel are seldom represented in a hostile spirit when confronted by the common enemy, Syria (_cf._ 2 Kings 7). Syria, we learn, had become a formidable power. Ben-hadad's father had taken some of Omri's cities, and had compelled him to allow his merchants to have streets, _i.e._ bazaars, in Samaria (1 Kings 20:34). The power of Syria was such that the king could treat the Israelite sovereign as his despised vassal. When the Syrian army filled the valley, the Israelite forces appeared like two small flocks of goats ...

MESSAGE. word. Put by Figure of speech _Metonymy_ (of Adjunct), App-6, for the message contained. PAVILIONS. tents....

_as he_was _drinking_ Ben-hadad was clearly full of confidence, and was giving a banquet to the allied princes in anticipation of the victory. _he and the kings_ i.e. The thirty and two, mentioned in 1 Kings 20:1. _in the pavilions_ The word is the same which is used for the temporary booths erected of branches of trees at the feast of Tabernacles. Doubtless the tents of Ben-hadad and his princes were of the like kind, for the erection of which material was not difficult to find. _Set_yourselves in array] As there is only the verb expressed here, it is possible to substitute as is done in the margin -the engines" instead of the text. The word is used elsewhere with a noun -battering-rams" after it (Ezekiel 4:2), but there is nothing in this passage to shew us whether the perso