1 Kings 20.9-12:
| 20.9ויאמר למלאכי בן הדד | Achavα says to Benhadad’sβ heralds, |
|---|---|
| אמרו לאדני המלך | “Say to my master king, |
| כל אשר שלחת אל עבדך בראשנה | All that you send out to your slave earlier, |
| אעשה | I do. |
| והדבר הזה לא אוכל לעשות | I’m unable to do this second word.” |
| וילכו המלאכים | The heralds walk |
| וישבהו דבר׃ | and bring back the word to him. |
| 20.10וישלח אליו בן הדד ויאמר | Benhadad sends out to him, and says, |
| כה יעשון לי אלהים | “May God do likewise, |
| וכה יוספו | and do it more, |
| אם ישפק עפר שמרון לשעלים | unless handfuls of Shomron dirt are enough |
| לכל העם אשר ברגלי׃ | for every footsoldier.γ |
| 20.11ויען מלך ישראל ויאמר | The king of Isra’el answers and says, |
| ויאמר דברו | “Give a word to him: |
| אל יתהלל | Don’t praise your god.δ |
| חגר כמפתח׃ | He ties up as much as he releases.” |
| 20.12ויהי כשמע את הדבר הזה | It becomes, when he hears this word, |
| והמלכים בסכות | he drinks, he and the kings, in their shrines. |
| ויאמר אל עבדיו שימו | He says to his slaves, “Places!”ε |
| וישימו על העיר׃ | They place themselves around the city. |
Backed by his chiefs, Ahab tells Hadadezer of Syria that he’s willing to accept his first message, but not his second. The first message,
“Your silver and your gold: Give it to me. Your women and your children: Give the good ones to me.” (v3)
was a challenge indicating the Syrians were simply demanding tribute from Israel. The second,
“So what if, by tomorrow’s time, I send out my slaves to you, and they search your house and your slaves’ house, and it becomes they put all your eye’s treasure into their hands and take it?” (v6)
means Hadadezer doesn’t just want tribute; he wants everything. Israel isn’t just going to be a vassal state; it’s going to be conquered. So that’s where things are. Obviously Ahab can’t just capitulate, and he says so.
As you’ll notice from when Jezebel uses a similar oath, (19.2) people sure do like to invoke God’s wrath upon themselves unless they successfully slaughter others. Trouble is, both Jezebel and Hadadezer pray to the wrong god. When they say “God,” they’re using the generic name for God—אלהים—which virtually every culture uses whenever they’re referring to their main god. When the Greek philosophers referred to God, they weren’t referring to Yahweh; they were thinking of Zeus, or Athena, or the collective gods as a whole. When modern-day Indian philosophers refer to God, they aren’t referring to Yahweh or Jesus; they’re thinking of the whole Hindu pantheon, ’cause they believe that all gods are offshoots of the universe, which is God to them. Everyone uses the name God. That’s why you have to get specific with people. When I say God, I mean Jesus or Yahweh (’cause Jesus is Yahweh). When Hadadezer and Jezebel say God, they mean Ba’al.
Except Ahab has had firsthand experience that Ba’al is useless. So when Hadadezer invokes his god in an oath, Ahab isn’t impressed. And he says as much in his message back to Hadadezer: Ba’al “ties up as much as he releases.” Statistically, following Ba’al is the same as following circumstances, chance, or tossing a coin. He’s a useless god.
Other bibles translate v11 as, “He who puts on his armor shouldn’t boast like he who takes it off.” This is the traditional interpretation, though the Septuagint has, “The bent shouldn’t boast like the straight.” (3Ki 21.11 LXX) The word for praise, הלל, can also mean boast; the sentence literally reads, “Not he-praises he-ties as-he-releases.” You have to insert the word “armor” into this sentence in order to make it about tying and releasing armor. Admittedly you also have to insert “god” into the sentence to make it say as I’ve translated it, but הלל does mean to praise God. Bear with me, though; in the context of v12 it makes sense.
You see, when Hadadezer gets this message from Ahab, he’s in his tent, drinking with the other kings. He’s not just casually getting drunk, though. He’s engaged in a ritual toast to Ba’al to bless their undertaking. Furthermore, the Syrians aren’t just in tents; they’re in סכות, which are shrines or tabernacles—tents one worships in. At the very point Ahab is dissing their god, Hadadezer is worshipping their god.
You might say that Ahab is, to some degree, trying to pick a fight back. Well, it works; the Syrians dig in and prepare for a siege.
α. Ahab. Lit. “he.”
β. Hadadezer, king of Syria, whose title was Barhadad (Heb. “Benhadad.”)
γ. Lit. “man which [is] my foot.”
δ. Lit. “praise,” but with a sense of praising God on your own behalf.
ε. Lit. “place [yourselves].”
