1 Kings 20.30β-34:
| 20.30βובן הדד נס | Benhadadα runs away. |
|---|---|
| ויבא אל העיר | He comes to the city, |
| חדר בחדר׃ | hiding in a room in a room. |
| 20.31ויאמרו אליו עבדיו | His slaves say to him, |
| הנה נא שמענו כי | “Look now, we hear that |
| מלכי בית ישראל | the kings of the house of Isra’el, |
| כי מלכי חסד הם | that they’re kings of grace.β |
| נשימה נא | Now put |
| שקים במתנינו | burlap clothesγ around our loins |
| וחבלים בראשנו | and ropes around our heads, |
| ונצא אל מלך ישראל | and go to the king of Isra’el. |
| אולי יחיה את נפשך׃ | Maybe he would keep your lifeδ alive. |
| 20.32ויחגרו שקים במתניהם | They wear burlap around their loins |
| וחבלים בראשיהם | and ropes around their heads. |
| ויבאו אל מלך ישראל | They go to the king of Isra’el. |
| ויאמרו עבדך בן הדד אמר | They say, “Your slave Benhadad says, |
| תחי נא נפשי | Please let my lifeδ live.” |
| ויאמר | Achavε says, |
| העודנו חי | “He still lives? |
| אחי הוא׃ | He is my brother.” |
| 20.33והאנשים ינחשו | The men whisper.ζ |
| וימהרו ויחלטו הממנו | They hurry and snatch at what he says. |
| ויאמרו אחיך בן הדד | They say, “Benhadad is your brother!” |
| ויאמר באו קחהו | Achavε says, “Go; bring him.” |
| ויצא אליו בן הדד | Benhadad goes out to him. |
| ויעלהו על המרכבה׃ | Achavε raises him into his chariot. |
| 20.34ויאמר אליו | He said to him, |
| הערים אשר לקח אבי | “The cities which my father took |
| מאת אביך | from your father |
| אשיב | I turn back. |
| וחוצות תשים לך | I put outside markets there to you |
| בדמשק | in Dammesheqη |
| כאשר שם אבי בשמרון | like what my father put in Shomron.ι |
| ואני בברית אשלחך | With this covenant, I send you away.” |
| ויכרת לו ברית | He cut a covenant with him. |
| וישלחהו׃ | He sent him away. |
It was Hadadezer’s slaves who told him that God was only in charge of hills, not valleys; it was the slaves that got him into this mess. Now the slaves told him he should humble himself and see if he could get some mercy from Ahab, because the Israeli kings are “kings of grace.” True, it’s an admirable description; it’s one that any king should be pleased to have. It wasn’t always true, but it was an ideal that one should always aspire to.
So Hadadezer sent his slaves to Ahab—he didn’t have the nerve to go himself—to see if he could make nice with him. And Ahab, living up to the gracious reputation that Israeli kings had, responded in a very generous, Christlike, forgive-your-enemy sort of manner. (I know how this story turns out, but bear with me a moment.) He calls Hadadezer his “brother.” He lets him come up into his chariot as an equal, rather than have him grovel before it as his slave. He makes a covenant with him. He gives cities back. (Although some translators argue that it was Hadadezer who gave the towns back, since he was originally in a position of strength. The text really could go either way; it reads, “He said to him,” and we actually don’t know which “he” said this. Could be Ahab, could be Hadadezer.) He provides “outside”—which some translators think means “outdoor markets”—so that Syria and Israel can trade with one other. All in all, a generous treaty, and they’re all friends now.
The thing is... God told Ahab not to do this.
Ordinarily yes, absolutely, love your enemies and do good to those that hurt you. Turn the other cheek. Ordinarily this would be commendable behavior in Ahab, a total about-face from his previous pagan days. In fact, the old pagan Ahab would not have done this. He’d have been vengeful. He’d have driven Hadadezer all the way back to Damascus, then sacked Damascus and drawn and quartered Hadadezer. He’d have gone pre-medieval on his ass.
So you gotta wonder what on earth was going through Ahab’s head at this point, and my guess is that he’d been following God so long that he thought he has God all figured out. He knew that God was all about forgiveness, love, and mercy, and so he stuck with the forgiveness, love, and mercy. It is, after all, a good policy.
But in this particular instance, Ahab had been told that God was making an exception—that Hadadezer was under the Ban, a particular circumstance where God has decided to judge a king or a culture before the End, and has decided to erase them before their evil spread to other people-groups. Sometimes He drops a natural disaster on them, like He did with the pre-Flood civilization, Sodom, and Gomorrah. Sometimes He has them destroyed in a war, like He did with the Amorites. It sounds unbelievably harsh, but it is God’s prerogative after all—He made them, and He can unmake them.
Nowadays people, particularly Christians, debate about this Ban and whether or not it accurately reflects a loving God. I say it does. God kills everyone, eventually; and here He is arranging the death of certain individuals before they can do even worse things than they’re already doing. He’s stopping them before they darken their souls any further. It seems premature, and therefore bad, but it’s God’s prerogative to end their lives sooner than He’d usually do it. Don’t people pray all the time, “God, why can’t You just stop all the evil in the world?” Well, this is one of the ways He answers that prayer. If you don’t like the answer, stop praying the prayer.
Anyway, in this instance Ahab was ordered to carry out this exception, and he didn’t want to. Maybe he had philosophical differences with the idea of the Ban; it’s totally understandable. Maybe he figured God just doesn’t work that way anymore; He might have been an angry vengeful God in the past, but nowadays God is love and doesn’t do such things. So he decided to err on the side of mercy.
It’s not an error that turns out well.
α. Hadadezer, king of Syria, whose title was Barhadad (Heb. “Benhadad.”)
β. Usu. “lovingkindness” or “love;” sometimes “mercy.” חסד is related to bowing one’s head in order to receive grace from an authority. So, grace.
γ. Lit. “mesh,” usu. “sackcloth.”
δ. Or “soul.”
ε. Ahab. Lit. “he.”
ζ. Lit. “hiss.” One possible interpretation is that this was a serpent-like incantation that they were making over Ahab to get him to respond favorably to their petition. Of course, those of us indwelt with the Holy Spirit are magic-proof, so I don’t know how well such a thing would have worked on Ahab anyway.
η. Damascus.
ι. Samaria.
