Ben-hadad Besieges Samaria

While Ahab’s affairs stood thus, at that very time Ben-hadad, king of the Syrians and of Damascus, gathered an army from all his country and secured thirty-two kings from beyond the Euphrates as his allies. So he made an expedition against Ahab. Because Ahab’s army was no match for Ben-hadad’s, he did not draw it up to fight him. Instead he shut up everything in the country in his strongest cities and stayed in Samaria himself, for its walls were very strong, and in other respects too it seemed hard to take. So the king of Syria took his army, came to Samaria, posted his army all around the city, and besieged it. He also sent a herald to Ahab, asking him to receive the envoys he would send, through whom he would let him know what he wanted. When the king of Israel gave him leave to send them, the envoys came and by their king’s command said this: Ahab’s riches, his children and his wives were Ben-hadad’s, and if Ahab would come to terms and let him take as much of what he had as he pleased, he would withdraw his army and give up the siege. At this Ahab told the envoys to go back and tell their king that both he himself and all he had were Ben-hadad’s possessions. When the envoys had told this to Ben-hadad, he sent to him again. Since Ahab admitted that all he had was his, he asked him to receive the servants he would send the next day; and he ordered him to hand over to those he sent whatever they found, on searching his palace and the houses of his friends and relatives, to be the best of its kind, but what did not please them they would leave to him. [a]

At this second embassy of the king of Syria, Ahab was dismayed. He gathered the people into an assembly and told them that, for his own part, he was ready, for their safety and peace, to give up his own wives and children to the enemy and to yield him all his own possessions, for that was what the Syrian king had demanded at his first embassy. But now he wanted to send his servants to search all their houses and leave nothing in them that was the best of its kind, looking for an occasion to fight against him. Ahab said, “He knows that I would not spare what is mine for your sakes, and he is taking a pretext from the hateful terms he offers concerning you to bring a war on us. However, I will do whatever you decide is right.” But the people advised him to listen to none of his proposals, but to despise him and be ready to fight him. So he gave the envoys this answer to report: he still kept to his intention of agreeing to the terms Ben-hadad had first asked, for the safety of the citizens, but he could not submit to his second demands. Then he dismissed them.

When Ben-hadad heard this, he was indignant and sent envoys to Ahab a third time. He threatened that his army would raise a mound higher than those walls in whose strength Ahab trusted when he despised him, and that by each man of his army bringing only a handful of earth. In this way he made a show of the great number of his army and aimed to frighten him. Ahab answered that he ought not to boast when he had only put on his armor, but when he had conquered his enemies in battle. So the envoys came back and found the king at supper with his thirty-two kings, and told him Ahab’s answer. He then at once gave orders to proceed: to draw lines around the city, raise earthworks, and press the siege in every way. While this was going on, Ahab was in great anguish, and all his people with him. But he took courage and was freed from his fears when a certain prophet came to him and told him that God had promised to put these many tens of thousands of his enemies under him. When Ahab asked by whose means the victory was to be won, the prophet said, “By the sons of the princes; but under your command as their leader, because of their inexperience.” So he called for the sons of the princes and found them to be about two hundred and thirty-two. When he was told that the king of Syria had given himself to feasting and rest, he opened the gates and sent out the princes’ sons. When the sentries told Ben-hadad of it, he sent some men to meet them and ordered that if these men had come out to fight, they should bind them and bring them to him, and if they came out peaceably, they should do the same. [b]

Now Ahab had another army ready inside the walls. The sons of the princes fell on the outpost, killed many of them, and pursued the rest to the camp. When the king of Israel saw that they had the upper hand, he sent out all the rest of his army. They fell suddenly on the Syrians and beat them, for the Syrians had not thought they would come out; and so they attacked them while they were unarmed and drunk, so that the Syrians left all their armor behind when they fled from the camp, and the king himself barely escaped by fleeing on horseback. Ahab pursued the Syrians a long way, killing them. When he had plundered their camp, which held a great deal of wealth, including a large quantity of gold and silver, he took Ben-hadad’s chariots and horses and returned to the city. And since the prophet told him that he ought to have his army ready, because the Syrian king would make another expedition against him the next year, Ahab busied himself making provision for it.

Ben-hadad, having saved himself and as much of his army as he could from the battle, consulted with his friends about how he might make another expedition against the Israelites. These friends advised him not to fight them in the hills, because their God was powerful in such places, and that was why they had so recently been beaten; but they said that if he joined battle with them in the plain, they would beat them. They also gave him this further advice: to send home the kings he had brought as his allies but keep their armies, setting governors over them in place of the kings; and to raise an army from their country to take the place of those who had died in the battle, together with horses and chariots. He judged their advice good and acted on it in managing the army. [h]

At the beginning of spring Ben-hadad took his army and led it against the Hebrews. When he came to a city called Aphek, he pitched his camp in the great plain. Ahab also went to meet him with his army and pitched camp facing him, although his army was very small compared with the enemy’s. But the prophet came to him again and told him that God would give him the victory, so that he might show that his power was not only on the mountains but on the plains too—which, it seems, was contrary to what the Syrians thought. So they lay quiet in their camps seven days. On the last of those days, when the enemy came out of their camp at dawn and drew up in battle order, Ahab also brought out his own army. When battle was joined and they fought bravely, he put the enemy to flight, pursued them, pressed hard on them and killed them. They were even destroyed by their own chariots and by one another. Only a few of them could escape to their city of Aphek, and these were killed by the walls falling on them: twenty-seven thousand in number. A hundred thousand more were killed in this battle. [e]

But Ben-hadad, king of the Syrians, fled with some of his most faithful servants and hid in a cellar underground. These servants told him that the kings of Israel were humane and merciful men, and that they could use the customary manner of supplication and obtain his deliverance from Ahab, if he would let them go to him. He gave them leave. So they came to Ahab dressed in sackcloth with ropes around their heads—for this was the ancient manner of supplication among the Syrians—and said that Ben-hadad begged him to spare him, and that he would always be his servant for that favor. Ahab replied that he was glad Ben-hadad was alive and unhurt in the battle, and he further promised him the same honor and kindness a man would show his brother. So they received his assurance on oath that when Ben-hadad came to him he would come to no harm from him, and then they went and brought him out of the cellar where he was hiding and brought him to Ahab as he sat in his chariot. Ben-hadad bowed down before him; and Ahab gave him his hand, had him come up into his chariot beside him, kissed him, and told him to take heart and not to expect any harm to be done to him. Ben-hadad thanked him and declared that he would remember his kindness all the days of his life. He promised to restore the cities of the Israelites that the former kings had taken from them, and to let Ahab come to Damascus as his forefathers had come to Samaria. So they confirmed their covenant with oaths, and Ahab gave him many gifts and sent him back to his own kingdom. That was the end of the war Ben-hadad made against Ahab and the Israelites.

But a prophet named Micaiah came to one of the Israelites and told him to strike him on the head, for by doing so he would please God. When the man would not do it, Micaiah foretold to him that, since he disobeyed God’s commands, he would meet a lion and be killed by it. When that sad thing had happened to the man, the prophet went to another and gave him the same order. This man struck him and wounded his skull. Then Micaiah bound up his head, came to the king, and told him that he had been a soldier of his and had been given custody of one of the prisoners by an officer; the prisoner had run away, and he was in danger of losing his own life at the hands of that officer, who had threatened to kill him if the prisoner escaped. When Ahab said that he would justly die, he took the bandage off his head, and the king recognized him as Micaiah the prophet, who had used this device as a prelude to what he went on to say. For he said that God would punish Ahab for letting Ben-hadad, a blasphemer against God, escape punishment; and that God would bring it about that Ahab would die by Ben-hadad’s means, and his people by Ben-hadad’s army. At this Ahab was very angry with the prophet and gave orders that he be put in prison and kept there; but he himself, thrown into confusion by Micaiah’s words, returned to his own house. [g]