Глава 20

1–43. Good luck to Ahab in the war with the Syrians. 1 Kings 20:1. Ben-hadad king of Syria gathered all his army, and with him were thirty-two kings, and horses and chariots, and he went and besieged Samaria and fought against it. 1 Kings 20:2. And he sent messengers to Ahab king of Israel in the city, 1 Kings 20:3. And he said to him, Thus says Benhadad: Your silver and your gold are mine, and your wives and your best sons are mine. 1 Kings 20:4. And the king of Israel answered and said, Let it be according to thy word, my lord the king: I and all mine are thine. 1 Kings 20:5. And again the messengers came and said, Thus says Ben-hadad: I have sent to you, saying, “Give me your silver, and your gold, and your wives, and your sons.” 1 Kings 20:6. Therefore, tomorrow, by this time, I will send my servants to you so that they will inspect your house and the houses of your servants, and take everything dear to your eyes into their hands and carry it away. 1 Kings 20:7. And the king of Israel called all the elders of the land and said: Mark and see, he is plotting evil; when he sent to me for my wives, and my sons, and my silver, and my gold, I did not refuse him. 1 Kings 20:8. And all the elders and all the people said to him: Do not listen and do not agree. 1 Kings 20:9. And he said to the ambassadors of Benhadad: Tell my lord the king: I am ready to do everything that you sent to your servant the first time, but this I cannot do. And the ambassadors went and brought him the answer. The war with the Syrians, the narrative of which interrupts the biblical story of the prophet Elijah (chap. XVII-XIX) until the next chapter (XXI), by the very nature of this subject, relating to the political life of Israel, and not to the religious and moral, like the story of the prophet Elijah, naturally refers to the events described in another historical source, and not where the story of the prophet Elijah is drawn from (chap. XVII-XIX, XXI). Naturally, therefore, the main character in the XX chapter. King Ahab appears and he is depicted here with much more attractive features: as a politician and leader of the people, the wicked king could have valuable civic, natural qualities and virtues: readiness for self-sacrifice for the sake of the state good (Art. 7), the ability to listen to the sound voice of the people (Art. 7-8), courage (Art. 14), generosity towards defeated enemies (Art. 31-34). Both in content and in the nature of the narration of Ch. XX is closely adjacent to Ch. XXII, why LXX place this chapter after the story of Naboth ch. XXI (according to LXX: XX). But in chronological order, the history of the Syrian war (chap. XX), one must think, preceded the story of Naboth (chap. XXI), which contains a threatening prediction of the end of the house of Ahab (v. 20), more suitable for the end of his reign. Benhadad (v. 1), a contemporary of Ahab, is usually called Benhadad II and is considered the son and successor of the Syrian king of this name - a contemporary of the kings Asa of Judah and Baasha of Israel (1 Kings 15:18). According to Art. 34 of this chapter, the father of Benhadad, modern to Ahab, fought with Omri, the father of Ahab, and took several cities from him. It is possible that from then on the kingdom of Israel stood in vassal relations to the Syrian king (like the 32 Kings who accompanied Ben-hadad, v. 1) as is apparently assumed in the demand of Ben-hadad (v. 3) and is confirmed by the news of Assyrian documents (from Schrader and Winkler) about the participation of Ahaz (i.e., in the duties of a vassal) in the army Syrian king Bir-idri in his battle with Shalmaneser of Assyria near the city of Karkar in 854. An attempt on the part of Ahab to break off these vassal relations with the Syrian king could have caused the real campaign of Ben-hadad. I. Flavius ​​(Jude. Ancient. VIII, 14, 1) thus completes the biblical message about this (Art. 1): “not being equal in fighting strength to his enemy, Ahab did not dare to enter into battle with him, but ordered the entire population of his country to seek refuge in the most fortified cities, and he himself settled in Samaria, which was strongly fortified with the strongest walls and generally seemed almost inaccessible.” Ahab's unpreparedness for war - there were only 7,000 troops in Samaria (v. 15) - explains the confusion and cowardice of Ahab, who was generally quite courageous, especially after repeating the demands of Ben-hadad in an intensified form (vv. 5-6). But strengthened by the advice of the “elders of the land” (v. 7 – not just the elders of the city), (1 Kings 21:8,11), Ahab has the courage to respond to Ben-hadad’s ever-increasing demands with a refusal: ready to sacrifice his personal property, he refuses to hand over what belongs to his subjects (v. 9). 1 Kings 20:10. And Benhadad sent to him to say: Let the gods do this and that to me, and even more if there is enough dust of Samaria for all the people who follow me. 1 Kings 20:11. And the king of Israel answered and said, Say, Let not him that gird himself boast, as he that girts himself. 1 Kings 20:12. Hearing this word, Ben-hadad, who was drinking in the tents with the kings, said to his servants: Besiege the city. And they besieged the city. Ben-hadad will swear (about the formula of the oath cf. (1 Kings 19:2)) to destroy Samaria with purely eastern boastfulness (cf. 2 Kings 17:13): after the destruction of Samaria in the piles of its ruins, for each soldier he will not be able to reach a handful of rubbish from the destroyed city. LXX (accepted text) erroneously read Heb. shealim (from singular shoal, handful), cf. (Isa.40:12), as shualim (from shual - fox, jackal) and conveyed the second half of Art. 10 like this: εἰ ἐκποιήσει ὁ χοῦς Σαμαρείας ταῖς ἀλώπεξι παντὶ τῶ λαῶ τοῖς πεζοῖς μου. But in many codes (such as: 19, 52, 55, 92, 93, 108, 158, 236, 242, 246, in Golmes) it is correct: ταῖς δραξί. Likewise, Blessed Theodoret (question 62) and Josephus incorrectly paraphrase the figurative speech of Ben-hadad, seeing in it “a threat to erect a wall much higher than the one that surrounds Samaria and at which he laughs: for this he (Ben-hadad) only has to order each of his soldiers to throw one handful of earth” (Jude. Ancient. VIII, 14, 2). Ahab responds to the boastful speech of the Syrian king (v. 11) with a proverb, which has (like the Latin saying: ne triumpum canas ante victoriam) the meaning that one who goes into battle (“girded himself,” i.e. sword or even weapons (Judges 18:11,16; 1 Samuel 17:39; 2 Kings 21:16; 2 Kings 3:21) should not triumph as one who has won a victory and returned from the battlefield (“ungirded”, i.e., taking off his weapon). This prudent rule was subsequently not observed by Ahab himself when, going into his fatal battle with the Syrians, he boasted and threatened the prophet Micah (1 Kings 22:27). Benhadad, intoxicated with wine and pride, gives the order to besiege the city (indefinite Hebrew simu, form up! - LXX is replaced by a more specific one: οἰ κοδομήσατε χάρακα; Vulg.: circumdate civitatem, Slav.: “create a rampart”). 1 Kings 20:13. And behold, one prophet came to Ahab king of Israel and said, Thus says the Lord: Do you see all this great horde? Behold, I will deliver him into your hand today, so that you may know that I am the Lord. 1 Kings 20:14. And Ahab said, By whom? He said: Thus says the Lord: through the servants of the regional leaders. And [Ahab] said: Who will begin the battle? He said: you. 1 Kings 20:15. [Ahab] counted the servants of the district leaders, and they were found two hundred and thirty-two; after them he numbered all the people, all the children of Israel, seven thousand. 1 Kings 20:16. And they set out at noon. Ben-hadad got drunk in the tents with the kings, with thirty-two kings helping him. 1 Kings 20:17. And the servants of the regional leaders came out first. And Benhadad sent, and they told him that the people had come out of Samaria. 1 Kings 20:18. He said: if they went out for peace, then capture them alive, and if they went out to war, also capture them alive. 1 Kings 20:19. The servants of the regional commanders left the city, and the army followed them. 1 Kings 20:20. And each one smote his adversary; and the Syrians fled, and the Israelites pursued them. Benhadad, king of Syria, escaped on a horse with horsemen. 1 Kings 20:21. And the king of Israel went out and took horses and chariots, and caused a great defeat among the Syrians. To encourage Ahab, a certain prophet is sent, whom the rabbis arbitrarily consider Micah (1 Kings 22:8); the very fact of the prophet's embassy to Ahab testifies that the denunciations of the prophet Elijah did not remain without a trace for Ahab: obviously, at least, there was no longer any persecution of the prophets (there is no news about the whereabouts of the prophet Elijah during the Syrian invasion; his special mission was to expose the wickedness and violence of Israeli society and mainly Ahab, but the civil and political life of Israel was not the subject of his attention). The Prophet promises Ahab in the name of Jehovah and to strengthen his faith in Jehovah (v. 13), and together indicates the tactics in the upcoming battle: it will be decided by the participation of servants, or rather young armor-bearers, regional commanders (cf. 2 Samuel 18:15); there were only 232 of them, and the entire garrison of the city was small - 7000 (v. 15; Rabbi Yarhi arbitrarily identified these 7000 soldiers with 7000 true worshipers of Jehovah who did not honor Baal (1 Kings 19:18)). A favorable circumstance for the success of the Israelites was the behavior and mood of Ben-hadad: he continued to drink (v. 16, cf. 12) with his comrades and, together with complete carelessness, was confident of victory (v. 18); LXX, glory. They erroneously convey the Hebrew. Sukkot, tents, Art. 16 proper name Σοκχώθ, slav. “Succoth” is the name of a city on the eastern side of the Jordan (Gen. 33:17), in the tribe of Gad (Josh. 13:27; Judges 8:5; 1 Kings 7:46; Comp. Onomast. 884); but in this place, where the siege of Samaria is spoken of, of course, there could be no talk of Succoth beyond the Jordan. Thanks to the sudden attack on the Syrian camp by selected armed forces Israeli youths, and behind them the Israeli garrison (v. 19), after a short battle (v. 20: each one smote his enemy; LXX glories add here: αετου, “and double every one who is contrary to himself”), the victory remained with the Israelites, and Ahab, who now came out, completed the victory (v. 21). 1 Kings 20:22. And the prophet came to the king of Israel and said to him: Go, strengthen yourself, and know and see what you should do, for after a year the king of Syria will come against you again. 1 Kings 20:23. The servants of the king of Syria said to him: Their God is the God of the mountains, [and not the God of the valleys], therefore they have overcome us; if we fight them on the plain, we will surely defeat them. 1 Kings 20:24. So this is what you should do: remove the kings, each one from his place, and install governors in their place; 1 Kings 20:25. and gather for yourself as many troops as you have fallen, and horses as many as there were horses, and chariots as there were chariots; and we will fight them in the plain, and then we will surely overcome them. And he listened to their voice and did so. Now, after the victory over the Syrians, the same prophet again appears to Ahab (verse 22 cf. 13; in the second case, “navi” (“prophet”) has an article with him) and, warning him against carelessness, convinces him to be ready for a new invasion of the king of Syria “after a year”, Hebrew: litshuvat hashana, LXX: ἐπιοτρέφοντας ενιυτοῦ, glor.: “the passing of summer” - probably in the spring “when kings go out to war” (1 Chronicles 20:1). Meanwhile, the Syrians are preparing for a new campaign. The Syrians attribute their failure in the battle with the Israelites to the fact that, in their opinion, the God of the Israelites is the “God of the mountains” (LXX add: καὶ οὐ θεὸς κοιλάδος, glor.: “not the God of the valleys, not the God of the valleys”) - one of the famous dii of pagan antiquity montium (gods of the mountains), whose powers extend only to the mountains, but not to the plains, where his worshipers are defeated. “Since they revered their own gods in this way, they thought that the true Creator of all things was a specific God. But He showed His power to both His own and strangers” (Blessed Theodoret, question 63). The very idea of ​​the Syrians about the God of Israel as the God of the mountains may have arisen from the observation of the mountainous nature of Palestine, as well as the phenomenon that the Jews, lacking well-organized cavalry and chariots, avoided battles in the valleys and preferred to fight in the mountains. At the same time, those close to Benhadad advised him to remove from the army the allied kings, who, perhaps, seemed unreliable or had somehow attracted suspicion during the previous campaign; Instead of foreigners, the king, on the advice of those close to him, recruited new detachments within his country, subordinating them to the native regional commanders (Hebrew infantry, perhaps pasha, Prof. Gulyaev, p. 272). 1 Kings 20:26. After a year, Ben-hadad gathered the Syrians and marched to Aphek to fight Israel. 1 Kings 20:27. The children of Israel also gathered and, taking food, went to meet them. And the children of Israel encamped before them like two small herds of goats, and the Syrians filled the land. 1 Kings 20:28. And the man of God came and said to the king of Israel, Thus says the Lord: Because the Syrians say, “The Lord is the God of the mountains, and not the God of the valleys,” I will deliver all this great host into your hand, so that you may know that I am the Lord. 1 Kings 20:29. And they camped one against another seven days. On the seventh day the battle began, and the children of Israel slew one hundred thousand Syrian footmen in one day. 1 Kings 20:30. The rest fled to the city of Aphek; there the wall fell on the remaining twenty-seven thousand people. And Benhadad went into the city and ran from one inner room to another. Deciding, as a result of his belief that the God of Israel is the God of the mountains and has no power on the plains (vv. 23, 25), to give battle to Israel on the plain, Ben-hadad, at the beginning of the new year, undertook a new campaign against the Israelites and encamped on the plain near the city of Aphek (v. 26). Aphek is not a city of the tribe of Assir near Lebanon (Josh. 13:4,19:30; Judg. 1:31), which formed the extreme limit of Israel in the north (Onomast. 178), but a city of this name in the tribe of Issachar, in the greatest plain of Palestine - Jezreel, which was from ancient times the scene of great battles, like the battle with the Philistines under the high priest Elijah ( 1 Samuel 4:1) and under Saul (1 Samuel 29:1–11). This Afek is placed not far from Sunim, which lies on the southwestern slope of the Small Erkhon, on the site of the present el-Fule (Onomast. 179. Robinson, Palast III, p. 477). Some researchers, taking into account the direction in the movement of the Syrian troops (from the northeast), see here Aphek of Trans-Jordan (Onomast. 180), where now the town of Fik, at the beginning of Wadi Fik, descending to Lake Tiberias, on the road to Damascus (Robinson. Palast. III, 512. Kittel. Die Bucher der Konige, s. 167 168. I. Pomyalovsky, Prav. Collection. 37th, p. 179. Again, the Syrian troops represented a huge army compared to the insignificant Israeli detachments: the latter, in comparison with the former, seemed like two small herds of goats (v. 27). However, the prophet of God encourages the Israeli king, saying that it is precisely for the sake of exposing the superstition of the Syrians (vv. 23, 25), and even more so for the confirmation of Israel in faith in Jehovah, He will grant Israel victory over the huge horde of the Syrians (v. 28). Indeed, on the 7th day (cf. Josh. 6:15) a decisive battle took place, in which victory remained with the Israelites (v. 29): the number is 100 thousand or (according to the Greek codex 19, 64, 71, 82, 93, 108, 158 in Golmes, in the Comlutensian, Aldinian Bibles, Slavic text) 120 thousand Syrians killed by the Israelis probably means the total number of Syrian troops or is a flawed date. The remnants of the Syrian army, together with their king Benhadad, hid in Aphek, but there the wall, which collapsed (by a miracle or from the digging of residents), killed many of the army: 27 thousand - a figure that is probably spoiled. Ben-hadad, out of fear, hid in the innermost room of one house (Hebrew: cheder-behader, LXX: εἰς τόν οἴκον τοῦ κοιτῶνος, εἰς τὸ, ταμίεον; g.: “to the house of the lodge, to the palace” (v. 30) according to I. Flavius (Jude. Ancient. VIII, 13, 4) - in an underground cave. 1 Kings 20:31. And his servants said to him, “We have heard that the kings of the house of Israel are merciful kings; let us put sackcloth on our loins and ropes on our heads and go to the king of Israel; maybe he will spare your life. 1 Kings 20:32. And they girded sackcloth around their waists and put cords on their heads, and they came to the king of Israel and said, “Your servant Ben-hadad says: Spare my life.” He said: is he alive? he is my brother. 1 Kings 20:33. These people took this as a good sign and hastily took up the word from his mouth and said, “Your brother Ben-hadad.” And he said: Go, bring him. And Benhadad came out to him, and he put him with him on a chariot. 1 Kings 20:34. And Benhadad said to him, “I will return the cities that my father took from your father, and you can have the squares for yourself in Damascus, as my father had in Samaria.” Ahab said: after the agreement I will let you go. And, having concluded an agreement with him, he released him. Ahab did not take advantage of the second victory gained over Ben-hadad: succumbing to a magnanimous impulse of condescension towards the defeated enemy, or perhaps a vain desire to justify the flattering opinion of the Syrians about the humanity of the kings of Israel (v. 31), Ahab showed weakness unworthy of the winner and theocratic king in relation to the defeated Ben-hadad, the enemy of God (v. 42). When the latter’s envoys appeared to Ahab with the usual signs in the East of the slavish subordination of captives to the winner - dressed in sackcloth (Hebrew: sak, Greek: σάκκος) and with ropes around their necks (cf. Nowack. Lehrbuch der hebraischer Archaologie, Bd. I, s. 125), Ahab hastened to declare friendly feelings to Benhadad (calling him “brother”, v. 32, Ahab recognizes him as an equal king, as if there was nothing hostile between them), cf. (1 Kings 9:13) and gave him royal honors (v. 33). In response to this, Ben-hadad promises Ahab: 1) to return the cities taken by his father from the kingdom of Israel under Omri (among them could be, for example, Ramoth of Gilead (1 Kings 22:3); from chapter 22 it is clear that the Syrian king did not think of returning it, of course, etc. city ​​of Ahab); 2) provide Israeli merchants with the right and guarantees to stay on special streets (in the East, in cities, for example in Jerusalem, people of certain nationalities, as well as certain professions, settled in special neighborhoods, with special squares, bazaars (Hebrew hutzot)) and duty-free trade, of course, with the condition of granting the same rights to Syrians in the Israeli capital (Article 34). (In vol. LXX and Slavic Hebrew, the word hutsot is conveyed inaccurately: ἐξόδους, “exodus”; which is why the thought of v. 34 was obscured.) On these conditions, an agreement was concluded, and Ben-hadad was released. 1 Kings 20:35. Then one man from the sons of the prophets said to another, according to the word of the Lord: Beat me. But this man did not agree to beat him. 1 Kings 20:36. And he said to him: Because you do not listen to the voice of the Lord, a lion will kill you when you leave me. He left him, and the lion, meeting him, killed him. 1 Kings 20:37. And he found another man and said: Beat me. This man beat him to the point that he was injured by beatings. 1 Kings 20:38. And the prophet went and stood before the king on the road, covering his eyes with a veil. 1 Kings 20:39. When the king passed by, he shouted to the king and said: “Your servant went to battle, and behold, one man who went aside brought a man to me and said: “Guard this man; if he is gone, then your soul will be for his soul, or you will have to weigh out a talent of silver.” 1 Kings 20:40. When your servant was busy with these and other things, he was gone. And the king of Israel said to him: This is your sentence, you yourself have decided. 1 Kings 20:41. He immediately took the veil from his eyes, and his king knew that he was one of the prophets. 1 Kings 20:42. And he said to him, “This is what the Lord says: Because you have released from your hands the man whom I cursed, your life will be in place of his soul, your people instead of his people.” 1 Kings 20:43. And the king of Israel went home, alarmed and distressed, and arrived at Samaria. Ahab’s frivolous act in relation to Ben-hadad, like Saul’s once similar attitude towards Agag, king of the Amalekites (1 Samuel 15:9-11), immediately found condemnation from the prophecy, namely one “of the sons of the prophets,” the bene-nebiim (J. Josephus identifies with the prophet Micah, Chapter XXII). “Sons of the prophets” (cf. blessed Theodoret, question 6 on 4 Kings), speaking especially under the prophets Elijah and Elisha (2 Kings 2:3,5,7,15,4:1,38,5:22,6:1,9:1; cf. Am.7:14), but, according to assumption, originating from the prophet Samuel ( 1 Kings 10:5,19:20–24), formed societies - both from young men and from married people (2 Kings 4:1), for the purposes of religious edification and education (study of the law, the art of sacred singing, exercises for religious inspiration) under the leadership of some famous prophet: their subordinate relationship to him was expressed by the name “sons” (the prophet - the leader - was called “father” ( 2 Kings 2:11–12)). The proliferation of societies of these “sons of the prophets” (also called, not entirely accurately, prophetic schools or orders) at the time of the spread of idolatry in the kingdom of Israel testifies that the main task of these societies or prophetic unions was the struggle for the integrity of the religion of Jehovah from the attack of paganism, the inculcation of a truly theocratic spirit among the people. But at the same time, the “sons of the prophets,” like the prophets themselves, were the most faithful guardians of the true good of their native country; in this capacity a certain son of the prophet appears here, v. 35–42. The meaning and purpose of the symbolic action he used (taking on wounds, vv. 35, 37) and his symbolic speech to Ahab (vv. 39–40) are similar to the well-known denunciation of David by the prophet Nathan (2 Samuel 12:1–12): in both cases, the prophets use symbols and parables, “so that those who hear these words, not knowing that they are pronouncing judgment on themselves, judged fairly” (Blessed Theodoret, question 64). Symbolic action (v. 37) and parable speech (vv. 39–40) are revealed by the prophet, v. 42: Ahab released Ben-hadad, who had fallen under God’s spell (“herem”), and did not take advantage of the victory to forever weaken and render Syria harmless for Israel; with this he decided not only his own death (cf. 1 Kings 22:35), but also that of all Israel. This prophetic judgment greatly troubled Ahab (v. 43). The fate of another prophetic son, who was occasionally introduced into the story (vv. 35–36), both in character and meaning resembles the fate of the Jewish prophet in Bethel (1 Kings 13:21–24). You might be interested in: