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viewed by itself, yet, as regards the means, brought about in the order of natural
causation. And thus we ever learn anew that, although too frequently we do not
perceive it, we are constantly surrounded by miracles, since Jehovah is the living
God; and that hence ours should be the faith of a constant expectancy. It reads as we
might have expected in the circumstances, that, when Ben-hadad was informed that
men had come out from Samaria, he commanded in his drunken conceit and
boastfulness, they should not be attacked, but made captives and brought to him. It
may have been that those who were sent to execute this command went not fully
armed. At any rate they seem to have been quite unprepared for resistance; and when
these 232 Israelitish soldiers cut down each a man, no doubt following it up by
further onslaught, the Syrians might naturally imagine that this was only an advanced
guard, which was intended to precede a sortie of the whole garrison of Samaria. A
panic, not uncommon among Orientals, seized the unprepared and unmarshalled
masses, whose officers the while lay drunken in the booths. The very number of the
Syrians would make a formation or rally more difficult, while it would afterwards
increase the confusion of what soon became an indiscriminate flight. At this moment
King Ahab issued from Samaria with his whole army. Whether, as our present
Hebrew text bears, the king struck at the war-horses and war-chariots of the enemy,
with the view of capturing them, or, as the ancient Greek translators (the LXX.) seem
to have read, he "took" them, - implying that there had not been time to harness the
war-chariots when the Israelitish host was among them - the result would be the
same. Ben-hadad, followed by a few horsemen, escaped by hasty flight, as the word
used in the original conveys, on a "chariot-horse," showing how sore was the stress
when the king was obliged hastily to escape on the first horse to hand.
If it were necessary to demonstrate the compatibility of direct Divine help, and of
reliance upon it, with the most diligent use of the best means, the narrative which
follows would show it. After this great victory the king and people might have
indulged in outward, or still worse, in professedly religious security, to the neglect of
what was plain duty. But the same prophet who before had announced Divine
deliverance, now warned Ahab to gather all his forces, and prepare, for that - "at the
turn of the year," that is, in the spring (comp. 2 Samuel 11:1), he might expect
another attack from Syria. And to make best preparation for the coming danger, in
obedience to the Divine word, would not supersede but presuppose faith, even as we
shall work best when we feel that we have the Divine direction in, and the Divine
blessing on, our undertakings.
It was as the prophet had told. It seems quite natural that the courtiers of Ben-hadad
should have ascribed the almost incredible defeat of such an army to supernatural
causes, rather than to the dissipation and folly of their king. They suggested that the
gods of Israel were mountain-deities, and that the rout of Syria around mountainous
Samaria had been due to this cause. But the result would be far different if the battle
(^)