The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Kings — Section 485

mosi important o.rm of their service (vers. 1, 25) to the disobedience of the Lord's anointed. The two-and-thirty subject princes had once been the vassals of Solo- mon {eh. iv. 21). We now turn to-- II. THE DEFEATS. If this prodigious host was really called together to chastise the idolatries of Israel, it seems strange that it was not allowed to effect its purpose ; that in the very hour of victory it was utterly and irretrievably defeated. But the explanation is not far to seek. Its advance was the punishment of Ahab's sin; its dispersion the punishment of Ben-ha.dad's. "Well may God plague each with other who means vengeance to them both." And Ben-ha.dad's sin consisted in- 1. Defiance of God. The battles of the Old World, as tLis chapter shows, were regarded as the contests of national deities. The defeat of Pharaoh was a ju<lg- ment upon the gods of Egypt (Exod. xii. 12). It wa,s to altars, hecatombs, in- cantations that Balak looked for help (Num. xxii., xxiii.) It was the mighty gods of Israel that the Philistines feared (1 Sam. iv. 7, 8). And we know how Goliath (ib., eh. xvii. 45) and Sennacherib alike (Isa.. x.xxvii. 23) defied the living God. And when we see Ben-ha.dad swearing by his gods (ver. 10), when we find his courtiers accounting for their first defeat by the belief that the gods of their adver• earies were gods of the hills only, we perceive at once that this war was regarded on Syiia.'s and Israel's part alike (ver. 28) as a trial of strength between the deities whom they respectively worshipped. The defeat, consequently, was primarily tho punishment of Ben-be.dad's blasphemy (Isa.. xxxvii. 29). 2. Wanton insolence and cruelty. We constantly find the instruments used of God for the punishment of Israel, punished in their turn for their oppression of Israel. We have instances in Judg. iii.; iv. 8, 22; vi. 1; cf. vii. 25; 2 Chron. xxxii. 21; Isa. x. 6-12, 24 sqq.; xiv. 4 sqq.; Obad. x. 28. When king or army exceeded their commission, when they trampled on the foe, they straightway pro- voked the -vengeance which they were employed to minister. It would have been strange if such overbearing brutality as Ben-ha.do.d's (vers. 8, 6, 10) ho.d gone un- reproved. 8. Overweening pride. He was so intoxicated with the greatness of his army, with the praises of his courtiers and allies, that be thinks, Nebucbadnezzo.r-like, that neither God nor man can withstand him. His haughtiness comes out very cleo.rly in his messages (vers. 3, 6), in his scom of his adversaries (vers. 16-18), in the pnssiona.te outburst with which he receives Ahab's reply (ver. 10). " The proud Syrian would have taken it in foul scom to be denied, though he had sent for all the heads of Israel." And pride provokes e. fall (Prov. xvi.18; xxix. 23; cf. 2 Chron. xxxii. 26; Isa. :r.vi. 6, 7 ; Obe.d. iv.) The highest mountain-tops draw down on themselves the artillery of the skies. Pride stands first on the list of the "seven deadly sins,'' beonnse self-worship is the most hateful form of idolatry, the mosi obnoxious to the Majesty of Heaven. 4. Drunkennesa. Like another invader, he transgressed by wine (Bab. ii. 5 ; cf. Do.n v. 2, 28). His revels in the thick of the siege reveal to us the man. It would have been, in Jewish eyes especially, o. gla1ing injustice if such e. mnn, while em- P!oyed to chnstise the sins of others, had escaped all chastisement himself. And h!s two-and-thirty confederates were like him. They had aided and encouraged hnn; they drank with him (ver. 16), and they fell with him (ver. 24). It only_ remains for us now to observe bow exact and exemplary was the punish- ment which overtook king and princes e.nd the entire o.m1y-for the army, no doubt, had she.red the views e.nd vices of its commanders. The defeat of the entire host was not occasioned by the sin of its leader alone, e.ny more than the invasion was provoked by the sin of Ahab a.lone. In the day that God visited the sin of Ben-ha.dad, He visited also the sin of Syria.. In the first place, the drunkenness of the leaders brought its own retribution. It involved tbo demoralization of tho soldiery. With such besotted and incapable heads, they were unproparell for a~tack, and fell an e~sy prey_ to the vigorous onslaught of the 232 youths. Tho size of the host, e.ga.m, contnbuted to mn.ko the disaster all the greater. And wha.t but pride and cruelty had dictated the assembling of such an enormous o.rray inerely to crneh a neighbour kingdom ? An<l their pride was further humbled by 496 THE FIRST BOOK OF KINGS. [oB, XX. 1-48,