And as the king passed, he cried to the king and said, “Your servant went out into the midst of the battle, and behold, a soldier turned and brought a man to me and said, ‘Guard this man; if by any means he is missing, your life shall be for his life, or else you shall pay a talent of silver.’
A prophet waits by the road with a bandage over his face. He stops the king with a story: a man was handed to him to guard, life for life, and the prisoner slipped away while he was busy with other things. Ahab hears a legal case and gives his verdict. He does not know the story is about him, or that the lost prisoner is the enemy king he had just let walk free.
A story built so the king would sentence himself
The tale is fiction, and the bandage is a costume. Both exist to get a verdict out of Ahab's own mouth before he realises whose case he is judging.
H. L. RossierAhab, like David when Nathan came to him, is compelled to pronounce his own judgment (v. 40). He was blind; the bandage he saw over the prophet's eyes was the bandage he had over his own eyes, and he did not even know it!
The terms in the story are deliberately harsh: keep this man, or your life goes for his life. That is exactly the price Ahab will be told he has already incurred.
Leslie M. GrantAs the king passed by, he called out to him, saying that in the battle a man had brought to him a captive, telling him to guard the captive with the stipulation that if the captive escaped, either he would die or pay a tribute of silver. Then he said that while he had been busy the captive had disappeared.
The prisoner Ahab actually let go
Behind the parable stands Ben-Hadad, the Syrian king God had given over to destruction. Ahab set him free and treated him as a brother. Commentators read that release not as generosity but as a sign of how little God's honour counted with him.
J. N. DarbyThere are cases in which levity only proves that the honour of God and His thoughts have no influence over the heart. It was not for Ahab to be on brotherly terms with a king whose constant aim was the oppression of God's people.
So the chapter raises a hard question. Can kindness itself ever be wrong?
William KellyMercy is not always of God. There are times when God's honour is at stake. Then mercy is a curse. It is merely human mercy, mercy that follows self-will, and it deceives all the more because it looks so fair. There are times when sparing the enemy of the Lord means failing completely to meet the Lord's will and the Lord's glory. Only God can show us when mercy is right and when it is fatal.
"Busy here and there" — the excuse that condemns
The man in the story does not plead laziness. He pleads activity.
W G Turner"As your servant was busy here and there, he was gone," 1 Kings 20:40. These are not the words of an idler but of a busy man, and contain the startling confession of having missed all that could make his activities of value. The prophet uses them to arouse in King Ahab some sense of the enormous blunder he had made in missing the opportunity of his reign.
The same drift inside Christian work
The danger is not only in worldly rush. Work done for God can itself crowd out the One it is done for.
W G TurnerIn so-called Christian service the danger is just as real. It is easy to be "busy here and there" in work we enjoy, until the service occupies the heart instead of the Master. Busy here and there, one may lose the deep, real, solemn sense of the Master's presence. One may become careful and troubled about much service, forgetting that one thing is needed. This is a tragedy indeed, robbing the work of real value, for "apart from me you can do nothing," John 15:5.
Losing sight of God is rarely a decision. Ordinary business simply piles up.
W G TurnerThe heart, too, may become like a dusty road. All the traffic and bustle of worldly business passes over it, until the cloud of dust hides the Master from His servant's eyes. He who matters so much to us is gone from our thought.
A charge not carried out has a price
Commentators set Ahab beside an earlier king who also spared a condemned enemy.
Eugene P. Vedder Jr.The Syrian king had insulted the Lord, and in turn the Lord had given him over to destruction. Ahab, like King Saul with the Amalekites in 1 Samuel 15, had failed to carry out God's purpose against this wicked king. Just as with Saul, there would be a price to pay: Ahab would one day die at the hand of the Syrians. Later the Lord would declare through the prophet Jeremiah: "Cursed is he who does the work of the LORD with slackness, and cursed is he who keeps back his sword from bloodshed."
The parable does not stay with Ahab.
Eugene P. Vedder Jr.What about us? Do we waste our God-given opportunities? Do we obey God's directions fully, or do we justify disobedience with excuses of all kinds?
Summary
- Charge. The man in the story has one prisoner to guard, and his own life pays if the prisoner escapes. That is the charge God had placed in Ahab's hand.
- Excuse. "Busy here and there" is the plea of a hard-working man. It is also his confession that he missed the one thing that gave his work value.
- Drift. The same loss happens in Christian service. The work fills the heart instead of the Master, and the dust of daily business hides Him from view.
- Sentence. Ahab passes judgment on the storyteller and finds he has judged himself. The bandage he saw on the prophet's face was the one over his own eyes.
- Warning. Commentators set Ahab's release of Ben-Hadad beside Saul and the Amalekites. Kindness that ignores God's will is not mercy but disobedience, and it carries a price.