The messengers came again and said, “Thus says Ben-hadad: ‘I sent to you, saying, “Deliver to me your silver and your gold, your wives and your children.”
Ben-hadad, king of Syria, had surrounded Samaria with thirty-two allied kings. He demanded Ahab's silver, gold, wives and children, and Ahab agreed to all of it. Now the messengers come back with a second demand. Why did giving in buy Ahab nothing?
The first demand and the instant surrender
The siege opened with a message rather than an attack:
Leslie M. GrantHe was so sure of his greater strength that he did not begin the battle at once. Instead he sent messengers to Ahab to tell him, "Your silver and your gold are mine; your loveliest wives and children are mine" (v.3). So he was calling on Ahab to submit to his authority.
Ahab gave way at once.
Surrender feeds the appetite it hoped to satisfy
The second message is not a softer one. Having got everything by asking, Ben-hadad now asks for more than he named:
H. L. RossierThis latter uses the occasion to add outrage to his harshness: "You shall deliver me your silver, and your gold, and your wives, and your children; but tomorrow about this time I will send my servants to you, and they shall search your house, and the houses of your servants; and whatever is pleasant in your sight, they shall put in their hand and take away" (vv. 5-6).
The difference between the two messages matters. The first took what the king owned; the second sent foreign hands through every room in the city to pick out whatever they liked.
Ben-hadad was looking for an excuse for war. He first demanded Ahab's silver, gold, wives and children. When Ahab was ready to hand them over, the enemy king demanded more. He demanded the right to send his servants to search the houses of Ahab and his servants, and to take away everything they treasured most. The elders of Israel advised Ahab not to give in to this outrageous demand. So the weak-willed king sent word to Ben-hadad that he could not do it.
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God is never brought into the matter
The striking thing is not Ben-hadad's greed but Ahab's silence toward heaven. He had watched fire fall on Carmel and heard his whole nation confess the Lord, and still:
H. L. RossierGod was a stranger to him. He acted as though God did not even exist, and he accepted the humiliation the pagan king forced on him: "My lord, O king, as you say, I am yours, and all that I have" (v. 4). What, after all, could he do against Ben-hadad, who led all his forces and had thirty-two kings with him? That is how people who do not know God reason.
Even when he finds the nerve to refuse, he turns to his elders, not to God.
Wickedness shows itself as weakness
Ahab's grovelling reply exposes what he was. One writer draws the moral bluntly, noting that the refusal, when it finally came, was half-hearted:
C KnappAhab's weakness is shown further by his servile answer to the besieging king of Syria... When the messengers came back with more insolent demands, the king would probably have accepted the humiliating terms. He refused only because his braver, more patriotic subjects advised otherwise, saying, "Do not listen or consent." A wicked man is never really anything but a weak man. It is only "the righteous" who is, as the proverb says, "bold as a lion." When Ahab does refuse the king of Syria this demand, which no soldier should accept, he says half apologetically, "This thing I cannot do." He does not use the bold, strong "will not" of the three Hebrew young men, who were in a far more helpless position and faced a more powerful king (Dan. 3:18).
The lesson of the inch
Ahab's mistake is an old one. Give the first thing asked, and the next demand is bigger:
Hamilton SmithMany have agreed to go one mile with Satan who never meant to go two. So Satan leads poor people down into the depths of sin by winding stairs, which keep them from seeing the bottom they are heading for... Give no place to Satan! Not an inch in his first moves. Outside the door he is a beggar, and a modest one. Let him in, and he will rule the house.
That is the threat in verses 5 and 6. The beggar at the door now proposes to search the house.
Grace that keeps coming back
God did not leave Samaria to fall. He promised this king a rescue Ahab never asked for:
H. L. RossierIf the weight of God's judgments had not taught him this before, perhaps this miraculous deliverance would touch his heart and restore him. What touching patience God shows, even toward the most profane, the most indifferent, the most hardened. The God whom man rejects does not grow tired. He comes back to him as the God of grace and of deliverance!
Summary
- Demand. Ben-hadad's first message was a call to submit. Ahab submitted, so the messengers came back for more.
- Escalation. The second demand was bigger than the first: not just the treasure, but a search of every house for whatever the enemy liked.
- Silence. Ahab never consults God. He counts thirty-two kings against his own strength and leaves God out.
- Weakness. His servile answer proves the rule: a wicked man is never anything but a weak man. Only the righteous are bold as a lion.
- Grace. God still promises this king deliverance. The God whom man rejects comes back to him as the God of deliverance.