Drunken Threats and Divine Deliverance Text: 1 Kings 20:1-25
Introduction: When God Fights for Bad Men
We live in a sentimental age. We like our heroes to be spotless and our morality tales to be simple. We want God to be a celestial talent scout, looking for the best and brightest, the most righteous and deserving, to be on His team. But the God of the Bible is not sentimental. He is sovereign. He does not recruit His team; He creates it, often out of the most unpromising and gnarled lumber imaginable. And sometimes, for His own inscrutable and glorious purposes, He gives a stunning victory to a man who deserves nothing but judgment.
This is the story of one such man, Ahab, king of Israel. If you were to make a list of the worst kings in Israel's history, Ahab would be a top contender for the gold medal. He was a weak, pouting, idolatrous man, married to the pagan termagant Jezebel, and a sworn enemy of the prophets of God. And yet, in this chapter, God hands him not one, but two miraculous military victories. Why? The text tells us plainly. It was not for Ahab's sake. It was so that Ahab, Israel, and the pagan Arameans would "know that I am Yahweh."
This chapter is a frontal assault on every form of man-centered religion. It demolishes the idea that God only helps those who help themselves. It wrecks the notion that God's blessings are a reward for our good behavior. And it reveals the utter folly of paganism, which always seeks to shrink God down to a manageable size, to make Him a god of the hills, but not the valleys. This is a story about the scandalous, untamable, and absolute sovereignty of God. He is the main character, and He will use whomever He pleases, including wicked kings and junior varsity soldiers, to put His glory on display.
The Text
Now Ben-hadad king of Aram gathered all his military force, and there were thirty-two kings with him, and horses and chariots. And he went up and besieged Samaria and fought against it. Then he sent messengers to the city to Ahab king of Israel and said to him, "Thus says Ben-hadad, 'Your silver and your gold are mine; your most beautiful wives and children are also mine.' " Then the king of Israel answered and said, "It is according to your word, my lord, O king; I am yours, and all that I have." Then the messengers returned and said, "Thus says Ben-hadad, 'Surely, I sent to you saying, "You shall give me your silver and your gold and your wives and your children," but about this time tomorrow I will send my servants to you, and they will search your house and the houses of your servants; and whatever is desirable in your eyes, they will put in their hand and carry away.' " ... and he listened to their voice and did so.
(1 Kings 20:1-25 LSB)
The Bully's Overreach (vv. 1-6)
The story begins with an overwhelming show of force. Ben-hadad of Aram, with a coalition of thirty-two kings, lays siege to Samaria. His initial demand is one of total vassalage.
"Thus says Ben-hadad, 'Your silver and your gold are mine; your most beautiful wives and children are also mine.' " (1 Kings 20:3)
Ahab's response is immediate and pathetic. "It is according to your word, my lord, O king; I am yours, and all that I have" (v. 4). This is the voice of a man whose spine has been dissolved. Having abandoned the Lordship of Yahweh, he has no ground to stand on when a pagan bully shows up at his door. If you will not have God as your king, you will have tyrants as your masters. Ahab capitulates completely.
But the nature of sin, and the nature of tyranny, is that it is never satisfied. Give a bully your lunch money, and tomorrow he will demand your lunch. Ben-hadad sends his messengers back with a second, more humiliating demand. It is one thing to pay tribute. It is another thing entirely to have your home ransacked by your enemy's servants, who will take "whatever is desirable in your eyes" (v. 6). This is not about economics; it is about degradation. Ben-hadad doesn't just want Ahab's stuff; he wants to rub his face in the dirt. He wants to violate the sanctity of his home and his honor. This is the overreach that finally provokes a response.
A Worm Turns (vv. 7-12)
Pushed beyond the point of utter humiliation, Ahab finally does what he should have done in the first place: he consults the elders of Israel. And here, we see a flicker of national integrity. The elders and the people tell him, "Do not listen or consent" (v. 8). Ahab, bolstered by this, sends back a refusal. It is a weak refusal, still calling Ben-hadad "my lord," but it is a refusal nonetheless.
"Say to my lord the king, 'All that you sent for to your servant at the first I will do, but this thing I cannot do.' " (1 Kings 20:9)
Ben-hadad's response is pure, arrogant bluster. He swears a pagan oath that he will reduce Samaria to dust. But it is the king of Israel who gets off the best line of the exchange. "Let not him who girds on his armor boast like him who takes it off" (v. 11). This is a piece of timeless military wisdom, a nugget of common grace spoken by a faithless king. Talk is cheap. Don't celebrate until the battle is actually won. The irony is thick, because Ben-hadad receives this message while he is getting drunk in his tent. His boasting is fueled by wine, not reality. He is a picture of the arrogant pagan world, drunk on its own power and oblivious to the judgment that is about to fall.
The Ludicrous Plan of God (vv. 13-21)
Just when the situation seems hopeless, God intervenes. And He does so in a way that is designed to confound all human wisdom. A prophet, unnamed, appears before Ahab. This is grace upon grace. God sends His word to a king who had been trying to kill His prophets.
"Thus says Yahweh, 'Have you seen all this great multitude? Behold, I will deliver them into your hand today, and you shall know that I am Yahweh.' " (1 Kings 20:13)
The purpose is stated explicitly: this is a theology lesson. This is about the revelation of God's character. Ahab then asks the logical, military question: "By whom?" The answer is strategically insane. "By the young men of the rulers of the provinces" (v. 14). Not the elite guard, not the grizzled veterans, but 232 administrative aides. And who is to lead this charge? "You." Ahab himself must lead this suicide mission.
God's battle plans are often foolishness to men. He chose a shepherd boy with a sling, a small band of men with trumpets and jars, and here, a couple hundred provincial squires. Why? To remove any possibility of man taking the credit. God was rigging the game so that only He could get the glory.
And so, at high noon, while Ben-hadad and his thirty-two royal drinking buddies were drunk in their pavilions, the 232 young men went out. Ben-hadad's response is comical in its arrogance. "If they have come out for peace, take them alive; or if they have come out for war, take them alive" (v. 18). He cannot even conceive of a threat. But the Lord was with the tiny Israelite force. They routed the Arameans, and Ben-hadad, the great boaster, fled for his life on a horse. The victory was total, decisive, and utterly miraculous.
Bad Theology in the Locker Room (vv. 22-25)
After the battle, the prophet returns with a warning: "Go, strengthen yourself... for at the turn of the year the king of Aram will come up against you" (v. 22). God is not finished with His lesson. Round two is coming.
The scene then shifts to the Aramean post-mortem. Their servants come to Ben-hadad with their analysis of what went wrong. And their conclusion is a masterpiece of pagan theological error.
"Their gods are gods of the mountains, therefore they were stronger than we; but rather let us fight against them in the plain, and surely we will be stronger than they." (1 Kings 20:23)
This is the essence of idolatry. It attempts to localize God, to limit His jurisdiction. The pagans project their own limitations onto the deity. Their gods were territorial, tribal, and limited. So they assume Yahweh must be the same. He is a "god of the mountains." If they can just change the venue, they think they can win. They believe reality can be manipulated by getting the geography and tactics right. They do not understand that they are not fighting against a localized mountain spirit; they are fighting against the Creator of the mountains and the plains, the Lord of Heaven and Earth.
Their counsel is to remuster the army, replace the politically appointed kings with professional captains, and fight on the flat ground. It all sounds very logical. It is the best strategic thinking the world has to offer. And it is doomed to fail, because their fundamental premise is wrong. They have misdiagnosed the problem. The problem is not the terrain. The problem is Yahweh.
Conclusion: The God of the Valleys Also
This story is a profound comfort and a stark warning. The comfort is this: God's grace is not tied to our performance. He delivered Israel under Ahab not because Ahab was good, but because God is great. He delights in displaying His strength through our weakness, His wisdom through our foolishness. If God can use Ahab, He can certainly use us, with all our faults and failures. Our confidence should never be in our own righteousness, but in His sovereign purpose to make His name known.
The warning is this: do not adopt the theology of the Arameans. Do not think that God is a God of the "spiritual" mountains but not the "secular" plains of business, art, and politics. Do not think He is the God of your private devotion but not of the public square. The world is constantly trying to put God in a box, to concede to Him a little religious territory up in the hills while they run things down in the valley. But our God is the God of the whole earth. Every square inch is His.
The Arameans thought they could defeat God by changing the battlefield. But they were about to learn, in the next part of this story, that Yahweh is God of the valleys too. And in the fullness of time, God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, not just to the hills of Judea, but into the darkest valley of all, the valley of the shadow of death. And by His death and resurrection, He conquered not a limited territory, but every principality and power. He is not a local deity. He is the King of kings and Lord of lords, and of His dominion there will be no end, in the mountains or in the plains.