Ahab of Israel [IV]

After Elijah's palaver with God at Mount Sinai, the narrative shifts its attention from Elijah to Ahab. The date was sometime around 860 BC, and Ben-hadad II was putting together a coalition of ’32 kings’ to invade Israel and bring her to submission. Exactly why the King of Aram decided to go to war isn’t given; however, two possibilities are possible. First, Israel’s reemergence to power under the Omride Dynasty would’ve been concerning to Aram; perhaps Ben-hadad II thought a preventative war could put Israel in her place before she grew too strong and decided to try and regain her former Solomonic possessions on the Golan Heights and elsewhere that Aram now controlled. Another possibility is that the campaign was prompted by Omri’s conquest of Moab and Israel’s consequent control of the King’s Highway on the Transjordan trade route; if Aram were to push back Israel’s boundaries and win control of the trade route, she could make a pretty penny taxing the caravans and merchants. 

We can assume the current Aramean king was the son of Ben-hadad I of 1 Kings 15, who originally allied with Baasha of Israel against Judah but then shifted his allegiance to Judah’s King Asa for a pot of gold and the chance to hew some towns from northern Israel. Charting Aramean kings is difficult, though a general consensus has given the following line-of-succession of Aramean kings for this time period: Ben-hadad I of 1 Kings 15, Ben-hadad II of 1 Kings 20 (with whom we treat now and who will continually go to war against Israel), and then Hazael (whom Yahweh appointed Elijah to anoint). We deduce that the Aramean king dealt with here is Ben-hadad II because in 1 Kings 20.34 the King of Aram speaks to Ahab of his (the Aramean king’s) father having privileges in Samaria, but Ben-hadad I’s father Hezion died before Samaria was built. Aramean chronologies aside, Ben-hadad II cobbled together what looks like a superbly impressive force: thirty-two kings! Bear in mind, however, that ‘kings’ here could include the heads of tiny principalities, tribal kings, or even minor chieftains. An assortment of city-states and tribal groups existed around Aram at this time, each of which would’ve had a ‘king.’ It isn’t difficult to envision thirty-two petty rulers joining together with their allotted household warriors to assist the King of Aram for a share in the bounty to be won. While Ben-hadad II’s force was undoubtedly large, one mustn’t assume it was an apocalyptic army – and it would’ve been one in which the Aramean king’s control was weakened by the plethora of diverse attitudes, priorities, and ambitions among the coalition members. 

the gates of Samaria

Ben-hadad’s force moved quickly, and Ahab didn’t have time to adequately respond. The Arameans outmaneuvered the main Israelite army and reached Samaria before the capital could be defended. Ahab was in the capital with Israel’s elders and district governors when the Aramean force encircled the city and threatened a siege. Cut off from the regular army, which was either still in its garrisons or had been outwitted by the Aramean approach, Israel’s king was stuck with the country’s leading functionaries (or politicians) and the ill-trained commanders of the national levy; the main army was cut off from its leaders and chief staff officers. Ben-hadad demanded that Ahab surrender his silver and gold and finest wives and children as hostages for good behavior; these were excessive demands, indicating that his goal may have been to prompt all-out war. Were Ahab to agree, his reputation would greatly suffer: his manhood would be called into question, not to mention his legitimacy as a ruler – to surrender the best of his harem was tantamount to surrendering the throne itself. Shockingly – even to Ben-hadad – Ahab agreed to the terms. Perhaps he felt like he had no choice, facing off with an overwhelming enemy force and separated from his regular army; or maybe he hoped that a mere acknowledgement of the Aramean king’s power would be enough to calm Ben-hadad’s nerves so that he wouldn’t actually come to demanding such ridiculous terms. The King of Aram, surprised at Ahab’s willingness to bend the knee, intensified his demands: he wanted to send his men into the city so that they could plunder the houses of the king and the royal officials, taking whatever they wanted for themselves. Ahab bristled at these new demands and called a meeting of the elders. The first demands had affected only Ahab, whereas these new demands affected everyone in the city; the first demands enabled Ahab to pick and choose what he’d surrender, but the new demands gave that prerogative to rampaging enemy soldiers. The elders urged him to resist the demands, as they didn’t want to be robbed of all they had, and they feared for the safety of their families. 

Ben-hadad II relaxing in his royal tent

Ahab refused Ben-hadad’s new terms, and the Aramean king vowed to make Samaria a heap of dust and boasted that his troops were so numerous that this dust would be insufficient to fill the hands of each of his soldiers. Ahab retorted with a pithy, incisive proverb consisting of only four words in the Hebrew (the proverb is still used to this day): ‘One who puts on armor should not brag like one who takes it off,’ meaning Ben-hadad was foolish to claim victory before he had it. Ben-hadad was drunk with the leaders of his coalition in his headquarters tent, well-screened by his chariots by any outside interference, when his messenger delivered Ahab’s reply, and in a rage he ordered his soldiers to take their places and begin the siege. 

Ahab, fearing the suffering that was sure to come upon the besieged city, could only look helplessly on as the Aramean troops tightened their noose around the capital. An unnamed prophet approached Ahab and said that Yahweh was giving the enemy into his hands so that Ahab would know Yahweh was Lord. God’s purpose in giving the corrupt king divine help was so that Ahab would know that Yahweh, rather than Baal, was Lord; remember that ‘Baal,’ in its simplest translation, means ‘Lord’: Yahweh was going to show that He, rather than Baal, was the real Lord. On Mount Carmel Ahab had seen Yahweh appear as a God of fire, wrath, and judgment; now He would show Himself as a God of redemption. On Carmel He’d shown Himself superior to the gods of Phoenicia; now He would show His superiority over the gods of Aram. Ahab asked the prophet how this would come about; this doesn’t indicate a lack of faith in the prophet’s words but reflects, rather, the common belief that the gods’ involvement was essential for success in battle. Kings and commanders were expected to consult their deities about timing and strategies, as Ahab did here: while pagans would consult their priests to receive oracular responses, Ahab questioned the prophet, who was Yahweh’s representative. The prophet told him that the victory would come by the ‘young men’ who served the district governors and that Ahab was to begin the battle. The identity of the ‘young men’ is debated; all that’s known is that they were servants of the district governors (who were basically politicians). Some scholars believe the ‘young men’ (who numbered 232 behind Samaria’s walls) were picked soldiers who formed the bodyguards of the district governors who had flocked to Samaria to participate in an emergency council regarding Aram’s invasion; another theory – which is more prevalent among commentators – is that the ‘young men’ were up-and-coming politicians, a sort of support staff to the governors, much like modern aids and apprentices to state officials. The latter is more likely because Yahweh was selecting an agency that was purposefully weak and feeble in order to showcase His power. These ‘young men’ were charged with commencing the counterattack; they would then be followed up by the seven thousand men of the national levy behind Samaria’s walls. 

the 232 'young men' sally forth from the city

The feeble ‘young men’ sallied forth at noon. Ben-hadad was drunk with his coalition leaders in the campaign tent, as noon was the time when people of the Near East generally took a rest from all activity. Camp sentries reported the troop movements out of Samaria’s gates and likely reported that they looked pitifully weak; the Aramean king snorted, saying, ‘If they come for peace, seize them alive; and if they come out for war, take them alive anyways.’ He probably wanted the Israelites captured so that he could torture and mock them before they were executed. The Arameans on the front lines of the siege were greedy to seize the small force of young men issuing down the city, perceiving them as nothing more than prey to be taken alive and paraded before their king. Unbeknownst to them, the 232 men were a decoy to lull the Arameans into a false sense of security: as the Arameans approached the young men, ordering them to lay down their arms, the seven thousand soldiers of the armed levy gushed from the city’s gates to overwhelm the overconfident Arameans (it’s likely that Ahab’s household chariots, as well as the elite units that formed his bodyguard, poured from the city, too, with Ahab at their head). The Israelites meant to fight, and they plowed into the coalition’s camp. The coalition leaders, drunk with Ben-hadad in the campaign headquarters, failed to muster their troops; the Aramean troops, leaderless, broke under the sudden onslaught, and the Israelites rushed through the camp. Ben-hadad barely escaped on horseback with a contingent of royal cavalry (the first mention, interestingly, of cavalry on a Palestinian battlefield); he returned to Aram broiling and shame-faced, having lost his precious royal chariot – not to mention most of his men. 

The Israelites route the Aramean Coalition

The fleeing enemy soldiers had to pass within striking distance a number of Israelite army fortresses (such as those at Shechem, Penuel, Megiddo, Tirzah, and possibly Hazor); and in order to get back to Aram, they had to navigate mountainous territory with defiles that were deathtraps to retreating soldiers. The Israelite garrisons, formerly cut off from their chief officers, were doubtless able to inflict punishing blows on the retreating forces. It’s likely that the coalition suffered more casualties in the flight through enemy territory than it did in battle before Samaria’s walls. The victory, however, was only the first stage of Yahweh’s redemption; the unnamed prophet warned Ahab that the King of Aram would return in spring the next year, when military campaigns were generally launched, and instructed Ahab to take every precaution to strengthen his army and the capital’s fortifications. Ben-hadad II had been humiliated, and that humiliation would only galvanize his hostility against Israel. Blood would be drawn again, and soon.

Ben-hadad's prophets blamed their defeat on the fact that Yahweh (they assumed) was a god of the hills; if they brought Israel to battle on the plains, Aram’s gods would have the upper hand. Peoples of the ancient Near East assumed that gods had defined territorial jurisdictions; these could be along national lines (as each nation had a patron deity) or they could be based upon topographical boundaries (such as rivers, lakes, plains, mountains, etc.). The fact that Israel was situated in mountainous country and that the capital city of Samaria was ringed by mountains and on a hill itself fueled speculation that Yahweh was a god of the mountains. To defeat Israel, then, they needed to lure the Israelite troops out of their mountain holdfasts and down into a plain. A few tactical changes were in order, too. The thirty-two kings with their diverse interests and lack of military experience only hurt the siege of 860 BC; the kings were, for the most part, political heavyweights rather than militant professionals. This time around Ben-hadad needed to replace them with trained professional commanders, and instead of trying to bring Israel to her knees by starving her into submission via siege, this time they would roll the dice with a pitched battle in a plain where Aram’s gods – not to mention Aram’s cavalry and chariotry – would have an edge. 

Thus it was in the spring of 859 BC that the King of Aram launched another invasion of Israel, this time swinging away from the approaches to Samaria and coming to a place called Aphek. The exact location is unknown, as there are at least five different Apheks in Israel. Likely options include a location six miles east of Galilee or a town located in the Plain of Esdraelon. The most viable option is the location six miles east of the Sea of Galilee. Ahab hadn’t spent the autumn and winter relaxing; he’d been strengthening Israel’s fortifications and getting her army prepared for war. When his scouts reported Ben-hadad’s movements, Ahab moved his troops to check the Aramean king’s progress. Ben-hadad in turn moved to block the Israelite advance at a narrow defile just southwest of Aphek, where he made his base camp. The narrow defile was created by two parallel river gorges and left only a steep, narrow ridge on the approach to Aphek. The enemies likely faced off against one another on either end of the defile, which was no more than 330 feet wide for about 440 yards. The Israelites were outnumbered: compared to the Aramean host, they looked like two little flocks of goats. The unnamed prophet assured Ahab of coming victory, reporting that because the Arameans thought Yahweh was impotent in the valleys, He was going to show them what He was made of. Through the coming victory, neighboring nations would learn of the power of Israel’s God, and apostate Israel would be provided yet another proof of Yahweh’s power. 

The Battle of Aphek

The two armies faced each other across the defile for seven days. This may have been because the sacred number seven was viewed, superstitiously, as the best time for an attack; or, perhaps, given the nature of the defile, neither side wanted to launch the attack (the terrain gave a solid advantage to whoever played defense). On the seventh day, battle was joined, and the Israelites ‘smote’ one hundred thousand foot soldiers in a single day (the Hebrew word for ‘smote’ can refer to both killed and wounded). The rest of Ben-hadad’s army flocked into the fortified city of Aphek, which was in the hands of the Arameans. The Bible doesn’t give any details regarding how victory was achieved, but one theory is that the Israelites outflanked the Arameans. The defile has two flanking approaches, so it would’ve been possible for the Israelites to make a detour around the Arameans and attack them from the sides or rear. Given seven days of facing each other before giving battle, Ahab would’ve had ample time to reconnoiter the enemy and the lay of the land. The Bible does tell us that one of Aphek’s walls fell on 27,000 of Ben-hadad’s soldiers seeking refuge behind Aphek’s fortress walls; this could refer to an earthquake toppling the walls or to the walls falling due to Israelite undermining efforts. 

modern Aphek; the fortress dates to the Ottomans in the
16th century AD

Trapped in Aphek, having fled into an inner chamber of the fortress, Ben-hadad II’s servants implored him to seek mercy with Ahab so that they’d be spared. They argued that they should dress themselves in sackcloth (a coarse, uncomfortable garment made of goat or camel hair), put a rope on their heads (or around their necks) as a sign of repentance and submission, and beg Ahab for mercy. Rumor had it that Israelite kings had a merciful bent. Ben-hadad took their concerns at face value and dispatched messengers to probe Ahab’s willingness to treat with him. Ahab referred to Ben-hadad as his ‘brother,’ indicating a certain level of respect and equality between the two heads of opposing nations. The Aramean king went out to meet with Ahab, and Ahab did a shocking thing: he invited him up into his chariot. This showed favor and a desire for reconciliation; whereas vassals ‘ran by the wheel’ of the chariot, Ahab was treating Ben-hadad as a respected equal by inviting him up into the royal chariot. There the two of them hammered out the Treaty of Aphek: Ben-hadad would restore the towns that his father Ben-hadad I had taken from Ahab’s ‘grandfather,’ or predecessor, King Baasha; Ahab would be allowed to establish an Israelite quarter or market in Damascus, Aram’s capital, in which Israelite merchants could live and trade. With the treaty signed and sealed, Ben-hadad II was allowed to depart with his army intact.

Ahab’s generosity would be met with a sharp rebuke from the prophets of God, but he had good (secular) reasons for being so relenting. He was a far-sighted ruler, and he sought to use Ben-hadad’s desperate situation to his benefit. First (but not foremost), Ahab likely hoped to break the unrelenting cycle of wars between Israel and Aram. Were his terms to be absolutely humiliating, they would rile up the bad blood even more; besides, if he were to return Ben-hadad’s favor and invade Aram, he wouldn’t have the manpower or resources to effectively control any gains. Second, Ahab had commercial concerns: by opening an Israelite quarters in Damascus, he would expand Israelite trade and plug into heretofore unreachable trade avenues. But thirdly, and most importantly, Ahab wanted Aram to be strong because she served as a buffer between Israel and the growing Assyrian threat. The Assyrians were rising in the east and would need to be checked (Assyrian texts tell us that both Ahab and Ben-hadad II contributed troops to a coalition that did just that at the Battle of Qarqar in 853 BC). With Assyria’s power growing, and with her led by a new king who was known for his ruthless and cruel expansionist policies, Ahab figured it’d be better to have a friend and ally to the north rather than a belligerent. If Ahab were to strip Aram of her manpower and resources, he would, in effect, be opening the floodgates for an Assyrian foray into Israel. Thus, while it was customary for defeated armies to surrender their men or arms to the victors, Ahab made no such demands on the defeated King of Aram. Ben-hadad II was but a garter snake in the rose bushes; Assyria was a cobra uncoiling on the doorstep.

The biblical narrative shifts to recount a strange episode among the prophets of God. In a group of prophets, one prophet commanded another, ‘Hit me!’ The prophet refused to strike his comrade, so the first prophet told him that because he refused to obey the voice of Yahweh, he’d be killed by a lion – and it happened just as the prophet said (making this the second prophet who violated an explicit command of God and paid for it with his life, and in both cases the sentence was carried out by a lion). The first prophet told another prophet to strike him, and this one wisely did, wounding him in the head. The prophet wrapped his injury and went out to the road and waited for King Ahab to pass by. King Ahab, fresh from victory over Ben-hadad II, was traveling back to Samaria with his royal entourage. As he passed by on the road, the prophet demanded an audience with the king. His bodyguards let him through, and the prophet – disguised as a wounded soldier – told Ahab that he’d been placed in charge of a prisoner and had been unjustly commanded by a superior officer to hold the prisoner on pain of death (or for the price of 75 pounds of silver, which both indicated the prisoner’s importance and which was an exorbitant amount a common soldier could never pay). The disguised prophet told him that he’d lost the prisoner and wished the king to pronounce judgment. Ahab said that he should indeed die for his incompetence, judging the death penalty to be just; a soldier who allowed a prisoner to escape forfeited his own life. 

The prophet then removed the bandage, and Ahab recognized him – much to his horror. The prophet gave him the word of Yahweh: ‘Because you let Ben-hadad go, whom I had devoted to destruction, your life will be for his life, and your people for his people.’ God had appointed the King of Aram to destruction; he was a condemned man. Yet the king to whom God had granted the victory had dismissed Ben-hadad II instead of executing him. He’d ‘lost’ his prisoner. Therefore Ahab would forfeit his life for that of Ben-hadad’s. By means of his ploy, the prophet had gotten Ahab to pronounce judgment on himself (in a manner akin to that of King David and the prophet Nathan after the Bathsheba affair). The strange opening of this episode – one prophet refusing to slap another and being killed by a lion because of it – focused the spotlight on Ahab’s crime: just as the first prophet who refused to slap another was disobeying God from an impulse of kindness and civility, so, too, Ahab had refused to obey God and shown kindness where kindness was not warranted. Yahweh’s commands are to be followed, regardless of how they may chafe against one’s dispositions. 

God’s strict judgment on Ahab must take into account two facts: first, Ahab wasn’t free to do as he wanted with Ahab; this had been God’s war and God’s victory. Ahab should’ve consulted through priests or prophets to determine what Yahweh wanted him to do with the cornered Aramean king. Second, Ben-hadad II had already shown himself of cruel and untrustworthy temperament; in the interests of Israel’s future, Ahab should’ve executed the invader when he had the chance. Though peace had been forged, and though they would indeed stand side-by-side as brothers against Shalmaneser III in 593, Ben-hadad II wouldn’t follow through on his promises at Aphek and the two would be fighting each other again – and Ahab, true to the prophet’s words, would lose his life while Ben-hadad kept his.