1 Kings 20:13

The Lord Delivers Israel

20:13 Now a prophet visited King Ahab of Israel and said, “This is what the Lord says, ‘Do you see this huge army? ¹  Look, I am going to hand it over to you this very day. Then you will know that I am the Lord.’”

1 Kings 20:19-21

20:19 They marched out of the city with the servants of the district governors in the lead and the army behind them. 20:20 Each one struck down an enemy soldier; ²  the Syrians fled and Israel chased them. King Ben Hadad of Syria escaped on horseback with some horsemen. 20:21 Then the king of Israel marched out and struck down the horses and chariots; he thoroughly defeated ³  Syria.

1 Kings 20:28-30

20:28 The prophet ⁴  visited the king of Israel and said, “This is what the Lord says: ‘Because the Syrians said, “The Lord is a god of the mountains and not a god of the valleys,” I will hand over to you this entire huge army. ⁵  Then you will know that I am the Lord.’”

20:29 The armies were deployed opposite each other for seven days. On the seventh day the battle began, and the Israelites killed 100,000 Syrian foot soldiers in one day. 20:30 The remaining 27,000 ran to Aphek and went into the city, but the wall fell on them. ⁶  Now Ben Hadad ran into the city and hid in an inner room. ⁷ 

1 Kings 20:2

20:2 He sent messengers to King Ahab of Israel, who was in the city. ⁸ 

1 Kings 13:5-16

13:5 The altar split open and the ashes ⁹  fell from the altar to the ground, ¹⁰  in fulfillment of the sign the prophet had announced with the Lord’s authority. ¹¹  13:6 The king pled with ¹²  the prophet, ¹³  “Seek the favor of ¹⁴  the Lord your God and pray for me, so that my hand may be restored.” So the prophet sought the Lord’s favor ¹⁵  and the king’s hand was restored to its former condition. ¹⁶  13:7 The king then said to the prophet, “Come home with me and have something to eat. I’d like to give a present.” 13:8 But the prophet said to the king, “Even if you were to give me half your possessions, ¹⁷  I could not go with you and eat and drink ¹⁸  in this place. 13:9 For the Lord gave me strict orders, ¹⁹  ‘Do not eat or drink ²⁰  there and do not go home the way you came.’” 13:10 So he started back on another road; he did not travel back on the same road he had taken to Bethel.

13:11 Now there was an old prophet living in Bethel. ²¹  When his sons came home, they told their father ²²  everything the prophet ²³  had done in Bethel that day and all the words he had spoken to the king. ²⁴  13:12 Their father asked them, “Which road did he take?” His sons showed him ²⁵  the road the prophet ²⁶  from Judah had taken. 13:13 He then told his sons, “Saddle the donkey for me.” When they had saddled the donkey for him, he mounted it 13:14 and took off after the prophet, ²⁷  whom he found sitting under an oak tree. He asked him, “Are you the prophet ²⁸  from Judah?” He answered, “Yes, I am.” 13:15 He then said to him, “Come home with me and eat something.” 13:16 But he replied, “I can’t go back with you ²⁹  or eat and drink ³⁰  with you in this place.

Jeremiah 46:15-16

46:15 Why will your soldiers ³¹  be defeated? ³² 

They will not stand because I, the Lord, will thrust ³³  them down.

46:16 I will make many stumble. ³⁴ 

They will fall over one another in their hurry to flee. ³⁵ 

They will say, ‘Get up!

Let’s go back to our own people.

Let’s go back to our homelands

because the enemy is coming to destroy us.’ ³⁶ 

[20:13]  ¹ tn Heb “this great horde.”

[20:20]  ² tn Heb “each struck down his man.”

[20:21]  ³ tn Heb “struck down Aram with a great striking down.”

[20:28]  ⁴ tn Heb “the man of God.”

[20:28]  ⁵ tn Heb “I will place all this great horde in your hand.”

[20:30]  ⁶ tn Heb “and the remaining ones fled to Aphek to the city and the wall fell on twenty-seven thousand men, the ones who remained.”

[20:30]  ⁷ tn Heb “and Ben Hadad fled and went into the city, [into] an inner room in an inner room.”

[20:2]  ⁸ tn Heb “to the city.”

[13:5]  ⁹ tn Heb “the fat.” Reference is made to burnt wood mixed with fat. See HALOT 234 s.v. דשׁן.

[13:5]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “were poured out from the altar.”

[13:5]  ¹¹ tn Heb “according to the sign which the man of God had given by the word of the Lord.”

[13:6]  ¹² tn Heb “The king answered and said to.”

[13:6]  ¹³ tn Heb “the man of God” (a second time later in this verse, and once in v. 7 and v. 8).

[13:6]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “appease the face of.”

[13:6]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “appeased the face of the Lord.”

[13:6]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “and it was as in the beginning.”

[13:8]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “house.”

[13:8]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “eat food and drink water.”

[13:9]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “for this he commanded me by the word of the Lord, saying.”

[13:9]  ²⁰ tn Heb “eat food and drink water.”

[13:11]  ²¹ map For location see Map4 G4; Map5 C1; Map6 E3; Map7 D1; Map8 G3.

[13:11]  ²² tn Heb “and his son came and told him.” The MT has the singular here, but several other textual witnesses have the plural, which is more consistent with the second half of the verse and with vv. 12-13.

[13:11]  ²³ tn Heb “the man of God.”

[13:11]  ²⁴ tn Heb “all the actions which the man of God performed that day in Bethel, the words which he spoke to the king, and they told them to their father.”

[13:12]  ²⁵ tn The Hebrew text has “and his sons saw” (וַיִּרְאוּ [vayyir’u], Qal from רָאָה [ra’ah]). In this case the verbal construction (vav consecutive + prefixed verbal form) would have to be understood as pluperfect, “his sons had seen.” Such uses of this construction are rare at best. Consequently many, following the lead of the ancient versions, prefer to emend the verbal form to a Hiphil with pronominal suffix (וַיַּרְאֻהוּ [vayyar’uhu], “and they showed him”).

[13:12]  ²⁶ tn Heb “the man of God.”

[13:14]  ²⁷ tn Heb “the man of God.”

[13:14]  ²⁸ tn Heb “the man of God.”

[13:16]  ²⁹ tn Heb “I am unable to return with you or to go with you.”

[13:16]  ³⁰ tn Heb “eat food and drink water.”

[46:15]  ³¹ tn The word translated “soldiers” (אַבִּירִים, ’abbirim) is not the Hebrew word that has been used of soldiers elsewhere in these oracles (גִּבּוֹרִים, gibborim). It is an adjective used as a noun that can apply to animals, i.e., of a bull (Ps 50:13) or a stallion (Judg 5:22). Moreover, the form is masculine plural and the verbs are singular. Hence, many modern commentaries and English versions follow the redivision of the first line presupposed by the Greek version, “Apis has fled” (נָס חַף, nas khaf) and see this as a reference to the bull god of Memphis. However, the noun is used of soldiers in Lam 1:15 and the plural could be the distributive plural, i.e., each and every one (cf. GKC 464 §145.l and compare usage in Gen 27:29).

[46:15]  ³² tn The Hebrew word used here only occurs here (in the Niphal) and in Prov 28:3 (in the Qal) where it refers to a rain that beats down grain. That idea would fit nicely with the idea of the soldiers being beaten down, or defeated. It is possible that the rarity of this verb (versus the common verb נוּס, nus, “flee”) and the ready identification of Apis with the bull calf (אַבִּיר, ’abbir) has led to the reading of the Greek text (so C. von Orelli, Jeremiah, 327). The verbs in this verse and the following are in the perfect tense but should be understood as prophetic perfects since the text is dealing with what will happen when Nebuchadnezzar comes into Egypt. The text of vv. 18-24 shows a greater mixture with some perfects and some imperfects, sometimes even within the same verse (e.g., v. 22).

[46:15]  ³³ tn Heb “the Lord will thrust them down.” However, the Lord is speaking (cf. clearly in v. 18), so the first person is adopted for the sake of consistency. This has been a consistent problem in the book of Jeremiah where the prophet is so identified with the word of the Lord that he sometimes uses the first person and sometimes the third. It creates confusion for the average reader who is trying to follow the flow of the argument and has been shifted to the first person like this on a number of occasions. TEV and CEV have generally adopted the same policy as have some other modern English versions at various points.

[46:16]  ³⁴ tn Heb “he multiplied the one stumbling.” For the first person reference see the preceding translator’s note.

[46:16]  ³⁵ tc The words “in their hurry to flee” are not in the text but appear to be necessary to clarify the point that the stumbling and falling here is not the same as that in vv. 6, 12 where they occur in the context of defeat and destruction. Reference here appears to be to the mercenary soldiers who in their hurried flight to escape stumble over one another and fall. This is fairly clear from the literal translation “he multiplies the stumbling one. Also [= and] a man falls against a man and they say [probably = “saying”; an epexegetical use of the vav (ו) consecutive (IBHS 551 §33.2.2a, and see Exod 2:10 as a parallel)] ‘Get up! Let’s go…’” A reference to the flight of the mercenaries is also seen in v. 21. Many of the modern commentaries and a few of the modern English versions follow the Greek text and read vv. 15a-16 very differently. The Greek reads “Why has Apis fled from you? Your choice calf [i.e., Apis] has not remained. For the Lord has paralyzed him. And your multitudes have fainted and fallen; and each one said to his neighbor…” (reading רֻבְּךָ כָּשַׁל גַּם־נָפַל וַיֹּאמְרוּ אִישׁ אֶל־רֵעֵהוּ instead of כּוֹשֵׁל הִרְבָּה גַּם־נָפַל אִישׁ אֶל־רֵעֵהוּ). One would expect אִישׁ אֶל־רֵעֵהוּ (’ish ’el-re’ehu) to go with וַיֹּאמְרוּ (vayyo’mÿru) because it is idiomatic in this expression (cf., e.g., Gen 11:3; Judg 6:29). However, אִישׁ אֶל־רֵעֵהוּ (’ish ’el-re’ehu) is also found with singular verbs as here in Exod 22:9; 33:11; 1 Sam 10:11. There is no doubt that the Hebrew text is the more difficult and thus probably original. The reading of the Greek version is not supported by any other text or version and looks like an attempt to smooth out a somewhat awkward Hebrew original.

[46:16]  ³⁶ tn Heb “to our native lands from before the sword of the oppressor.” The compound preposition “from before” is regularly used in a causal sense (see BDB 818 s.v. פָּנֶה 6.a, b, c). The “sword” is again interpreted as a figure for the destructive power of an enemy army.