A man of God came near and spoke to the king of Israel, and said, “Yahweh says, ‘Because the Syrians have said, “Yahweh is a god of the hills, but he is not a god of the valleys;” therefore I will deliver all this great multitude into your hand, and you shall know that I am Yahweh.’ ”
They encamped opposite each other for seven days. So it was, that in the seventh day the battle was joined; and the children of Israel killed one hundred thousand footmen of the Syrians in one day. But the rest fled to Aphek, into the city; and the wall fell on twenty-seven thousand men who were left. Ben Hadad fled, and came into the city, into an inner room.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv28, 30 Who am of like power in the valley, as…
Who am of like power in the valley, as I am on the hills, and can as well destroy a multitude with few as with many.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv28–30 1Ki 20:28 And there came a man of God,…
1Ki 20:28 And there came a man of God, and spake unto the king of Israel, and said, Thus saith the LORD, Because the Syrians have said, The LORD [is] God of the hills, but he [is] not God of the valleys, therefore will I deliver all this great multitude into thine hand, and ye shall know that I [am] the LORD.
Ver. 28. And there came a man of God.] Or, There had come a man of God and had spoken unto the king of Israel.
Read full note →
Therefore I will deliver.] Here the Lord wrought for his own great name, as he doth oft. See Eze 20:8; Eze 20:14; Eze 20:22; Eze 20:24. Our jealous God hateth to be robbed of his glory, even by ignorant pagans, whose tongues might seem no slander.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv28, 30 Because the Syrians have said; which he knew, either…
Because the Syrians have said; which he knew, either by common report, strengthened by their present choice of a plain ground for the battle; or rather, by revelation from God, who discovered their secret counsels, 2Ki 6:12. I am the Lord, to wit, the universal Lord of all places, and persons, and things.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv28–30 And there came a man of God,.... The same…
And there came a man of God,.... The same as before, Kg1 20:13 or had come (p) before the little army went out to meet the Syrians; though he might go to Ahab when encamped, for his encouragement:
and spake unto the king of Israel, and said, thus saith the Lord, because the Syrians have said, the Lord is God of the hills, but he is not God of the valleys; See Gill on Kg1 20:23.
Read full note →
therefore will I deliver, all this great multitude into thine hand; not for Ahab's sake would the Lord do this, who does not appear thankful to God for the former victory, nor to be reformed from his idolatry, and the better for it, but for the honour of his own name, which had been blasphemed by the Syrians:
and ye shall know that I am the Lord; both of hills and valleys, the omnipotent Jehovah, the only true God.
(p) "accesserat", Vatablus.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On v30 The wall - Or, the walls (the singular number,…
The wall - Or, the walls (the singular number, for the plural) of the city; in which they were now fortifying themselves. This might possibly happen thro' natural causes; but most probably, was effected by the mighty power of God, sending some earthquake, or violent storm which threw down the walls upon them; or doing this by the ministry of angels. And if ever miracle was to be wrought, now seems to have been the proper season for it; when the blasphemous Syrians denied the sovereign power of God, and thereby in some sort obliged him, to give a proof of it; and to shew, that he was the God of the plains, as well as of the mountains; and that he could as effectually destroy them in their strongest holds, as in the open fields; and make the very walls, to whose strength they trusted for their defense, to be the instruments of their ruin. But it may be farther observed, that it is not said, that all these were killed by the fall of this wall; but only that the wall fell upon them, killing some, and wounding others.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv28–30 Verse 28. Because the Syrians have said] God resents…
Verse 28. Because the Syrians have said] God resents their blasphemy, and is determined to punish it. They shall now be discomfited in such a way as to show that God's power is every where, and that the multitude of a host is nothing against him.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv28–30 1Ki 20:28. Because the Syrians have said, &c. —…
1Ki 20:28. Because the Syrians have said, &c. — What they had said, this man of God knew, either from common report, strengthened by their present choice of plain ground for the battle; or rather, by revelation from God, to whose inspection their secret counsels lay open, 2Ki 6:12. His omnipotence being disputed, he sent his prophet to predict the vengeance coming on his enemies; and their defeat in the plains was a singular and undeniable confirmation, both of his omnipotence and veracity. Ye shall know that I am the Lord — Namely, the universal Lord of all places, persons, and things.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv28, 30 A man of God - Evidently not the prophet…
A man of God - Evidently not the prophet who had spoken to Ahab the year before 1Ki 20:13, 1Ki 20:22. He probably dwelt in the neighborhood of Samaria. Now that Ahab and his army had marched out into the Trans-Jordanic territory, another prophet, a native probably of that region, announced God’s will to them.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv28–30 Lord. Many favours were bestowed on Achab, but he…
Lord. Many favours were bestowed on Achab, but he died impenitent. (Worthington)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv28–30 28. There came a man of God — This…
28. There came a man of God — This prophet was evidently not identical with the one mentioned in 1Ki_20:13; 1Ki_20:22. Thus does one of these prophets confirm and strengthen the sayings of the other.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv28–30 28. And there came a man of God] R.V.…
28. And there came a man of God] R.V. And a man of God came near. See on 1Ki_20:13 above.
This was probably a different person from the prophet of 1Ki_20:13; 1Ki_20:22.
Read full note →
and said] This is the same word in the original with that rendered ‘and spake’ just a few words before. It seems probable, as the verse makes equally good sense without it, that its repetition is due to an error of the scribe. Some versions do not represent it.
the Lord is God] R.V. a god, twice in this verse, thus bringing it into accord with the alteration in 23.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv28, 30 (28)A man of God—apparently not the same as before.…
(28)A man of God—apparently not the same as before. We see from 1Ki_20:35 that the prophetic order was now numerous. The vindication of the majesty of God before the Syrians, as well as before Israel—like the more celebrated case of the rebuke of the blasphemy of Sennacherib (2Ki_19:16-34)—is in accordance with the prayer of Solomon, or the similar utterances in the Psalms (Psa_67:2; Psa_102:15; Psa_138:4), “That all the people of the earth may know thy name, to fear thee;” and also with such prophetic declarations as those of Eze_20:9, “I wrought for my Name’s sake, that it should not be polluted before the heathen.” It is a foreshadowing of that view of all nations, as in some degree having knowledge of God and probation before Him, which is afterwards worked out fully in the prophetic writings. The intense and powerful Monotheism of the religion of Israel, in spite of all its backslidings, could hardly have been without influence over the neighbouring nations (see 2Ki_5:15), especially at a time when the remembrance of Solomon’s vast empire, and still wider influence, would yet linger through the tenacious traditions of the East.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv28–30 And there came a man of God Whether this…
And there came a man of God Whether this is the same person as the "prophet" of vers. 13, 22, is not quite clear. The difference in the designation (see on 1Ki_13:1 and p. 303) would lead us to suppose that a different messenger was meant. It is true the Hebrew has the article "the man of God" (LXX oJ anqrwpov tou qeou), but vYai (see Jud_1:13:6; Deu_33:1) is often hardly distinguishable from the same words without the article, and spake Heb. said, same word as below unto the king of Israel, and said, Thus saith the Lord, Because the Syrians Heb. Syria, but with a plural verb have said, The Lord is Cod of the hills, but he is not God of the valleys, therefore will I deliver all this great multitude into thine hand, and ye shall know that I am the Lord. It was partly for the instruction of Israel, and to confirm their wavering faith in Jehovah (see ver. 13), that this deliverance was wrought. But it was also that neighbouring nations might learn His power, and that His name might be magnified among the heathen.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On v28 Because the Syrians have said, The Lord is the…
1Ki_20:28-30
Because the Syrians have said, The Lord is the God of the hills.
Read full note →
God of the hills and God of the valleys
I. We may limit the Lord by mistrusting the success of His cause. The temptation is at times heavy upon us to think that the Gospel cannot conquer the world, that the truth of Jesus cannot spread in the midst of the thick darkness which surrounds us, that the good old cause is falling into a desperate condition, and that, mayhap, the victory we have looked for will not come after all. Here let us convict ourselves of having thought God to be the God of the hills and not the God of the valleys, for we have generally based our fears upon our perception that the front of the battle has changed.
II. We may commit the sin of syria by doubting the help which the Lord will render to us. Sometimes we are brought into sore trouble, and then we imagine that the Lord will not help us as he helped the old saints, of whom we read in the Bible. We can believe all about Abraham and Moses and David, but we question whether the Lord will help us. We look at those men as the great hills, and we regard ourselves as the valleys, and we dare not hope that the Lord will deal with us as He did with His servants in the days of yore. Now, is not this making God to be a local God, think you? Ought we not to have the same faith in God as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had? I have even known Christians say, I cannot go to God about my trials, they are so ordinary and commonplace. I can pray about spiritual things, but may I pray about temporals? I can take my sins and burdens of serious care to Him, but may I pray about little domestic troubles? How can you ask that question? He tells you the hairs of your head are all numbered: those are not spiritual things surely. You are told to cast all your care on Him. He is the God of the hills of the higher spiritual interests of His children, and is He not the God of the valleys of their hourly troubles? Does He not bid us ask Him to give us day by day our daily bread?
III. It is very easy to fall into this sin by comparing and contrasting the experiences of ourselves and others. The thoughtful soul may often hear the rustle of the skirts of Jehovahs garments in the stillness of those lone hills. God is in rugged souls, in the ravines of a broken heart, and in the caves of dread despair: He overrules the whirlwind of temptation and the tempests of satanic blasphemy, and anon He is seen in the bow of hope and the sunshine of full assurance. The Lord is in every heroic struggle against sin, and in that eager clinging to His word which is seen in so many tempted souls. Yet men judge their fellows and say, The Lord cannot be there, even where He is most mightily. On the other hand, I have known persons fashioned in this rough mould look down on the gentle, quiet life of the useful, less thoughtful, and perhaps less intelligent Christian, who is like the valley, and they have said, Lord, what shall this man do? He does not sympathise with my soul troubles, he has had little or no law work, he does not understand my grand conceptions of truth, he enters not into the deep things of God. Remember that this may be true, and yet the brother may be a far better man than you are.
IV. A very common shape of this sin is limiting the power of the Gospel. I have known you limit the power of the Gospel by supposing that it will only save certain sinners. You heard of a great drunkard who was converted, of a swearer who turned to God, and you said to yourself, I do not wish to be a drunkard or a swearer, but I have seen many of that sort of people saved, and I, who have led a moral life, have not been renewed in heart: it makes me envy them. Why should not you also obtain salvation? Is Jesus the Saviour of open and gross sinners and not of the more secret offenders?
V. We can, after the fashion of Syria, limit the power of God by not expecting his Divine aid to be given to us in His service, (C. H. Spurgeon.)
A mistaken inference
I. The words may be used in a cynical sense. I refer to the spirit of those who imagine that religion has no real hold, and will win no real victories, apart from certain favouring facts, certain propitious agencies, helpful as the hills were to Israel. They think it is the creature of environment, the product of place. Detach it from that environment, transplant it from that place, and its power and reality will vanish. You find a sneer of the kind on the lips of two classes--those who wish to break down religion as a faith, and those who wish to break it down as a practice. Or, to put it otherwise, you find it in those who would have you careless of belief, and those who would have you careless of conduct. Let; us descend from the highlands of prejudice, and take our stand on the lowlands of reason, the arena of impartial logic, the fields of honest and unfettered debate, and see what the issue will be. Your conception of God is a phantom of the mountains; bring it to the clear air and the dry light of the plains, test it by the rules of a sound philosophy, look at it with the eyes of an enlightened intelligence, and phantomlike, it will vanish away. What is this but a reproduction of the words of the Syrians, expounded and applied as modern cynicism knows how: The Lord is a God of the hills, and not a God of the valleys? So, too, with the other class I spoke of, those who endeavour to rob you of character. Sad that there should be such. And wherever they do exist, they speak and act with the same idea, that the religion they assail is a matter of circumstance. It is to be explained, they tell us, by the oversight of watchful eyes, the rule of firm hands, the influences of the fear of punishment and the hope of reward, the discipline and attachments of home. Yet, but let the life be cut loose from all this, away from a fathers authority, away from a mothers solicitude, away from a ministers advice, away from the whole set of circumstances that make purity and probity, temperance and truthfulness, matters of everyday counsel and everyday practice, and see what its principles are worth. The man may retain his character so long as he lives on the heights, but once let him join us on the plains, on the platform of a wider existence, amidst the elbow-room of a freer sphere, he will yield, take his swing, and comport himself just like the rest of us. Such is the assertion of the cynic, thinking religion the outcome of locality, and Providence the genius of place.
II. Again, the words may be used in a superstitious sense. We are to speak of its falseness now when applied to religious worship, associated as that worship often is with certain fixed and unbending conditions that are hurtful to the health and hostile to the spontaneity of the life indeed. Of course, the tendency that I speak of finds its crowning type in the ritualist. As much as any one, the ritualist attempts to limit God, tying the operations of His grace to given and definite places, given and definite agencies, given and definite channels. And yet the superstitious spirit may exist, the spirit that attaches undue importance to places, associations, and forms. Not, of course, that places and associations are without their value in worship. They have their own impressiveness, their own significance, their own power to stimulate and help. But when all has been said, we are not to set limits to God. He who is the God of the hills, with their majesty, their variety, and their poetic associations, is also the God of the valleys, with their tameness, monotone, and commonplace features, And when He keeps you down in the valleys, be sure He can meet you there, in the homeliest religious services, in the humblest religious fellowship; and not only there, but amidst the dullest and most prosaic routines of everyday worldly life, till the fireside, the shop, the counting-room, the mart, become for those who wait and who watch for Him a very Bethel, a house of God, the gate of heaven.
III. There words may be taken as descriptive of a worldly spirit--a spirit of worldly compliance and worldly compromise. Passing at this point from the subject of Gods help and worship to the subject of Gods claims, we find a tendency that is just the opposite of the one we have now been speaking of. In that case the error was that of over-separation in religious matters; in this case the error is that of over-concession--concession to the time-spirit, concession to the place-spirit. Your God is a God of the hills; He vanishes when the hills are left, and the valleys take their place. How often does the cynics taunt find colour and excuse in the professing Christians conduct! Some people do speak and act as if the authority of God were a matter of locality, and as if the leaving of the locality meant the leaving, or at any rate, the lowering, of the authority. I take the case of professing Christians in their seasons of recreation--let us say during foreign travel. Do not some put off their home religion with the same regularity with which they put off their home broadcloth, and put on tourist religion with the same sense of release with which they put on their tourist tweeds? The thought might be carried further. Is not this at the root of a good deal of the unrest that is otherwise puzzling to see? Children discontented in happy homes, apprentices discontented with kind employers, servants discontented in comfortable places, young men and young women discontented with evangelical ministries and a watchful and attentive Church fellowship, all on the outlook for change, where to the outward observation there does not seem much reason for change: how shall we explain it? Sometimes, I fear, in this very way. The atmosphere of restriction does not suit such. They want to be surrounded with a slacker personal oversight, a lower local tone. They want to break free from religions restraints; and in breaking free from religious restraints they imagine they get quit of religious obligations. You do not get quit of them. Right is right, and wrong is wrong, whatsoever be the circumstances, whatsoever the customs, whatsoever the observation.
IV. These words, too, may be taken as descriptive of a rationalising spirit. Here we pass from Gods help, worship, and claims to the subject of His truth. And what is the error to be noticed here? Just the error we have been endeavouring to trace all along, the error of those who set bounds to God. We believe, do we not? that the Gospel is universal. We believe that as it is universal in intention, it is universal in fitness. We believe that both in precept and in promise it is the power of God to every one that believeth. But there are those who deny this. They deny it on the grounds of capacity, deny it on the grounds of race. And it is interesting to notice that this rationalising spirit we speak of, in limiting the adaptability of the Christian religion, limits it from two different standpoints, for two different reasons. Some object to the Christian faith as being too elementary, characterised by elementary conditions, suitable to an elementary stage. The God of the Christians, they say, may serve for the simple, the inexperienced, the emotional--women with their capacity of belief, children with their childish dreams. But He will not serve for others--the scientist with his love of truth, the artist with his love of beauty, the artisan with his love of independence. Others, again, speak of the Christian faith as a something that is too advanced, at any rate for certain circumstances and certain classes. The God of the Christians, they say, may serve for the cultivated and progressive, those whose minds have been opened, and whose consciences have been trained. But He is altogether too exalted in His standard, too strict in His principles, and too exacting in His demands, for the common and unenlightened, the barbarous and embruted. What is the notion of both classes but the notion of a limited God--a God, as some say, for the hills, a God, as others say, for the valleys, yet in each case a God that is less than universal, a God who is bounded in His presence, bounded in His power, and bounded in His claims? We hold by a higher idea. We cling to a nobler and more inspiring faith. We believe that the God of the Bible is the God of the hills and the valleys alike, wheresoever His religion has had full play. (W. A. Gray.)
The universal God
This was the profound mistake which the Syrian soldiers made. We fear that the whole world is making the same mistake. What, if on inquiry it should be proved that we have a partial religion, a religion useful here but useless there, an admirable contemplation for Sunday, but a grievous burden for Monday? What if we practically reverse the Syrian conception, and say that the Lord is God of the valleys but not God of the hills? That we want Him in dark and dangerous places, but we can fight for ourselves in open places and on the tops of the breezy hills?
1. There are those who confine Him to the hills of speculation, but exclude Him from the valleys of daily life. They are the intellectual patrons and flatterers of God. He is too great to be realised. He is the Supreme Thought, the Infinite Conception, the Unconditioned Absolute, and various other magnificent inanities. According to their view, He cannot be brought down to daily experience, or take any immediate part in the common progress of life. He is grand, but useless. He is glorious, but unapproachable, His sanctuary is on hills that cannot be climbed, or in clouds that cannot be entered; but He has no agency in the valleys.
2. Then there are those who recognise God in the valleys of trouble, but ignore Him on the hills of strength and joy. They call Him in professionally. He is kept for the hour of distress. They use religion as a night-bell which they can pull in times of exigency.
3. It is the very glory of religion in its most intelligent conception that it comprehends and blesses the whole life. What is this life for which any religion that is true has to provide? It is no easy riddle. It is easy enough to invent a theory or an outfit for one side of it; but we want a doctrine that will involve and ennoble its entirety. What is this life? What is its origin? Look at the impulses which excite it; add up into some nameable total the forces which operate upon it; and bring under one law the ambitions which lure or goad it into its most daring activities. Here is a hunger which no bread can satisfy. Here is an imagination which conquers the visible and longs to penetrate the unseen. In the breast is an eager suppliant that will not be forbidden to pray. And what is the hereafter of this multiplied life? Does it go out like a spark? The false religion is God of the hill but not God of the valleys. The superficial theory is excellent in fine weather, but useless in foul. It is pleasant in prosperity, it is helpless in adversity. It can swell our laughter, it cannot dry our tears. This is the proof of the true religion--that it encompasses with infinite sufficiency the whole life, is equally strong at every point. It can run with the footmen; it can keep pace with the horses; and it can subdue into peace the swellings of Jordan. (J. Parker, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v30 Heb. "a chamber in a chamber." 1Ki 22:25.
inner
Heb. "a chamber in a chamber." 1Ki 22:25.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv28–29 a man of God
a man of God
This is another title for a prophet. AT: "a prophet"
Read full note →
place this great army into your hand
Here the word "hand" refers to power. AT: "give you victory over this great army" (See: Metonymy)
translationWords
God
king
Yahweh
hand
know
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.