Today, I am reading and commenting on  1 Kings 20-22.

There are many lessons we can learn from reading the account of Ben-Hadad’s assaults on Israel given here.  First we see that Ben-Hadad got himself into trouble because he overreached.  King Ahab and the people of Samaria were willing to give tribute to Ben-Hadad rather than risk fighting against his army.  However, when Ben-Hadad increased his demand to allow his troops to sack the city, the people of Samaria decided to fight.  Ben-Hadad demonstrates his over confidence several more times in ways which led to his defeat.  Then, Ben-Hadad and his advisers made the mistake of thinking their defeat was because God was a god of the hills and that they could defeat Israel in the plains.  And once again they suffered defeat.  This second defeat occurred for two reasons, two closely related reasons. Ben-Hadad and his advisers refused to accept that their first defeat resulted from their own mistakes, mistakes which were caused by their arrogance.  This led them to their second mistake.  Since their first defeat could not possibly have been their own fault, it must have resulted from the power of the God of Israel.  That could have been the start of wisdom.  However, they concluded that God was limited and they could outmaneuver Him.  God’s power is not limited and He caused them to repeat their mistake.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.