Scripture Daily

Context No. 459 of 4322 · 1 Kings

Context · Reflection

1 Kings 20:18-22: in context

18He said, “If they have come out for peace, take them alive; or if they have come out for war, take them alive.” 19So these went out of the city, the young men of the princes of the provinces, and the army which followed them. 20They each killed his man. The Syrians fled, and Israel pursued them. Ben Hadad the king of Syria escaped on a horse with horsemen. 21The king of Israel went out and struck the horses and chariots, and killed the Syrians with a great slaughter. 22The prophet came near to the king of Israel and said to him, “Go, strengthen yourself, and plan what you must do, for at the return of the year, the king of Syria will come up against you.”

King Ahab has just won a great and unlikely victory. The Syrian king Ben-hadad, arrogant and drunk, had marched against Israel with a massive coalition, so confident that he ordered his men to take the Israelites alive whether they came out for peace or for war. But Israel struck first, the Syrians broke and fled, and Ben-hadad barely escaped on horseback. It is exactly the kind of decisive win that would tempt a king to celebrate, relax, and assume the threat was finished.

And that is precisely when the prophet arrives, and his message is not congratulations. Go, he tells Ahab, strengthen yourself, and consider carefully what you must do, for at the turn of the year the king of Syria will come up against you again. The victory was real, but it was not final. The defeated enemy would regroup over the winter and return in the spring, and the wise response to today's win was not to rest on it but to prepare for the next assault. The prophet's word cuts against the natural instinct that follows a victory, which is to let down your guard, bask in the win, and assume the danger has passed. On the contrary, he says: the very fact that you have won means the enemy will be back, so use this reprieve to strengthen yourself.

That is a piece of hard-won wisdom, especially in the spiritual life. When I finally overcome some temptation, resolve some struggle, win some hard-fought victory, my instinct is to relax, to coast, to assume that battle is behind me for good. But a defeated enemy regroups. The temptation returns, often stronger, at the turn of the year, when I am least braced for it, precisely because I thought I had already won. Where have I let my guard down after a victory, treating a defeated struggle as gone for good, when the wiser word is the prophet's, strengthen yourself and prepare, because the enemy I just beat will be back?

Sources