He said, "If they have come out for peace, take them alive; if they have come out for war, take them alive." – 1 Kings 20:18

Today's Scripture Reading (January 9, 2023): 1 Kings 20

Sometimes, circumstances matter; sometimes, they don't. And that is part of Jesus's message in his Sermon on the Mount, especially regarding love. Jesus asserts that we should love. We should love our friends and those who love us, which he admits we already do. But he teaches that we should also love our enemies, even going as far as teaching his followers to pray "for those who persecute you" (Matthew 5:44). According to Jesus, the circumstances don't really matter. Whatever the situation might be in which we find ourselves isn't important; our response is always supposed to be love. And as straightforward as this seems, I am surprised how many Christians and churches don't understand this instruction. It is like we carve out exceptions for our hot-topic issues. We are supposed to love unless we are talking about abortion or the LGBTQ community, or something else that we find really offensive, and in those circumstances, it is okay to hate (although we are careful to call it something else, like protecting our religious integrity, or adding strength through like-minded collaboration.) But whatever we might call it, really, it is exclusion and hate.

Ben-Hadad, the King of Aram, is preparing to attack Ahab, the King of Israel. Ahab has been submissive to a point, but he has reached an eventuality where it no longer makes sense to continue to submit. And so, Ahab prepares for war and sends his men out toward the Kingdom of Aram.

The author of Kings has already told us that Ben-Hadad and his allies, thirty-two kings (vs. 1) willing to go to war with Aram against Israel, were drinking in a tent as the scouts arrived to inform them that the army of Israel was on the move. The fact that they were drinking indicated that Ben-Hadad was not taking the threat of Israel seriously. Apparently, Ben-Hadad believed that he didn't need to be sober to defeat Israel.

And so, as the scouts come to him with news of Israel's military movement, Ben-Hadad reacts with what might have just been a drunken response. He tells his men that if Israel has come to seek peace, they are to take them alive. But if Israel has come wanting war, they are to take them alive. The message of Ben-Hadad is that whatever the circumstance, the reaction is to be the same. The second part of the order was likely just part of Ben-Hadad's drunken mind not processing the information correctly. After all, the command would handicap his army. If they were going to take Israel's army alive, regardless of the circumstances, they would have to use non-lethal methods against an army trying to kill them. It is possible that Ben-Hadad had dreams of making the soldiers of Israel die slowly in his presence, but this is probably a misstatement. What Ben-Hadad wanted to say was, "if they come in peace, take them alive, and we will decide what to do with them later, but if they have come wanting war, then kill them." But in his drunkenness, he says something different. In this case, the circumstances of the upcoming military confrontation mattered, and a different response was needed.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: 1 Kings 21