1 Kings 20:43

And the king of Israel went to his house heavy and displeased,.... With the prophet for what he had said, and with himself for what he had done in letting Benhadad go; the Targum is, he was "troubled

Heavy and displeased; not for his sin, but for the sad effects of it upon himself and people; which he might confidently expect, having had many experiences that God did not suffer the words of his prophets to fall to the ground.

1 Kings 20:43 And the king of Israel went to his house heavy and displeased, and came to Samaria.Ver. 43. Heavy and displeased.] Not with a "sorrow according to God," but such as arose from a slavish fear: this heavy message in the midst of his triumph, being worse than the whip and bell hung up usually in the chariot of the Roman triumpher, to show him what he might one day come to, viz., to be whipped as a slave, yea, to lose his head as an offender.

Verse 43. Heavy and displeased] Heavy or afflicted, because of these dreadful tidings; and displeased with the prophet for having announced them. Had he been displeased with himself, and humbled his soul before God, even those judgments, so circumstantially foretold, might have been averted. 1. WE have already seen, in 1Kg 20:30, that according to our text, twenty-seven thousand men were slain by the falling of a wall. Serious doubts are entertained concerning the legitimacy of this rendering. I have, in the note, given the conjecture concerning sapping the foundation of the wall, and thus overthrowing them that were upon it. If instead of חומה chomah, a wall, we read חומה confusion or disorder, then the destruction of the twenty-seven thousand men may appear to have been occasioned by the disorganized state into which they fell; of which their enemies taking advantage, they might destroy the whole with ease. But חומה chomah, a wall, becomes, as Dr. Kennicott has observed, a very different word when written without the ו vau, חמה which signifies heat; sometimes the sun, vehement heat, or the heat of the noon-day sun; and also the name of a wind, from its suffocating, parching quality. The same noun, from יחם yacham, Dr. Castel explains by excandescentia, furor, venenum; burning, rage, poison. These renderings, says Dr. Kennicott, all concur to establish the sense of a burning wind, eminently blasting and destructive. I shall give a few instances from the Scripture: - We read in Job 27:21: The east wind carrieth him away; where the word קדים kadim is καυσων, burning, in the Septuagint; and in the Vulgate, ventus urens, a burning wind. In Ezekiel 19:12: She was plucked up בחמה she was cast down to the ground, and the east wind dried up her fruit; her strong rods were withered, and the fire consumed them. Hosea (Hosea 13:15) mentions the desolation brought by an east wind, the wind of the Lord. What in Amos 4:9 is, I have smitten you with blasting, in the Vulgate is, in vento vehemente, "with a vehement wind;" and in the Syriac, with a hot wind. Let us apply these to the history: when Ben-hadad, king of Syria, was besieging Samaria the second time, the Israelites slew of the Syrians one hundred thousand footmen in one day; and it follows, that when the rest of the army fled to Aphek, twenty-seven thousand of the men that were left were suddenly destroyed by החומה hachomah, or החמה hachamah, a burning wind. That such is the true interpretation, will appear more clearly if we compare the destruction of Ben-hadad's army with that of Sennacherib, whose sentence is that God would send upon him a BLAST, רוח ruach, a wind; doubtless such a wind as would be suddenly destructive. The event is said to be that in the night one hundred and eighty-five thousand Assyrians were smitten by the angel of the Lord, 2Kg 19:7; 2Kg 19:35.

43. heavy and displeased] Said again of Ahab in the next chapter (1 Kings 20:4) when he could not prevail upon Naboth to part with his vineyard. The first of these words is used in 1 Kings 21:5 to signify sadness of spirit, the second indicates anger arising from disappointment. It describes the sort of rage which Asa exhibited (2 Chronicles 16:10) when he put Hanani in prison for telling him that he had done wrong in relying on the help of the Syrians instead of trusting in the Lord.

Heavy and displeased - Rather, “sullen and angry” (and so marginal reference), not repentant, as after Elijah’s warning 1 Kings 21:27 - not acknowledging the justice of his sentence - but full of sullenness and suppressed anger.

43. Heavy and displeased — He was vexed, troubled, and felt the burden of a sense of Divine wrath upon him; but he was still refractory and rebellious. He went home sulky and sour.