1 Kings 20:1
And Ben-hadad the king of Syria gathered all his host together: and there were thirty and two kings with him, and horses, and chariots: and he went up and besieged Samaria, and warred against it. And Ben-hadad the king of Syria gathered all his host together: and there were thirty and two kings with him, and horses, and chariots: and he went up and besieged Samaria, and warred against it.
The verse belongs to the history of the divided kingdoms from their separation through the death of Jehoshaphat, a period of about eighty years. It belongs to the record of Ahab in 1 Kings 16-22, which gives more attention to him than to any other ancient monarch, both as a man and as a king, for the instruction and benefit of later men and kings. Ahab was the seventh king of Israel and the second ruler of the third Israelite dynasty, reigning twenty-two years early in the ninth century before Christ, contemporary with Jehoshaphat of Judah and Elijah the Tishbite. He had more than average opportunities and was from a civil standpoint successful, clever, patriotic, and a skilled general and statesman, yet he was a moral coward who sold himself to the worship of many heathen gods and forced that worship on his people.
The verse introduces Ben-hadad king of Syria attacking Samaria with a mighty army, advancing with thirty-two allied kings, horses, and chariots, and besieging the city. The chapter records Ben-hadad's defeat as another effort by God to win the weak Ahab. Ben-hadad boasted against Israel's God, but a prophet warned and reproved Ahab, and God gave him a great victory so that he would know the victory came from Jehovah. Israel's forces drove the Syrians away, and Ben-hadad returned the next year, was defeated, and surrendered to Israel's king.