1 Kings 20:12
And it came to pass, when Ben-hadad heard this message, as he was drinking, he and the kings in the pavilions, that he said unto his servants, Set yourselves in array. And they set themselves in array against the city. And it came to pass, when Ben-hadad heard this message, as he was drinking, he and the kings in the pavilions, that he said unto his servants, Set yourselves in array. And they set themselves in array against the city.
The verse belongs to the history of the two separate kingdoms of Judah and Israel for about eighty years, from the revolt of the ten tribes to the death of Jehoshaphat, comprising the reigns of several kings of both Judah and Israel. Within that history it belongs to the account of Ahab in 1 Kings 16-22, which says more about Ahab than about any other ancient monarch because all recorded of him as a man and as a king was written for the learning and profit 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, when Judah and Israel reached the height of power and prosperity.
The account shows divine solicitude toward Ahab and more than average opportunities both as a man and as a prince. From a civil viewpoint he was a successful ruler who was a clever statesman, a skilled general, and eminently patriotic toward his people and country, yet he was a moral coward where he should have been strongest. He wickedly sold himself to the worship of a plurality of heathen deities and later enforced their worship upon his people, whose ruling character was devotion to one God and a semitheocratic rule.
In its immediate setting the verse records Ben-hadad, king of Syria, besieging Samaria with other kings with him, boasting against Israel's God, and, while drinking with the kings in the pavilions, ordering his servants on hearing the message to set themselves in array against the city. The account of Ben-hadad's attack and defeat shows another effort by God to win the weak Ahab. A prophet warned and reproved Ahab, and God gave Israel victory so Ahab would know that it came from Jehovah. After an Israelite sortie caused the Syrians to flee, they returned the next year and were defeated, with Ben-hadad eventually surrendering to Israel's king.
The history containing the verse is a sad record that teaches important lessons. It shows a general moral decline in Israel and Judah interrupted by times of revival. It teaches that when leaders were faithful to God they powerfully influenced the people, while their failure led the people astray.