1 Kings 20:32
So they girded sackcloth on their loins, and put ropes on their heads, and came to the king of Israel, and said, Thy servant Ben-hadad saith, I pray thee, let me live. And he said, Is he yet alive? he is my brother. So they girded sackcloth on their loins, and put ropes on their heads, and came to the king of Israel, and said, Thy servant Ben-hadad saith, I pray thee, let me live. And he said, Is he yet alive? he is my brother.
1 Kings 20:32 belongs to the historical record of Israel's kings. It stands within the sad account of Ben-hadad's attack on Israel and his defeat. In that account God gave the weak Ahab a great victory and showed him that the victory came from Jehovah. The defeat was another effort by God to win Ahab.
The plea to be allowed to live is a plea for the person himself to remain alive. The Hebrew word neh-phesh, translated soul elsewhere, can here mean the person and be expressed by a personal pronoun. Ahab's sparing of Ben-hadad after his servants came with sackcloth on their loins and ropes on their heads to plead for his life was apparent compassion that is a counterfeit virtue.
Greater disobedience followed the victory God gave Ahab. The sad account teaches important lessons about the people's downward moral course and the influence of their leaders. It illustrates the responsibility leaders bear: when they are faithful to God they strongly shape the people, and when they fail to lead rightly the people fail with them.