1 Kings 22:1 - Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Three years - These must be counted from the close of the second campaign of Ben-hadad 1 Kings 20:34. They were not full years, as is evident from the next verse. Probably the first year is that of Ben-hadad’s dismissal after his defeat; the second is a year of actual peace; while the third is that in which Jehoshaphat paid his visit, and the Ramoth-Gilead expedition took place. The pause, here noticed, in the war between Israel and Syria was perhaps the result of a common danger. It was probably in the year following Ben-hadad’s dismissal by Ahab, that the first great Assyrian expedition took place into these parts. Shalmaneser II relates that on his first invasion of southern Syria, he was met by the combined forces of Ben-hadad, Ahab, the king of Hamath, the kings of the Hittites, and others, who gave him battle, but suffered a defeat.