And the servants of the king of Syria said unto him, Their gods [are] gods of the hills; therefore they were stronger than we; but let us fight against them in the plain, and surely we shall be stronger than they.
Ver. 23. And the servants of the king of Syria said unto him.] Nothing they said to him of his drunkenness, or their own dastardliness; but tell him a tale of their tutelary gods, that they were gods of the plains and valleys only, not of the mountains, as the Israelites' gods were: and hence the miscarriage Augustine a telleth us of the Romans, that for the hill tops they had their deum Iugatinum; for their little hills, the goddess Collatina; and for the valleys, Valloma. Ovid also brings in those petty deities thus speaking,
“ Dii sumus agrestes, et qui dominantur in altis
Montibus; Imperium est in sua tecta Iovi. ” - Ovid, Fastor., lib. vi.
a De Civ. Dei, lib. iv, cap. 8.