And the prophet came to the king of Israel, and said unto him, Go, strengthen thyself, and mark, and see what thou doest: for at the return of the year the king of Syria will come up against thee.
The prophet came to the king of Israel, and said. The same prophet who had predicted the victory shortly re-appeared, admonishing the king to take every precaution against a renewal of hostilities on the following campaign.
At the return of the year - i:e., in spring, when, on the cessation of the rainy season, military campaigns (2 Samuel 11:1) were anciently begun. It happened as the prophet had forewarned. Brooding over their late disastrous defeat, the attendants of Ben-hadad ascribed the misfortune to two causes-the one arose from the principles of paganism, which led them to consider the gods of Israel as local deities-`gods of the hills'-whereas their power to aid the Israelites would be gone if the battle was maintained on the plains. The war-chariots of the Syrians would have full scope for action there; while the Hebrews were utterly deficient in that species of force (cf. Judges 5:8; 1 Samuel 13:19-22). Probably, also, the Syrians supposed that as Canaan was a mountainous country, the Hebrews were fond of worshipping in high places, and that as their law was given from the summit of a mountain, the God of Israel was 'a god of the hills.' The other cause to which the Syrian courtiers traced their at Samaria, was the presence of the tributary kings, who had probably been the first to take fight; and they recommended 'captains to be put in their rooms' х pachowt (H6346)], see 1 Kings 20:24 (cf. 1 Kings 20:16: see the notes at 1 Kings 20:15). Approving of these recommendations, Ben-hadad renewed his invasion of Israel the next spring, by the siege of Aphek, in the valley of Jezreel (cf. 1 Samuel 20:1 with 28:4), not far from Endor.