But the rest fled to Aphek, into the city; and there a wall fell upon twenty and seven thousand of the men that were left. And Ben-hadad fled, and came into the city, into an inner chamber.
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Ambrose of Milan
AD 397
Thus the saints go up to the Lord, the wicked go down to sin; the saints are on the mountains, the guilty in the valleys. “For he is the God of the mountains and not the God of the valleys.” Those who dwelt in the houses of the plain where God does not dwell could not have the house of God within them, for this is the house that God sought from them so that they might build up themselves and rear within themselves the temple of God from living stones of faith. He did not want buildings made with earthen walls or wooden roofs, for the hand of an enemy would have been able to overthrow them. He wanted that temple that is built in human hearts, to whom it might be said, “You are the temple of God,” in which the Lord Jesus might dwell and from there set out to redeem all humankind. There also could be prepared a sacred chamber in the womb of the Virgin where the King of heaven might live and a human body become the temple of God, which, though it was destroyed, might yet be restored to lif...
Here the Scripture relates the two battles of the king of Israel against the Arameans, at which we have already hinted, and the twin slaughters of the Arameans, of which the second caused the death of 127,000 men, as God took his revenge on the impious voice of the Arameans, who said about the true God worshiped by the Israelites, “The Lord is a god of the hills, but he is not a god of the valleys.” - "On the First Book of Kings 20.1"
Went, or had gone before, and commanded his men to defend the walls of Aphec. (Haydock)
But the slaughter of these 27,000 is joined to the preceding. (Menochius)
God caused the walls to fall, as he had done those of Jericho; or the Israelites beat them down with battering rams, and the defendants perished in the ruins.
Chamber. Josephus observes that it was under ground. Micheas told Benadad that he would have thus to hide himself again, chap. xxii. 25. (Calmet)
Did not the Lord wish Ben-hadad, king of Syria, whom besides countless thousands of his own people, thirty-two kings and armies of the same number of kings served, to be conquered by a few foot soldiers of the princes in order that he who was the author of such victory would be acknowledged? - "The Governance of God 7.8"
