And Ben-hadad said unto him, The cities, which my father took from your father, I will restore; and you shall make streets for yourself in Damascus, as my father made in Samaria. Then said Ahab, I will send you away with this covenant. So he made a covenant with him, and sent him away.
All Commentaries on 1 Kings 20:34 Go To 1 Kings 20
John Cassian
AD 435
No one doubts that when the judgment of the heart goes astray and is seized by the night of ignorance, our thoughts and our deeds, which proceed from the deliberation of discretion, are involved in the greater darkness of sin. Finally, because he never had this eye of discretion, he who by God’s judgment first deserved to rule over the people of Israel was cast out of his kingdom like something dark out of a healthy body. Having been deceived by the darkness and error of this light, he decided that his own sacrifices were more acceptable to God than obedience to Samuel’s command, and in the very act by which he had hoped that he would propitiate the divine majesty he committed sin instead. Ignorance of this discretion, I say, constrained Ahab, the king of Israel, after the triumph of the glorious victory that had been conceded to him by God’s favor, to believe that his own mercy was better than the very severe execution of the divine command, which seemed to him to be a cruel decree. Enfeebled by this thought, he wished to temper a bloody victory with clemency and, having been made dark throughout his body because of his impudent mercy, he was condemned to a death from which there was no recourse.
