The king of Israel: Good News Translation identifies him by name alone as “Ahab.”

Answered is literally “answered and said.” But such redundancy will be unnatural in many languages.

As you say, my lord …: The essence of Ahab’s response is complete agreement with the demands of Benhadad. Since his answer is not direct but through messengers, it will be more natural in some languages to indicate this. Instead of presenting the response as in Revised Standard Version, there are two possibilities: (1) the direct quotation of Revised Standard Version may be introduced by words such as “Take this message back to King Benhadad…” or (2) the response may be introduced and presented as indirect speech as Good News Translation has done. The second solution may be more appropriate in many cases since the first proposal will require two levels of quotation.

Quoted with permission from Omanson, Roger L. and Ellington, John E. A Handbook on 1-2 Kings, Volume 1. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2008. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .