According to the rules of holy war, Benhadad belonged to God. Ahab did not have the right to let Benhadad go free.

He said to him is translated “The prophet said to the king” in Good News Translation and New Century Version (similarly Bible en français courant, Parole de Vie). In order to make the pronoun references clear, it is also possible to translate “He said to the king” (New International Version) or simply “The prophet said” (Contemporary English Version). Or, to avoid the two levels of quotation that follow, some may prefer to translate “The prophet gave the king the following message from the LORD.”

Out of your hand is literally “from hand.” Revised Standard Version adds the pronoun your according to the sense of the passage.

The man whom I had devoted to destruction is literally “the man of my destruction/ban.” The reference is to Benhadad (verse 34), as Parole de Vie makes explicit by saying “I had told you to kill Ben-Hadad.” See the discussion on 1 Kgs 9.20-21 regarding the ban in Hebrew warfare. The rendering “the man … whom I had ordered to be killed” (Good News Translation) does not preserve the religious aspect of the ban. Attempts to do so in other translations include “that man … I had put him under a ban” (Revised English Bible) and “the man whom I had consecrated to extermination” (Peregrino). Unfortunately, probably neither of these translations will have much meaning to most readers. New Jerusalem Bible provides a better model with “the man … who was under my curse of destruction.”

Translators may find a footnote such as the following to be useful here: “The Israelites believed that God went with them into battle as the head of their army. The part of the spoil that belonged to God, whether people or things, was to be completely destroyed.”

Life translates the Hebrew term nephesh, which is traditionally rendered “soul” (see the comments on verse 32).

Your people for his people: The Hebrew word rendered people is understood by Good News Translation as referring to the armies of Israel and Syria. This Hebrew noun for people often refers specifically to an army, but the first reference here seems to be the people of Israel (see 1 Kgs 22.35; 2 Kgs 10.32-33; 13.3).

A possible restructuring of this verse might read as follows:

• The prophet gave the king the following message from the LORD: “You will pay with your life for what you have done. I will destroy your people because you let his army escape. I will do all this because you let the man go free when I had ordered you to kill him.”

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 .