Bible Strands
1 Kings 20:32
So with sackcloth around their waists and ropes around their heads, they went to the king of Israel and said, “Your servant Ben-hadad says, ‘Please spare my life.’” And the king answered, “Is he still alive? He is my brother.”
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The servants of Ben-hadad approach the king of Israel wearing sackcloth and ropes to deliver a plea for their master's life, immediately following their advice to use this posture of humility.
The words — The text highlights שַׂקִּים (sa.Kim), meaning sackcloth, and חֲבָלִים (cha.va.Lim), meaning ropes, which the servants wear to signal submission and beg for mercy.
The thread — This posture of mourning and supplication echoes earlier appeals for royal mercy and contrasts with the violent demands Ben-hadad made in 1 Kings 20:3, while the king’s “brother” response recalls the complex political and familial ties seen in narratives like 1 Samuel 15:8.
Why it lands — The passage forces a reader to weigh the king’s sudden declaration of kinship against the political reality of a defeated enemy, demanding a clear-eyed assessment of mercy, strategy, and the limits of royal grace.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
So they girded sackcloth on their loins, and put ropes on their heads, and came to the king of Israel, and said, Thy servant Ben–hadad saith, I pray thee, let me live. And he said, Is he yet alive? he is my brother.
Cross-references
- 1 Kings 20:3 saying, “This is what Ben-hadad says: ‘Your silver and gold are mine, and your best wives and children are mine!’”
- 1 Samuel 15:8 He captured Agag king of Amalek alive, but devoted all the others to destruction with the sword.
- 1 Kings 20:31 Then the servants of Ben-hadad said to him, “Look now, we have heard that the kings of the house of Israel are merciful. Let us go out to the king of Israel with sackcloth around our waists and ropes around our heads. Perhaps he will spare your life.”
- 1 Kings 20:42 And the prophet said to the king, “This is what the LORD says: ‘Because you have let slip from your hand the man I had devoted to destruction, your life will be exchanged for his life, and your people for his people.’”
- Job 12:17 He leads counselors away barefoot and makes fools of judges.
- Job 40:11 Unleash the fury of your wrath; look on every proud man and bring him low.
- Isaiah 2:11 The proud look of man will be humbled, and the loftiness of men brought low; the LORD alone will be exalted in that day.
- Isaiah 10:12 So when the Lord has completed all His work against Mount Zion and Jerusalem, He will say, “I will punish the king of Assyria for the fruit of his arrogant heart and the proud look in his eyes.
- Daniel 5:20 But when his heart became arrogant and his spirit was hardened with pride, he was deposed from his royal throne, and his glory was taken from him.
- Obadiah 1:3 The pride of your heart has deceived you, O dwellers in the clefts of the rocks whose habitation is the heights, who say in your heart, ‘Who can bring me down to the ground?’