(15) The young men--i.e., the attendants or armour-bearers of the territorial chiefs, no doubt picked men and well armed. The whole garrison is stated as seven thousand--enough, perhaps, to man the walls, but wholly unfit to take the field. The sally is made at noon, when (as Josephus relates) the besiegers were resting unarmed in the heat of the day.

Verse 15. - Then he numbered [or reviewed (cf. Numbers 1:44 sqq.; Numbers 3:39-43)] the young men of the princes of the provinces, and they were two hundred and thirty-two [cf. 2 Chronicles 14:11; Psalm 33:16; Deuteronomy 32:30, etc. LXX. διακόσια τριάκοντα. Theodoret remarks that by this band - 230, as he understood it - Almighty God would destroy the hosts of thirty and two kings. The numbers may have been recorded because of the correspondency]: and after them he numbered all the people, even all the children of Israel, being seven thousand. [This number is of course to be understood, unlike that of ch. 19:18, literally. And the context (cf. ver. 19) shows that this was the number of fighting men. But this small army can hardly fail to create surprise, especially if we compare it with the statistics of the soldiery of an earlier age (2 Samuel 24:9; 1 Chronicles 21:5; 2 Chronicles 13:3; 2 Chronicles 14:8). It is true this was not strictly an army, but a garrison for the defence of the capital. But it looks very much as if, under the feeble rule of Ahab, the kingdom of Israel had become thoroughly disorganized. "The position of Jarchi is that of a true Rabbi, viz., that the 7000 were those who had not bowed the knee unto Baal (1 Kings 19:18)," Bahr.]

20:12-21 The proud Syrians were beaten, and the despised Israelites were conquerors. The orders of the proud, drunken king disordered his troops, and prevented them from attacking the Israelites. Those that are most secure, are commonly least courageous. Ahab slew the Syrians with a great slaughter. God often makes one wicked man a scourge to another.Then he numbered the young men of the princes of the provinces, and they were two hundred and thirty two,.... A very small number to go forth against so great an army as the host of the Syrians, and these raw unexperienced young men:

and after them he numbered all the people, even all the children of Israel, being seven thousand; which could never be the number of all the people in the land, nor even in the city of Samaria, who were able to bear arms; but it must mean such who were willing to go out to war on this occasion: and the number being just the same as of those that bowed not the knee to Baal, has led the Jewish commentators to conclude that these were the men that were numbered for war; but it is not likely that they were all in Samaria, or that none but those would go to war, though it must be owned the number is remarkable.