1 Kings 20:6

1Ki 20:6 Yet I will send my servants unto thee to morrow about this time, and they shall search thine house, and the houses of thy servants; and it shall be, [that] whatsoever is pleasant in thine eyes, they shall put [it] in their hand, and take [it] away.

Ver. 6. Whatsoever is pleasant in thine eyes.] Ahab, as bad as he was, had a name among these Syrians for a merciful man; {1Ki 20:31} this is now not respected, because he is at such an under. How much better Mithridates, king of Pontus, of whom it is said that he hated such as trampled upon virtue forsaken of fortune.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

He would not accept his answer except he did out of hand deliver whatsoever he should ask, for he sought an occasion how to make war against him.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Verse 6. Whatsoever is pleasant in thine eyes] It is not easy to discern in what this second requisition differed from the first; for surely his silver, gold, wives, and children, were among his most pleasant or desirable things. Jarchi supposes that it was the book of the law of the Lord which Ben-hadad meant, and of which he intended to deprive Israel. It is however evident that Ben-hadad meant to sack the whole city, and after having taken the royal treasures and the wives and children of the king, to deliver up the whole to be pillaged by his soldiers.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(6) Whatsoever is pleasant.—The demand, which is virtually for the plunder of Samaria, probably neither expects nor desires acceptance, and is therefore a refusal of all but unconditional surrender. It is notable that in the last extremity Ahab falls back on an exceptional appeal to the patriotism of the people.

The “elders of the land” (evidently present in Samaria at this time) were the representatives in the northern kingdom of the ancient assembly of the “elders of Israel,” existing from the time of Moses downwards as a senate, having power not only of advice, but of concurrence, in relation to the Judge or King. (See Exo_3:16; Exo_12:21; Exo_24:1; Deu_27:1; Deu_31:9; Jos_7:6; 2Sa_5:3; 1Ki_8:3). The solemn appointment of the seventy in Num_11:24-25 seems to be simply the re-constitution and consecration of the original body. Each tribe and each town had also its lesser body of elders. (See 1Sa_30:26, “the elders of Judah;” Deu_19:12; Deu_21:3, &c., “the elders of the city.”) The authority of all these assemblies must have been at all times largely overborne by the royal power (see 1Ki_21:11), and must have varied according to time and circumstance.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

6. to-morrow about this time] The imperious victor (as he thought himself) would suffer no delay. His orders were to be carried out at once.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Yet I will send my servants unto thee tomorrow about this time,.... He gave him twenty four hours to consider of it:

and they shall search thine house, and the houses of thy servants; the royal palace, and the houses of the noblemen, and even of every of his subjects in Samaria:

and it shall be, that whatsoever is pleasant (or desirable) in thine eyes, they shall put it in, their hand, and take it away; not be content with what should be given, but search for more; and if any in particular was more desirable to the possessor than anything else, that should be sure to be taken away; which was vastly insolent and aggravating.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Ben-hadad, disappointed by Ahab’s consent to an indignity which he had thought no monarch could submit to, proceeds to put a fresh construction on his former demands.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Servants, or subjects. The king of Israel has thus a plea to interest all his people, as the danger was common. (Salien) --- He assumes the character of disinterestedness, as if he had been willing to abandon all his private property; knowing that Banadad would not accede even to that hard proposal. (Haydock) --- Thus "Nero consulted the first men of the city, whether they would prefer a doubtful war or a disgraceful peace." (Tacitus, An. xv.)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Yet now I will not accept of those terms, but, together with thy royal treasures, I expect all the treasures of thy servants or subjects; nor will I wait till thou deliver them to me, but I will send my servants into the city, and they shall have free liberty and power to search out and take away all which they desire, and this to prevent fraud and delay; and then I will grant thee a peace.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

6. I will send my servants — To this humiliation Ahab will not submit. He will allow no searching of his palace and his city by foreign emissaries, and no violent seizure of any of his goods, for this would be the same as to let the enemy come in and freely plunder all Samaria.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Yet I will send my servants unto thee tomorrow about this time This proposal was definite and immediate, the first demand was vague and general. "In the first Ahab was to send what he thought fit to give; in the second, Ben-hadad"s servants were to take into their own hands whatsoever they thought fit to sieze" (Wordsworth), and they shall search thine house, and the houses of thy servants; and it shall be, that whatsoever is pleasant in Heb. the desire of thine eyes The LXX and some other versions have a plural suffix their eyes. But the Hebrew text is to be preferred. The object of Ben-hadad was to couch his message in the most oftensive and humiliating terms, and "the desire of thine eyes" would be likely to cut deeper and wound more than "the desire of their eyes", they shall put it in their hand, and take it away. If Ahab ever hoped by his abject submission to conciliate the Syrian king, he now finds that his words have had just the opposite effect. For all that the latter concluded from it was that Ahab was one upon whom he might trample at pleasure, and this servility encouraged Ben-hadad to renew his demands in a still more galling and vexatious form. This second message discloses to us still more plainly the royal bully and braggart, and shows us what the "comity of nations" in the old world was often like.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Yet, &c. - Yet now I will not accept of those terms, but together with thy royal treasures, I expect all the treasures of thy servants or subjects; nor will I wait 'till thou deliver them to me, but I will send my servants into the city, and they shall search out and take away all thou art fond of, and this to prevent fraud and delay; and then I will grant thee a peace.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

Everything you cherish they will put in their hands and take. Were not the first [things] cherished things? What, then, is the meaning of “[everything] you cherish”? [This means] a treasure within a treasure, referring to the Torah Scroll, about which it is stated, “more desirable than gold, even more than quantities of fine gold.” Achov said to himself, “He demands a great thing, but this is not mine alone; it belongs to the elders of Yisroel.” Therefore, he “called all the elders of the land,” for even though they worshiped idols, they honored the Torah. with which the Torah is written.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.