Aphek

Aphek is a hill-town where a king’s pride meets a prophet’s word. The Syrians had said that Israel’s God was a God of the hills and not of the valleys, and in 1 Kings 20 a man of God answers: the Lord would deliver their great multitude into Israel’s hand. Israel, small “like two little flocks of kids,” wins on the seventh day, and a wall falls on twenty-seven thousand of the survivors inside the city. Benhadad flees and hides in a chamber. The whole account is in 1 Kings 20:26-30, and it is worth reading beside the verses just before it.

5 verses

1 Kings

1 Kings 20:26

And it came to pass at the return of the year, that Benhadad numbered the Syrians, and went up to Aphek, to fight against Israel.

1 Kings 20:27

And the children of Israel were numbered, and were all present, and went against them: and the children of Israel pitched before them like two little flocks of kids; but the Syrians filled the country.

1 Kings 20:28

And there came a man of God, and spake unto the king of Israel, and said, Thus saith the LORD, Because the Syrians have said, The LORD is God of the hills, but he is not God of the valleys, therefore will I deliver all this great multitude into thine hand, and ye shall know that I am the LORD.

1 Kings 20:29

And they pitched one over against the other seven days. And so it was, that in the seventh day the battle was joined: and the children of Israel slew of the Syrians an hundred thousand footmen in one day.

1 Kings 20:30

But the rest fled to Aphek, into the city; and there a wall fell upon twenty and seven thousand of the men that were left. And Benhadad fled, and came into the city, into an inner chamber.

From Smith's Bible Dictionary

William Smith, 1884

(strength), the name of several places in Palestine.

(1.) A royal city of the Canaanites, the king of which was killed by Joshua, (Joshua 12:18) probably the same as APHEKAH in (Joshua 15:53)

(2.) A city, apparently in the extreme north of Asher, (Joshua 19:30) from which the Canaanites were not ejected, (Judges 1:31) though here it is APHIK. This is probably the same place as APHEK, (Joshua 13:4) on the extreme north "border of the Amorites,"; identified with the Aphaca of classical times, the modern Afka .

(3.) A place at which the Philistines encamped while the Israelites pitched in Eben-ezer, before the fatal battle in which the sons of Eli were killed and the ark was taken. (1 Samuel 4:1) This would be somewhere to the northwest of and at no great distance from Jerusalem.

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(4.) The scene of another encampment of the Philistines, before an encounter not less disastrous than that just named, --the defeat and death of Saul. (1 Samuel 29:1) It is possible that it may be the same place as the preceding.

(5.) A city on the military road from Syria to Israel. (1 Kings 20:26) It is now found in Fik , at the head of the Wady Fik , six miles east of the Sea of Galilee.