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1 Kings 20:23-28 vs. “Hills and Valleys”

Tauren Wells · checked 2026-09-06

What we checked

Passage1 Kings 20:23-28 chapter ↗
Translation shownBSB (Berean Standard Bible) · fixed (the finding depends on this wording)
Presents itself asinspired-by
Categorynot a quote
AlbumHills and Valleys · 2017
Words addressed tothe Father
Teaching or experienceexperience (the singer’s story)

Graded against the standard

Quotation criteria not graded: this song never presents its words as scripture

Applies to every song the Name held holy · God shown holy · true of God · the standard

✓Reverent treatment

✓ What's good

  • Nothing the song says about God is contradicted by 1 Kings 20. That chapter is where God answers the idea that His power is tied to terrain
  • It never pretends to quote. There is no verse reference and no quotation framing, so no paraphrase is handed to anyone as the text
  • The interview answers, on the record, which passages sit behind the song. The link between song and scripture can be checked instead of guessed at
  • The song’s echo of Job 1:21 keeps Job’s own posture. God gives, God takes, and He is blessed either way

⚠ Cautions

  • The song’s hills and valleys are seasons of life. In 1 Kings 20 they are ground, and the line answers an army that thought God ruled only high country
  • Two reference sites credit this song with the phrase’s popularity. If you learned it here, read 1 Kings 20 and let the chapter set what it means
  • The interview’s list of verses behind the song names five passages, and 1 Kings 20 is not one of them. Third-party writers make that link
  • In the passage God’s stated goal is that Israel would know He is the LORD. Comfort in a hard season is a fair application, not the verse’s own subject

Verse Proof

1 Kings 20:23-28

The text in BSB (Berean Standard Bible)

“Meanwhile, the servants of the king of Aram said to him, “Their gods are gods of the hills. That is why they prevailed over us. Instead, we should fight them on the plains; surely then we will prevail. So do this: Dismiss all the kings from their positions and replace them with other officers. And you must raise an army like the one you have lost—horse for horse and chariot for chariot—so we can fight the Israelites on the plain, where we will surely prevail.” And the king approved their plan and acted accordingly. In the spring, Ben-hadad mobilized the Arameans and went up to Aphek to fight against Israel. The Israelites also mobilized, gathered supplies, and marched out to meet them. The Israelites camped before them like two small flocks of goats, while the Arameans covered the countryside. Then the man of God approached the king of Israel and said, “This is what the LORD says: ‘Because the Arameans have said that the LORD is a god of the hills and not of the valleys, I will deliver all this great army into your hand. Then you will know that I am the LORD.’”

Two battles between Aram and Israel, in the days of King Ahab. Aram lost the first one. The king’s advisers blamed the ground. Israel’s gods are gods of the hills, they said, so fight the rematch on the plains. God sends a man of God to Ahab with the reason the second battle will go the other way. The Arameans have said the LORD is a god of the hills and not of the valleys. He will hand them over, and Israel will know He is the LORD. The chapter does not end in triumph. After the victory a prophet tells Ahab that letting Ben-hadad go will cost him his own life (verse 42).

What the song says, described not quoted

The song is a first-person testimony about how a person stands in good seasons and hard ones. The verses look back over the singer’s own life and name both kinds. The chorus sets two postures side by side. Bow low when life is high, look up when it is low. The repeated hook is a statement about God, that He is God of the hills and valleys. The song echoes Job 1:21, where Job blesses the LORD after losing everything.

No chapter and verse appears anywhere in the song. The words are addressed to God through most of the song, though the chorus describes Him in the third person before turning back to Him. The one vocative that identifies a person of the Trinity is Father, in the bridge.

In 1 Kings 20 the hills and the valleys are ground you can walk on. The contrast is a military one. Aram’s advisers thought Israel’s God was a hill God, so they picked flat country for the rematch. The song uses the same two words for seasons of a life, the good stretches and the hard ones. Nothing is misquoted, because nothing is quoted. What moves is the subject.

· Not a quote: The song never presents its words as scripture, and it cites no verse. The same hills-and-valleys line is scripture’s own, in 1 Kings 20, where God answers an army that thought He ruled only high ground. The song uses it for good seasons and hard ones.

▸ Official upload. Now listen with the proof in mind.

In 1 Kings 20 the valleys are ground, and the line is God’s answer to men who thought His power stopped at the hills.

Why it matters

GotQuestions and Christianity.com both credit this song with the phrase’s current popularity. For many people the song is where these words are met first. In the chapter the words answer men who thought God’s power stopped at the high ground, and the reason given for the victory is that Israel will know He is the LORD. What the song sings about God and what the chapter says agree. The chapter is not about a hard season at all.

Is it safe to dwell on?

Sung on repeat, this song moves between God and the singer.

Sung on repeat, this song plants one thing about God. No ground is outside His rule. It is true, and 1 Kings 20 is where the Bible sets hills against valleys and settles it. The verses plant something beside it, the singer’s own story of loss and better days, which is why this entry grades the song mixed rather than God-centred. A person who dwells on it carries away both God’s reach and their own posture inside it. If you want it to rest on more than a chorus, read 1 Kings 20:23-28 and watch God stake His name on it.

Helpful comparison

Two kinds of source, and only one of them says where this title comes from. The difference is worth keeping straight.

Wells has told the story of writing the song. A quote about posture came to mind during worship time, and he wanted it in a song, “because I know that God is the God of the hills and valleys. Scripture points to that.” He does not say where. In a separate 2017 piece he said he hopes listeners remember that “He’s the God of the hills and the valleys.” Again, no passage. In the NewReleaseToday interview, the question “Which Bible verses connect to the message of the song?” is answered with five passages: Psalm 121, Psalm 125:1, Lamentations 3:22-23, Job 1:20-22 and 1 Peter 1:3. 1 Kings 20 is not among them.

Third parties supply the address. GotQuestions traces the expression to the two battles of 1 Kings 20 and quotes verse 28. Jessica Brodie, writing for Christianity.com, calls the phrase “originally from 1 Kings 20:28” and then makes the move the song makes, from real terrain to what she calls the metaphorical hills and valleys of life. The Berean Test review of the song scores it 10 out of 10 and cites Psalm 23:4, Job 1:21 and others, without naming 1 Kings 20 either.

So the tie to 1 Kings 20 is real, and readers are the ones who make it. That is not a fault in the song. It is a reason to go read the chapter.

Sources

Corrections

No corrections to this proof yet.

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Where the text survives the song

Not a ranking, and not a swap. If what you came for is the passage sung whole, these proofs found it kept: word-for-word verified, or paraphrase that says so and names its source.

✓ VERIFIED “Mark 10” Streetlights Mark 10:23-27 Play it freely. This is Mark 10 itself, read word for word in a named translation. The line about all things being possible arrives as the answer to a question about being saved.

✓ The whole chapter, in order, so verse 27 arrives after the rich man’s scene and after the disciples ask who can be saved, instead of standing on its own

⚠ “Word-for-word” here describes the reading, not the translation theory. Streetlights uses it for what is read. Tyndale uses the same phrase for a different thing

 ✓ VERIFIED “Proverbs 4” Streetlights Proverbs 4:20-27 Play it freely. This is Proverbs 4 itself, read word for word in a named translation. “Guard your heart” arrives with the commands about the mouth, the eyes and the feet still attached.

✓ The whole chapter, in order, so “guard your heart” arrives with the commands about the mouth, the eyes and the feet, instead of standing alone as advice

⚠ “Word-for-word” here describes the reading, not the translation theory. Streetlights uses it for what is read. Tyndale uses the same phrase for a different thing

 ✓ VERIFIED “Psalm 11 (English Standard Version)” The Corner Room (Adam Wright) Psalm 11:1-7 Sing it straight through. It is all seven verses of Psalm 11, in order, in a version the track title names. A reviewer says one verse comes back as a refrain, and it is the psalm's own verse.

✓ All seven verses, in order. We set the printed sung text beside an ESV and compared it word by word: 131 words, all matching, nothing added and nothing dropped

⚠ The printed text under the video lists each line once. It is not a map of the song. A review of the album says verse 4 comes back as a refrain

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⚠ The bridge states Paul's conclusion with none of Paul's occasion. He wrote it about a thorn God refused to remove. A singer with no trouble in view supplies the meaning.

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⚠ The title is an instruction. Proverbs 18:21 is a statement about what the tongue can do. The instruction is the song’s, not the proverb’s.

 NOT A QUOTE “The Solid Rock (My Hope Is Built)” Edward Mote (recorded by Reawaken Hymns) 1 Corinthians 3:11 Sing it. Nothing here is quoting. The refrain is two passages welded: the rock-and-sand picture is Matthew 7, the no-other-foundation line is Paul in 1 Corinthians 3.

✓ Never says it is quoting: no reference, no verse framing, nothing presented as scripture

⚠ The refrain reads as one verse and is two. Matthew 7 never says there is only one possible foundation; Paul does, and the seam is invisible when sung

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