1 Kings 20:39
And as the king passed by, he cried unto the king: and he said, Thy servant went out into the midst of the battle; and, behold, a man turned aside, and brought a man unto me, and said, Keep this man: if by any means he be missing, then shall thy life be for his life, or else thou shalt pay a talent of silver.
The verse stands within the history of the two separate kingdoms of Judah and Israel for about eighty years, running from the revolt of the ten tribes to the death of Jehoshaphat and giving the histories of the reigns of several kings of both Judah and Israel. In its immediate setting it belongs to the account of the defeat of Ben-hadad, king of Syria, and it shows another effort by God to win the weak Ahab. The wording turns twice on the Hebrew word nephesh, each time rendered life, and nephesh occurs 745 times in the Old Testament, about 473 times translated soul and 118 times translated life or lives, so that soul means life here.
The keeper of the prisoner knew he was responsible for him but became occupied with other matters and let him escape, and his plea that he was busy here and there shows that distraction and competing cares cause neglected responsibility. Neglecting an assigned duty in this way can have grave consequences, for the forfeiture set before him was his own life for the prisoner's life, or else the payment of a talent of silver.