"Killed by a Lion - "Meanwhile, the LORD instructed one of the group of prophets to say to another man, "Strike me!" But the man refused to strike the prophet. Then the prophet told him, "Because you have not obeyed the voice of the LORD, a lion will kill you as soon as you leave me." And sure enough, when he had gone, a lion attacked and killed him." (1 Kings 20:35-36 NLT)
To get a better sense of what is going on in this passage, it might help to read the entire chapter. You can read it here:
To summarize, this event took place
not long after King Ahab of Israel (reigned circa 869-850 BCE) battled against King
Ben-Hadad of Aram, and God enabled Ahab and his army to win the battle (1 Kings
20:1-34). However, instead of following
God's instructions and executing Ben-Hadad for his crimes and threat against
Israel, Ahab let him live and made a treaty with him.
In response, God sent another
prophet to confront Ahab and give him God's message of condemnation. This was a warning, intended to get Ahab to
repent and turn back to God. God gave
Ahab several warnings by prophets at various times during his reign and several
chances to repent, but Ahab rejected them (1 Kings 18, 20:35-43, 21-22). As a result, he was eventually killed in
battle (1 Kings 22:34-38).
In this instance, an unnamed prophet
of God was given instructions to have his companion strike him and wound him
(verse 35). Why would God command
this? In ancient times, physical
conditions were often used by God to get the attention of someone he wished to
communicate to. God often used physical
illustrations to fully explain his message to people (Jeremiah 27-28; Ezekiel
4-5; Hosea 1, 3). God wanted the
companion to wound the prophet because the prophet would then disguise himself
as a wounded soldier and tell Ahab a story about slacking in his duty and letting
a captive escape. This would drive God's
point home to Ahab of the seriousness of his sin in letting Ben-Hadad go free.
This was an urgent command, because
Ahab was coming and the prophet had to immediately deliver God's message. A reason is not given as to why the companion
refused to strike the prophet; it may have been out of compassion, but could
easily have also been out of disbelief at the command. The death of the companion was a warning to
those who did not take God's commands seriously.