Donkey and Lion

Now when the prophet who brought him back from the way heard it, he said, “It is the man of God, who disobeyed the command of the Lord; therefore the Lord has given him to the lion, which has torn him and killed him, according to the word of the Lord which He spoke to him.” Then he spoke to his sons, saying, “Saddle the donkey for me.” And they saddled it.  He went and found his body thrown on the road with the donkey and the lion standing beside the body; the lion had not eaten the body nor torn the donkey.

Continuing to read in I Kings 13 we see the lying prophet on his way to the site of the demise of the man of God at the tooth and claw of the lion. Picture the scene.  The man of God dead in the road, the lion and the donkey standing beside him.  Though the donkey would normally be prey for the lion the lion did not bother the donkey.  They stood calmly after the kill.

Here's a thought.  The lion was a symbol of Judah, a symbol of strength and power.  The donkey has long been representative of self-will and stubbornness.  To this day we call a foolish and stubborn person an ass.  So here we see the man of God choosing to ride (self-will) rather than to walk in the way (God's will), sadly to a horrible end.

Anyway, that was free of charge.

So the prophet put the corpse on the donkey and took him back to Bethel, had him interred in his own tomb, and directed his sons to bury him beside the bones of the man of God when he died.  The prophet of Bethel mourned the death of the man of God.  Did he experience remorse for what he had done to him?

The rest of the account of Jeroboam's reign, his losses in battle to Judah, and his end can be found in II Chronicles 13. 

The prophecy of the man of God concerning Josiah was fulfilled three hundred years later.

Prequel