1 Kings 20:35-43 English Standard Version A Prophet Condemns Ben-hadad's Release 35 And a certain man of the sons of the prophets said to his fellow at the command of the LORD, “Strike me, please.” But the man refused to strike him. 36 Then he said to him, “Because you have not obeyed the voice of the LORD, behold, as soon as you have gone from me, a lion shall strike you down.” And as soon as he had departed from him, a lion met him and struck him down. 37 Then he found another man and said, “Strike me, please.” And the man struck him—struck him and wounded him. 38 So the prophet departed and waited for the king by the way, disguising himself with a bandage over his eyes. 39 And as the king passed, he cried to the king and said, “Your servant went out into the midst of the battle, and behold, a soldier turned and brought a man to me and said, ‘Guard this man; if by any means he is missing, your life shall be for his life, or else you shall pay a talent of silver.’ 40 And as your servant was busy here and there, he was gone.” The king of Israel said to him, “So shall your judgment be; you yourself have decided it.” 41 Then he hurried to take the bandage away from his eyes, and the king of Israel recognized him as one of the prophets. 42 And he said to him, “Thus says the LORD, ‘Because you have let go out of your hand the man whom I had devoted to destruction, therefore your life shall be for his life, and your people for his people.’” 43 And the king of Israel went to his house vexed and sullen and came to Samaria. This is a strange story for sure to have this unnamed prophet go up to a man and command the man to strike him and when the man would not do so, that man was killed by a lion. If I were the man being asked to strike the prophet, even if the prophet told me that the LORD commanded me to do so, I'd think it to be a test and probably would not do so because I should not lay a hand on the LORD's anointed. The LORD works in ways we do not always understand though and the LORD understood the heart of this first man better than we do. We cannot superimpose ourselves into the story and assume our reasoning would be this man's reasoning. The prophet instead found another man that was willing to be obedient and then the story gets a little stranger to me as the prophet engages in some trickery and deception to get his message across to King Ahab (for he knows the Ahab would have recognized him as prophet if he was not beaten and disfigured, so the injuries that he just got along with the bandages were part of his disguise).
The prophet pretended to be one of the men returning from battle and claims that a soldier brought a prisoner of war to him and told him to guard the prisoner of war with his own life. The prophet says that that as he was busy about his work (not doing a very good job at guarding the prisoner), the prisoner escaped. The king agrees with the judgment that was due to the servant that the prophet was posing as because he failed to do his job at delivering justice by letting the prisoner escape. This passage has hints of Nathan the prophet coming before King David and getting to the end of the story and letting David pronounce judgment and then Nathan turning to David and saying "You are the man." So it is here that this nameless prophet took the bandages off to reveal his true identity and the judgment that the LORD now passed on Ahab. "Because you have let go out of your hand the man I had devoted to destruction [the king of Syria], therefore your life shall be for his life, and your people for his people." What had been a day of celebration of a great victory was just soured by this prophecy as Ahab and all of Israel now went home "vexed and sullen" as they didn't feel like they had won at all and they now awaited the LORD's judgment to come. We might say this was a situation of "clutching defeat from the jaws of victory." You could have won and should have one, and yet you didn't win because you made one really dumb mistake. Ahab chose to make a peace treaty with Ben-hadad instead of destroying him which might remind us of King Saul in the book of 1 Samuel and how he thought he had a better way than what the LORD had commanded him. The LORD told Saul that day that this would be the reason that the kingdom would be taken from him and that "Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams.." (1 Samuel 15:22b). I encourage you to read the whole story I'm referencing in 1 Samuel 15:17-31 (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Samuel+15%3A17-31&version=ESV) for context and see how both these kings had their thrones taken away from them because of disobedience because as kings there were no "little sins" or "little mistakes" for them. They disobeyed the voice of the LORD and that is a big deal. Comments are closed.
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Daniel WestfallI will mostly use this space for recording my "journal" from my daily devotions as I hope to encourage others to read the Bible along with me and to leave a legacy for others. Archives
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