1 Kings 13:24

24 When he left,^[a] a lion met him along the way and killed him. His corpse was thrown on the road, and the donkey was standing beside it; the lion was standing beside the corpse too.

1 Kings 13:24 Meaning and Commentary

1 Kings 13:24

And when he was gone, a lion met him by the way, and slew him,
&c.] Perhaps not far from Bethel; and this lion might come out of the same wood the she bears did, that devoured the children that mocked the prophet, as Bishop Patrick conjectures, ( 2 Kings 2:23 2 Kings 2:24 ) and his carcass was cast in the way;
in the high road, where it seems the lion seized him, and he fell: and the ass stood by it;
disregarded and unhurt by the lion, though the prophet was pulled off of the back of him: the lion also stood by the carcass:
not offering to tear it in pieces and devour it, but rather, as if he was the guard of it, to keep off all others from meddling with it; these circumstances are very surprising, and show the thing to be of God; for when the lion had done what he had a commission to do, which was to kill the prophet, he was to do no more.

1 Kings 13:24 In-Context

22 but you went back and ate bread and drank water in the place that He said to you: Do not eat bread and do not drink water, your corpse will never reach the grave of your fathers.' "

23 So after he had eaten bread and after he had drunk, the old prophet saddled the donkey for the prophet he had brought back.

24 When he left, a lion met him along the way and killed him. His corpse was thrown on the road, and the donkey was standing beside it; the lion was standing beside the corpse too.

25 There were men passing by who saw the corpse thrown on the road and the lion standing beside it, and they went and spoke [about it] in the city where the old prophet lived.

26 When the prophet who had brought him back from his way heard [about it], he said, "He is the man of God who disobeyed the command of the Lord. The Lord has given him to the lion, and it has mauled him and killed him, according to the word of the Lord that He spoke to him."

Footnotes

• [a]. LXX reads donkey, and he turned 24 and left, and