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.
A prophet asks his companion, in the Lord's name, to strike him — and the man refuses. The refusal costs him his life. Why does God answer a well-meaning "no" like this, and what is the whole scene for?
Why the strange command was given
A second messenger is on his way to Ahab. Before he faces the king, God teaches a lesson closer to home.
H. L. RossierA second prophet comes (vv. 35-43). The one of verse 13 announced the deliverance, this one the judgment of Ahab. What patience on the part of God! Even in the next chapter He still delays pronouncing the final word of judgment! But first we are to learn to know God's chastening towards His own.
The Lord's aim in all of this was Ahab himself.
Leslie M. GrantAhab now needed a serious lesson. The Lord chose a striking way to teach him this. He had one of the sons of the prophets ask another man to wound him by striking. The man refused this, and was told a lion would kill him because he had refused to obey the Lord.
A refusal that looked like kindness
The man who refused had a decent excuse: hurting a friend for no reason he could see. One writer states that excuse, then answers it.
H. L. RossierHis intentions were good, you say; he loved his companion too much to hurt him. No doubt, but there was a command that had to be obeyed! God had given the order. You still object that the man did not see the good of what he was told to do. But with the word of the Lord, it is not a question of understanding, but of obeying. And indeed, it was impossible for him to understand; he could not and need not give an account of what God wanted to do.
Who the man was, we are not told for certain. What God asked of him is clear, and the refusal did not stop God's plan.
Arno Clemens GaebeleinThe Lord commanded one of the sons of the prophets (the historian Josephus said it was Micaiah — see 1 Kings 22:8) to ask another prophet to strike him. The prophet refused the unquestioning obedience demanded from a prophet, so the judgment of God overtook him. God's purpose of bringing the judgment message home to Ahab is still carried out.
Nearness to God raises the stakes
The sentence falls on a man inside the prophetic circle, not on an outsider. That closeness is the reason for the severity, not a protection against it. One writer sets him beside an earlier man of God from Judah, who took an old prophet's word as God's word.
H. L. RossierThe man of God from Judah ought to have known that the word of the old prophet could not have been the word of God. This man ought to have known that the word of his companion was the word of the Lord. The closer our position puts us to God, the less excuse we have if we treat His word as though it were not His word.
Looking for the lion's cause in the wrong place
The verse gives the reason for the death: he had not obeyed the voice of the LORD. That makes this a mirror for readers whose life goes hard and who cannot think why.
H. L. RossierPositive disobedience to the Word is an infinitely serious thing. How many lives of Christians are made up of similar acts of disobedience! Christians often ask why they meet a lion in the way without being able to answer the question. Should they not first ask whether they were willing to obey the word of God when it showed them His will plainly? Most people look everywhere else to find the reason for God's chastening of His children or His servants.
The man who obeyed
The command did not lapse when the first man refused.
H. L. Rossier"Another man," who does not seem to have been as close to the prophet as the first man, hears and obeys. He strikes him hard and wounds him. He does not try to understand, but does what God tells him to do.
That single act of obedience is what qualified him for public service before the king.
Leslie M. GrantThis man was acting alone at the Word of God. So afterwards he was called a prophet (1 Kings 20:38), and he brought God's message to Ahab without fear.
Summary
- The word commands. The order came from the word of God. That settled it: his task was to obey, not to see the point.
- The word is refused. Kind motives did not excuse it. Loving his companion too much to wound him was still disobedience to a plain order.
- The word judges. Judgment followed at once. Closeness to God made the chastening heavier, not lighter.
- The word moves on. God's purpose was not blocked. A second man obeyed without needing to understand, and Ahab still heard the message.
- The word searches us. When a lion meets us on the road, the first question is not "why?" It is whether we obeyed where God had already made His will clear.