Note: This card was previously discussed by one of our guest bloggers. We wanted to nerd out about this card and do a deep dive from another perspective. This will include addressing why Card Talks like this one result in us having to read hate mail. Regardless, no prophets were killed in the making of this Card Talk (as far as you know).

Punch or Die

At the command of the Lord a certain member of a company of prophets said to another, “Strike me!” But the man refused to strike him. Then he said to him, “Because you have not obeyed the voice of the Lord, as soon as you have left me, a lion will kill you.” And when he had left him, a lion met him and killed him. (1 Kings 20:35-36)

This is all seems pretty straightforward. Prophet 1 (P1) tells prophet 2 (P2) to hit him. P2 says no and promptly gets attacked by a lion. However, the story continues.

P1 finds another prophet (P3) and makes the same request. P3, possibly knowing what happened to P2, acquiesced and beat the crap out of P1. But this is where things get interesting. Prophet 1 covered some of his wounds with bandages, and disguised himself as a solider coming back from the war that was raging in the area. He then waited for Ahab, the king of Israel, to come along the road. When king Ahab arrived, the prophet told him a story:

In the midst of the battle, an officer told him to guard a prisoner. If the prisoner escaped “the solider” would either be killed, or forced to pay a fine of a talent of silver, which is over 100 times the average cost of slave (c.f. Exodus 21:32). In other words, the fine was tantamount to a death sentence. As with all battles, crap happens and the prisoner escaped. “The solider” asks the king what he should do. King Ahab has no pity on “the solider” and says, “So shall your judgment be; you yourself have decided it” (vs 40) (i.e. “you’re screwed”). At this point, “the solider” drops his disguise and Ahab, recognizing him as a prophet, knows he’s in deep trouble. The prophet condemns king Ahab, saying, “Thus says the Lord, ‘Because you have let the man go whom I had devoted to destruction, therefore your life shall be for his life, and your people for his people’” (vs 42). King Ahab then returned home thoroughly shaken, waiting for the judgment of God to fall.

The end.

Okay, but none of that explains the deal with P2 and the lion attack. But yes, it really does. Ultimately, this is a story about two people “getting what they deserve” for not listening to the voice of God.

King Ahab Gets What He Deserves

A little background might help. Chapter 20 of 1 Kings tells the story of king Ben-Haddad of Aram waging war against the northern kingdom of Israel.

In (brief) summary:

• (vs 1-6) Ben-Haddad gathers a huge army, besieges Samaria (the capital of Israel), and tells Ahab “your silver and gold are mine; your fairest wives and children also are mine.” To which Ahab responds, “cool.”

• (vs 7-12) The elders/nobles of Israel, not okay with this arrangement, tell Ahab to grow a backbone. So he does, telling Ben-Haddad he politely declines. Ben-Hadad’s reply can be translated to mean either, “I swear by god, my army is so vast, that there will not be enough ground to stand on when we come to level this city!” OR “I swear by god, my army is so vast, that when we finish leveling this city, there will not be enough dust left to fill the hands of my men if they wanted to take home souvenirs!” (#TrashTalking). Ahab swings back with, “one who puts on armor should not brag like one who takes it off” (vs 11). In other words, “run your mouth after you win!” So Ben-Haddad, who is drunk when he gets this message, screams for his men to get into fighting position.

• (vs 13-22) A prophet of God gives Ahab a battle strategy involving a lightly armored, special-forces unit. They attack in the middle of the day and catch Ben-Haddad off-guard because he’s still drunk. God leads the Israelites to victory, routing the superior force and their heavy weapons, and lifting the siege. They pursue Ben-Haddad, but he is able to escape. Though victorious, through the prophet, God warns of the another attack.

• (vs 23-27) Sure enough, Ben-Haddad has a new battle plan: fight at a new location with more troops.

• (vs 28-34) But God is ready for the forces of Aram and says, “wipe them out.” And they do. Mostly. Ben-Haddad gets away again and goes into hiding. His servants convince him to attempt to make a peace treaty. They contact Ahab for parley and make terms for a ceasefire. Ahab accepts. And that’s the problem.

God felt that Ben-Haddad was an evil to be eradicated, not an ally to make a treaty with.

This brings us back to the confrontation and the prophet’s words to king Ahab:

“Thus says the Lord, ‘Because you have let the man go whom I had devoted to destruction, therefore your life shall be for his life, and your people for his people.’” (vs 42)

Ahab went against God’s long-standing commandments about not working with his oppressors, and he is getting what he deserves.

And while we could spend time arguing about what to do with the Bible’s use of God-directed violence in this text (as we do with some others), the lesson of this passage is wrapped up in the biblical assertion that you do what God tells you to do: if God says, “kill them all,” you kill them all. It’s a lesson Ahab should have already learned from history. Ask King Saul: he pissed off God doing pretty much the exact same thing (1 Samuel 15).

What’s more, the prophet gave Ahab a scenario which exposed him as a hypocrite: he was condemning a man while not living up to the same standard. This is exactly what Nathan did to David in regards to his treatment of Bathsheba and Uriah. And is is also the same standard that Jesus holds us to, and says we should hold others to (regardless of how horribly He is misquoted).

And while all of this is well and good, you’re probably (still) asking, “but WTF does this have to do with the death by lion part?!”

Glad you asked. But first, you should know that the lion probably didn’t kill him.

Just messed him up a bit. Maybe a whole lot.

The Prophet (P2) Getting What He Deserved

Let’s start with the job of a prophet: one who presents the word/vision of God to the people. The prophet bears the weight of divine command and responsibility. So when one prophet gives another prophet a divine command, that second prophet knows the authority under which the first prophet is operating. Denying the words of the prophet is denying God.

(Read that again.)

In this story, P2 refused to heed the call of God. Just like Ahab refused his instructions. But, as with most things biblical, things get more interesting (and complicated) when we dive into the diction and definitions of the words employed.

Below we’ve parsed the Hebrew in the passage; notice the highlighted words. Hebrew readers: you’ll see where we are going pretty quickly. Non-Hebrew readers: be patient, we’ll explain.

At the command of the Lord a certain member of a company of prophets said to another, “Strike {נָכָה nakah - hiphil imperative} me!” But the man refused to strike {נָכָה nakah - hiphil infinitive} him.

Then he said to him, “Because you have not obeyed the voice of the Lord, as soon as you have left me, a lion will kill {נָכָה nakah - hiphil perfect} you.”

And when he had left him, a lion met him and killed {נָכָה nakah - hiphil imperfect} him.

Then he found another man and said, “Strike {נָכָה nakah - hiphil imperative} me!”

So the man hit {נָכָה nakah - hiphil imperfect} him, striking {נָכָה nakah - hiphil infinitive} and wounding him.

~ 1 Kings 20:35-37

In case you missed it, “strike,” “striking,””hit,” and “kill”are all the same word in this passage {נָכָה nakah}, but with different parsing of the verb (Non-Hebrew readers: think of all that “hiphil,” “imperative,” “infinitive” stuff as different ways to conjugate the verb).

The Hebrew word nakah means to “hit” or “strike,” but the hiphil imperative in vs 35 and 37 is referring to a very serious blow/attack. This could also be rendered, “beat the ever-living crap out of me!” Which makes sense: the prophet’s disguise only works if he looked like he got wreaked on the battlefield. So props to the prophet for being willing to take a beating for his mission.

This is a form of the prophetic “sign-act”— a physical parable, the action of the prophet is symbolic of a deeper truth. They are common in the Bible and include Jeremiah breaking pottery in front of religious leaders (Jeremiah 19:1–13), walking around wearing a yoke for oxen (Jeremiah 27–28), and offering wine to prohibitionists (Jeremiah 35:1–19), Isaiah walking around naked for three years (Isaiah 20:2), and Ezekiel cooking food over human excrement (Ezekiel 4:9-15).

However, this unnamed prophet was performing a “sign-act” with higher stakes. He will bear the marks of his commitment to God’s message in his very flesh. And maybe that’s part of the point: if he could take the beating, why can’t the other prophet give it? But don’t be too worried about the second prophet: like we said, chances are that he wasn’t killed by that lion.

Notice that in verse 36, the Hebrew for “slew him” is nakah again, however, this time it is the Hiphil perfect. Meaning, we was probably just mauled by the lion, not killed. Which, while not great, is certainly better. But also consider the balance of the image presented by a mauling: because he didn’t do God’s will, he was made to suffer the same injuries as the other prophet. He shared in the first prophet’s pain.

You Don’t Have to Like it to Understand the Message (or Keep your misinformed hate mail to yourself)

The Bible is an ancient text filled with stories that, on first (or second, or third) pass can seem very nasty, brutish, and short. But there is generally an underlying morality that makes perfect sense in an Ancient Near East context. Read that last part again: it fits into the ANE context.

Every once in a while we get hate mail, not because we said something blasphemous and some SOLIDER OF THE LORD has to point out our evil ways, but because someone who was burned by Christianity (or a Christian, or a “christian”) wants to rant about how the passage we’ve explained is proof positive that the God they don’t believe in is evil and not worthy of worship. Generally it’s because of Card Talks like this one, where we explain something that does not fit into our modern sensibilities. So we’ll say it again:

The Bible is an ancient text filled with stories that, on first (or second, or third) pass can seem very nasty, brutish, and short. But there is generally an underlying morality that makes perfect sense in an Ancient Near East context.

However, while this is true, there are often still lesson that can be applied to our lives today (otherwise, what the Hell are all those clergy people doing every week…other than ignoring passages like this one?).

Perhaps we should think about our own hypocrisy: the times we hold others to a standard we do not uphold ourselves.

Perhaps we should think about the ways we do not live up to the calling on our lives, not doing the things what we know we’ve been told to do. Perhaps the resulting consequences, the punishments, actually do fit the crime.

Perhaps we should think about what we are willing to do, the sacrifices we are willing to make, in order to bring the Word of God, a vision of God, to others, remembering that word, that vision, can be a blessing, a hug, a kind word, a song, an encouragement, or countless other positive, life-affirming realities we often makes excuses instead of bringing into the lives of others.

But what do we know: we made this game and you probably think we’re going to Hell.