"And behold, a man of God went from Judah to Bethel by the word of the Lord..." starts this chapter. Here the man of God, who is never named, makes a prophecy that Josiah would kill all the illegitimate priests of the high places. This was kept 300 years later in 2 Kings 23: 15-20. When king Jeroboam heard this he reached out his hand to have him killed but his hand shriveled up and fell off. When this happened to the king, he asked the man of God to pray for his hand to be put back ... and it was. The king offered a reward to him yet he refused saying that God said he was not to eat, drink or stay there and he was to take a different path back home. And so he did.
An old prophet in Bethel had heard of these things from his sons and told them to saddle his donkey so he could go get this man. When he found him he asked him to come back and eat with him. When the man of God told him God's instructions, the old prophet told him That God had told him it was O.K. and that he should go back to eat and drink with this old prophet ! The man of God did so. During dinner the word of God came and said that because he had disobeyed the word of God ( The old prophet had lied to him) his body would not be buried with his family. This was seen as a major curse to him.
So it happened as he was headed home that he was killed by a lion as he was riding his donkey. As he lay dead on the ground, the lion and the donkey guarded the body and did not do what was natural for them to do. When the old prophet heard, he went and retrieved the body and buried it. The lion and the donkey bothered the man not. They represent what God expects from us. To obey the word of God ... even if it seems odd and unnatural !
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