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thither. Upon this the old prophet addressed him as a colleague, and falsely pretended,
not indeed that Jehovah, but that "an angel in the word of Jehovah," had directed him
to fetch him back, when the other immediately complied. As the two sat at table in
Bethel, suddenly "the word of Jehovah was upon the prophet^218 who had brought him
back." Because he had "resisted (rebelled against) the mouth of Jehovah, and not kept
the commandment which Jehovah had commanded him,"^219 his dead body should not
come into the sepulcher^220 of his fathers.
Startling as such an announcement must have been, it would set two points vividly
before him: his disobedience and his impending punishment - the latter very real,
according to the views prevailing at the time (Genesis 47:30; 49:29; 50:25; 2 Samuel
19:37, etc.), although not implying either immediate or even violent death. It is very
surprising to - us and indicative of the absence of the higher moral and spiritual
elements - that this announcement was not followed by any expression of sorrow or
repentance, but that the meal seems to have continued uninterrupted to the end. Did the
old prophet seem to the other only under an access of ecstatic frenzy? Did the fact that
he announced not immediate death blunt the edge of his message? Had disobedience to
the Divine command carried as its consequence immediate spiritual callousness? Or
had the return of the "man of God" to Bethel after all been the result of a deeper
estrangement from God, of which the first manifestation had already appeared in what
we have described as his strangely insufficient answer to Jeroboam's invitation and
offer? These are necessarily only suggestions - and yet it seems to us as if all these
elements had been present and at work to bring about the final result.
The meal was past, and the "old prophet" saddled his ass to convey his guest to his
destination. But the end of the journey was never reached. As some travelers were
passing that way, they saw an unwonted spectacle which must have induced them to
hasten on their journey. Close by the roadside lay a dead body, and beside it stood the
ass^221 which the uhhappy man had ridden -both guarded, as it were, by the lion, who
had killed the man, evidently by the weight of his paw as he knocked him down,^222
without, however, rending him, or attempting to feed on his carcass. Who the dead man
was, the travelers seem not to have known, nor would they, of course, pause by the
road.
On passing through Bethel - which from the narrative does not seem to have been their
ultimate destination, but the first station which they reached they naturally "talked in
the town" about what they had just seen in its neighborhood. When the rumor reached
the "old prophet," he immediately understood the meaning of all. Riding to the spot, he
reverently carried home with him the dead body of the "man of God," mourned over,
and buried him in his own sepulcher, marking the place by a monumental pillar to
distinguish this from other tombs, and to keep the event in perpetual remembrance. But
to his sons he gave solemn direction to lay him in the same tomb - in the rock-niche by
(^)