In 1 Kgs. 20:35ff, we read of one of the sons of the prophets who wanted to deceive Ben-hadad, king of Syria (see 1 Kgs. 20:38). So he "said to his fellow at the command of the LORD, 'Strike me, please.' But the man refused to strike him. Then he said to him, 'Because you have not obeyed the voice of the LORD, behold, as soon as you have gone out 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."
How shall we take "at the command of the LORD" and "you have not obeyed the voice of the LORD"? Was this prophet's word truly of YWHW? It would seem, in context, that it was. Nothing seems to point in the other direction. That the word was fulfilled also accords with the criteria for prophetic predictions given in Deuteronomy 18. Moreover, in the light of all of Scripture, and in the light of 2 Kgs. 17:25 in particular, I'm inclined to say that this was a predication truly based on "the command of the Lord." But whether I'm reading this one aright or not, 2 Kgs. 17:25 makes it abundantly clear that YHWH is the sort of God who sometimes sends lions to to take lives.
Do we have categories for this as we think about who God is and how he reigns today? It seems to me that the generality of us all have a category of "nice things" and a category of "bad things." We attribute the "nice things" to God; the "bad things" we attribute to another. That "another" may be Satan, may be nature, may be evil agency, may be chance or whimsy, but rarely do we conceive that YHWH is the kind of God who sometimes sends lions to take lives. We've got to read the Word of God more closely, and seek to see all through that enlightening lens. After all, we're in the story. And as characters of the grand narrative, we're either in step or out of step with the story's Main Character. Do we know and acknowledge who the Main Character really is? Do we know his character and ways?
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