The Prophet and the Lion

Now there was in that city a certain wicked old man, a false prophet, whom Jeroboam held in great esteem, but by whom, and by whose flattering words, he was deceived. This man was bedridden through the weaknesses of old age. However, his sons told him about the prophet who had come from Jerusalem and the signs he had done, and how Jeroboam’s right hand, after it had been weakened, had been revived at the prophet’s prayer. At this he was afraid that this stranger and prophet would stand higher with the king than himself and receive greater honor from him. So he ordered his sons to saddle his donkey at once and make everything ready for him to go out. They hurried to do as they were told, and he mounted the donkey and went after the prophet. When he had overtaken him, as he was resting under a very large oak tree, thick and shady, he first greeted him, but then at once complained of him for not coming into his house and accepting his hospitality. When the other said that God had forbidden him to taste anyone’s food in that city, he replied, “God has certainly not forbidden me to set food before you, for I am a prophet as you are, and I worship God in the same way you do; and I have now come, sent by him, to bring you into my house and make you my guest.” [a]

Jadon believed this lying prophet and went back with him. But while they were at dinner and enjoying themselves together, God appeared to Jadon and said that he would be punished for breaking his commands, and told him what that punishment would be: he would meet a lion as he went on his way, would be torn to pieces by it, and would be deprived of burial in the tombs of his fathers. These things came about, I suppose, by the will of God, so that Jeroboam would not pay attention to the words of Jadon, as of one who had been proved a liar. So as Jadon was going back to Jerusalem, a lion attacked him, pulled him off the animal he was riding, and killed him. Yet it did not harm the donkey at all, but sat beside it and guarded it, and the prophet’s body too. This went on until some travelers who saw it came and told it in the city to the false prophet. He sent his sons and brought the body into the city, and gave him a funeral at great expense. He also charged his sons to bury him with Jadon, and said that everything Jadon had foretold against that city and the altar and the priests and the false prophets would prove true; and that if he were buried with him, he would suffer no injury after his death, since the bones could not then be told apart.

But when he had performed these funeral rites for the prophet and given that charge to his sons, wicked and impious man that he was, he went to Jeroboam and said to him, “Now why is it that you are disturbed at the words of this foolish fellow?” When the king told him what had happened about the altar and about his own hand, and called Jadon a divine man and an excellent prophet, he set out by a wicked trick to weaken that opinion of his; by using plausible words about what had happened, he aimed to damage the truth in them. He tried to persuade him that his hand had been weakened by the labor it had undergone in holding up the sacrifices, and that after resting a while it had returned to its former condition; and that as for the altar, it was new and had borne a great many sacrifices, large ones too, and so had broken to pieces and fallen down under the weight of what had been laid on it. He also told him of the death of the man who had foretold these signs, and how he had perished by a lion: so he had nothing of a prophet in him, and spoke nothing like one. By saying this he persuaded the king, and turned his mind entirely away from God and from doing works that were righteous and holy, and encouraged him to go on in his impious practices. And so Jeroboam became so insolent toward God, and so great a lawbreaker, that he looked for nothing else every day but how he could commit some new act of wickedness, more detestable than what he had been so insolent as to do before. And so much is enough to have said about Jeroboam for the present.