., and used by special permission

"To-day amid the peaceful beauty of the scene--the secluded vale
covered with cornfields through which the winding streams flash and
glisten into the hazy distance, and the gentle hill rises to the
olives waving over its summit--it is possible to appreciate
Isaiah's name for Samaria, the crown of the pride of Ephraim, the
flower of his glorious beauty, which is on the head of the fat
valley. There by the entrance of the gate Ahab drew his sentence of
death from the prophet of Jehovah; and there they washed his blood
from his chariot, when they had brought him back to his burial.
There Jezebel slew the prophets of Jehovah and Jehu the priests of
Baal."
[End illustration]

{361}

And it came to pass, after he had eaten bread, and after he had drunk,
that he saddled for him the ass, to wit, for the prophet whom he had
brought back. And when he was gone, a lion met him by the way, and
slew him: and his body was cast in the way, and the ass stood by it;
the lion also stood by the body.

And, behold, men passed by, and saw the body cast in the way, and the
lion standing by the body: and they came and told it in the city where
the old prophet dwelt. And when the prophet that brought him back from
the way heard thereof, he said, "It is the man of God who was
disobedient unto the mouth of the Lord: therefore the Lord hath
delivered him unto the lion, which hath torn him, and slain him,
according to the word of the Lord, which he spoke unto him."

And he spoke to his sons, saying, "Saddle me the ass."

And they saddled it.

And he went, and found his body cast in the way, and the ass and the
lion standing by the body: the lion had not eaten the body, nor torn
the ass.

And the prophet took up the body of the man of God, and laid it upon
the ass, and brought it back: and he came to the city of the old
prophet, to mourn, and to bury him.

And he laid his body in his own grave; and they mourned over him,
saying, "Alas, my brother!"

And it came to pass, after he had buried him, that he spoke to his
sons, saying, "When I am dead, then bury {362} me in the sepulcher
wherein the man of God is buried; lay my bones beside his bones. For
the saying which he cried by the word of the Lord against the altar in
Beth-el, and against all the houses of the high places which are in
the cities of Israel, shall surely come to pass."

After this thing Jeroboam returned not from