What Does 1 Kings 13:24 Mean in the King James?
And when he was gone, a lion met him by the way, and slew him: and his carcase was cast in the way, and the ass stood by it, the lion also stood by the carcase.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The lion remains beside the body after the killing, turning a roadside death into a fixed sign.
THE MEANING
The scene puts a death directly in the path: the lion and the donkey remain beside the body, still and exposed. The road itself holds the evidence of what has happened.
THE ROOT
נְבֵלָה
nevelah
GROWS FROM
נ־ב־ל
n-b-l
To wither or fade; related forms also carry the sense of folly or disgrace.
The word for “carcase” belongs to a root family that also describes what withers and falls away. English makes the word only a label for remains; Hebrew lets the body carry the sense of collapse, left exposed in the road.
ALSO GROWS
nāvēl: To wither or fade.
נָבֵל
This branch echoes in the body’s state as it lies exposed after life has fallen away.
nevalah: A foolish or disgraceful act.
נְבָלָה
This related form gives the word family a shade of disgrace alongside physical decay, resonant with the body left as evidence in the path.
דֶּרֶךְ
déreḵ
GROWS FROM
ד־ר־ך
d-r-k
To tread or make a track.
The English “way” can sound like incidental scenery, but derekh means a road, path, or course of movement, from darak, “to tread.” The path where the lion finds him becomes the path holding his body: the route itself now makes the consequence visible.
ALSO GROWS
dārakh: To tread or step.
דָּרַךְ
The root’s physical sense of treading lies beneath the road on which the man is found.
déreḵ: Road, path, or course.
דֶּרֶךְ
The verse repeats this word for the place of the encounter and the place where the body is left.
THE PATTERN
In these scenes, a lion’s attack or restraint is presented as a precise boundary, making unseen authority visible.
Then said he unto him, Because thou hast not obeyed the voice of the LORD, behold, as soon as thou art departed from me, a lion shall slay thee. And as soon as he was departed from him, a lion found him, and slew him.And so it was at the beginning of their dwelling there, that they feared not the LORD: therefore the LORD sent lions among them, which slew some of them.My God hath sent his angel, and hath shut the lions’ mouths, that they have not hurt me: forasmuch as before him innocency was found in me; and also before thee, O king, have I done no hurt.THE THREAD
And he went and found his carcase cast in the way, and the ass and the lion standing by the carcase: the lion had not eaten the carcase, nor torn the ass.The word translated “carcase” repeats the Hebrew נְבֵלָה (nevelah), from the n-b-l root family. This verse makes the scene’s boundary explicit: the lion has not eaten the body or torn the donkey, so the death remains a placed sign rather than an ongoing attack.
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