What Does 1 Kings 13:25 Mean in the King James?
And, behold, men passed by, and saw the carcase cast in the way, and the lion standing by the carcase: and they came and told it in the city where the old prophet dwelt.
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’s strange stillness turns a roadside death into a sign the city hears about.
THE MEANING
The road holds a dead body and a lion standing beside it, and the men who see them carry the scene into the city as a report. You are shown how what is seen can become public through speech, even before its meaning is explained.
THE ROOT
נְבֵלָה
nevelah
GROWS FROM
נ־ב־ל
N-B-L
To wither, fade, or fall away.
“carcase” in this verse is nevelah. The word for the body is formed from the family of words for withering and falling away. The scene names the body by its fallen state, while the lion’s presence beside it makes that stillness part of what the passersby witness.
ALSO GROWS
navel: To wither or fade.
נָבֵל
This verb shares the root and gives the carcass a sense of life fallen away.
naval: A fool; one acting basely or without discernment.
נָבָל
This related form carries the root family into a collapse of discernment or dignity, widening the image beyond physical decay.
וַיְדַבְּרוּ
vayedabberu
GROWS FROM
ד־ב־ר
D-B-R
To speak; the related noun can mean a word or matter.
“told” in this verse is vayedabberu. The Hebrew says they spoke in the city; this is the same word family as davar, “word” or “matter.” Their speech carries the scene itself from the road into the city.
ALSO GROWS
davar: Word, matter, or thing.
דָּבָר
The shared root links their report to the matter they have witnessed.
dibber: Spoke.
דִּבֵּר
This is the verb form behind “told”: what they saw becomes spoken and shared.
THE PATTERN
What is witnessed becomes public through the act of telling.
Then they said one to another, We do not well: this day is a day of good tidings, and we hold our peace: if we tarry till the morning light, some mischief will come upon us: now therefore come, that we may go and tell the king’s household.And returned from the sepulchre, and told all these things unto the eleven, and to all the rest.For we can not but speak the things which we have seen and heard.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 Hebrew repeats נְבֵלָה (nevelah, “carcase”), then makes explicit that the lion has neither eaten the body nor torn the donkey. The stillness beside the body is not incidental: it is the striking evidence in the scene the men carry into the city.
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