And a certain man of the sons of the prophets said unto his neighbour in the word of the LORD, Smite me, I pray thee. And the man refused to smite him.
Smite me. This prophet is supposed (1 Kings 20:8) to have been Micaiah. The refusal of his neighbour to smite the prophet was manifestly wrong, as it was a withholding of necessary aid to a prophet in the discharge of a duty to which he had been called by God, and it was severely punished, as a beacon to warn others (see the notes at 1 Kings 13:2-24). In general, it may be remarked, that the very actions and words of a prophet during the prophetical ecstasy were symbolical. In the case under notice, the refusal of the man who was asked to smite the excited prophet was morally good, on the supposition that the thing had not been commanded by the Spirit, and that the men knew not but the prophet might be disordered in his intellect. But yet it was a wrong refusal, as the person applied to, being of course a friend who was cognizant of the prophetic office of Micaiah, ought to have complied with the request, and the man was, on account of refusal, slain by a lion. The other individual, who obeyed the commandment by smiting the prophet so that he wounded him, did well, because that action served the purpose of the prophet, whose stroke symbolically represented that Ahab should be smitten; and the unbelief of the former, followed by his destruction, represented the unbelief of the king, who should, therefore, perish in a similar manner. The prophet found a willing assistant, and then, waiting for Ahab, leads the king unconsciously, in the parabolic manner of Nathan (2 Samuel 12:1-31), to pronounce his own doom, (see the notes at 1 Kings 21:1-29.)