1 Kings 20:35-36--"By the word of the Lord one of the company of the prophets said to his companion, 'Strike me with your weapon,' but he refused. So the prophet said, 'Because you have not obeyed the Lord, as soon as you leave me a lion will kill you.' And after the man went away, a lion found him and killed him."
As strange as this scenario might be, the wording does attribute the prophet's instructions to God, who in the extended story had the prophet accept a wound so that he could lull King Ahab into a false sense of security (1 Kings 20:37-43). This actually is from God, who cannot sin and whose moral nature does not change (Malachi 3:6, James 1:17), and the prophet himself invites the blow, communicating divine judgment to follow in the form of death when the first person he talks to disobeys Yahweh. These things crucially differentiate the strike in question, which the next person the prophet asks does carry out, from many other kinds, like that of one person striking another because of subjective whim or out of malice. There is no contradiction between God genuinely instructing the prophet to have someone hit him and physical assault being universally evil. The act required by God here is merely not physical assault.
The Torah says not to murder (Exodus 20:13) and gives clear examples of many situations where killing is not murder, so not only is the line between murder and non-murderous killing very clear (Exodus 21:12-17, 22:2-3, 18-20, and so on), but murder is never to be committed even if someone wants to be treated in this way. Murder is by nature illicit killing, as opposed to mere killing, so it could never be morally legitimate. The same is not true of physical blows--it is physical assault, which always entails unjust or unwanted physical contact, that is condemned in the Torah, not everything involving physical blows. For instance, a husband and wife can engage in rough sexual interactions as long as they are mutually consensual (Deuteronomy 4:2, 1 Corinthians 7:2-5; only nonconsensual sex is condemned in Deuteronomy 22:25-27 as opposed to rough sex or other sexual behaviors), and wrestling for physical development can be done without malice or either party being physically abused.
Here is an excerpt from Exodus 21 dealing with general assault and battery:
Exodus 21:18-19--"'If people quarrel and one hits the other with a stone or with their fist and the victim does not die but is confined to bed, the one who struck the blow will not be held liable if the other can get up and walk around outside with a staff; however, the guilty party must pay the injured person for any loss of time and see that the victim is completely healed.'"
It might be easy to overlook, but the fact that Exodus 21:18-19 does not say to never strike someone with one's fist is vital: it in actuality specifies a context of quarreling, which can only come about if at least one party is in error logically and/or morally, or else there is nothing to fight over whether with words or with physical harm. Thus, the situation is already one where at least one person is irrational and in sin. The blows in this case law are born from malice or emotionalism, as they are not just. Corporal punishment with rods or whips is allowed with clear moral boundaries like never going above 40 lashes and never using it as a means of execution (Exodus 21:20-21, Deuteronomy 25:1-3); also, physical wounds of a permanent kind can be given strictly for a particular category of sexual assault (Deuteronomy 25:11-12) or in cases of assault with permanent injury--see Exodus 21:23-25 and Leviticus 24:19-21, but see Exodus 21:15 and 26-27 for exceptions even to this. Exodus 21:22 only affirms that nonpermanent injuries deserve a lesser punishment according to the Bible [1]. Attacking someone with one's fists or an object is nonetheless evil unless it is in self-defense (as with Exodus 22:2-3).
However, like two athletes physically training in the form of wrestling or a wife and husband hitting each other in a mutually desired manner for sexual gratification, hitting someone upon their own insistence to help them lay a trap at God's behest is not physical assault, for it is not about quarrelling, malice, and so on. It would not be the type of brawling or physical mistreatment addressed in Exodus 21:18-19 or Ephesians 4:31. In fact, the entire category of nonlethal physical blows that are consented to, short of something like a person calling for himself or herself to receive more than 40 lashes in criminal punishment despite how this is declared inherently unjust, is not sinful. Actual consent from the party taking a strike can otherwise make hitting someone entirely permissible. With the example of the prophet of 1 Kings 20:35-43, striking the man was morally mandatory: since God's nature authorized it, and the prophet consequently consented to it, it would be sin not to strike a person under such circumstances. This necessity is not in the act being justice, as if the prophet could deserve physical discipline for doing what is right, but from this case entailing an unusual exception to what would otherwise be a matter of strict justice or injustice.
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