1Kings 13, the disobedient prophet

 

1Kings 13:1 ¶  And, behold, there came a man of God out of Judah by the word of the LORD unto Bethel: and Jeroboam stood by the altar to burn incense. 2  And he cried against the altar in the word of the LORD, and said, O altar, altar, thus saith the LORD; Behold, a child shall be born unto the house of David, Josiah by name; and upon thee shall he offer the priests of the high places that burn incense upon thee, and men’s bones shall be burnt upon thee. 3  And he gave a sign the same day, saying, This is the sign which the LORD hath spoken; Behold, the altar shall be rent, and the ashes that are upon it shall be poured out. 4  And it came to pass, when king Jeroboam heard the saying of the man of God, which had cried against the altar in Bethel, that he put forth his hand from the altar, saying, Lay hold on him. And his hand, which he put forth against him, dried up, so that he could not pull it in again to him. 5  The altar also was rent, and the ashes poured out from the altar, according to the sign which the man of God had given by the word of the LORD. 6  And the king answered and said unto the man of God, Intreat now the face of the LORD thy God, and pray for me, that my hand may be restored me again. And the man of God besought the LORD, and the king’s hand was restored him again, and became as it was before. 7  And the king said unto the man of God, Come home with me, and refresh thyself, and I will give thee a reward. 8  And the man of God said unto the king, If thou wilt give me half thine house, I will not go in with thee, neither will I eat bread nor drink water in this place: 9  For so was it charged me by the word of the LORD, saying, Eat no bread, nor drink water, nor turn again by the same way that thou camest. 10  So he went another way, and returned not by the way that he came to Bethel.

So, a man of God, a prophet if you will, declares against wicked Jeroboam’s inappropriate behavior at the altar at Bethel where presumably he was burning incense to his pagan gods. What the man of God said did come to pass and although Jeroboam, like the king of Sodom offering to reward Abraham, wanted to do something showing gratitude to the man of God, he refused the offer, much like Abraham. God had warned him what he must do and not do. We will see how the man of God dies, from treachery and the lies of another man of God.

The man of God predicted the future king of Judah and Benjamin, Josiah, and his revenge against the presumption and idolatry of Jeroboam here in 1Kings 13. This will take place quite some time later.

2Kings 22:1 ¶  Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned thirty and one years in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Jedidah, the daughter of Adaiah of Boscath. 2  And he did that which was right in the sight of the LORD, and walked in all the way of David his father, and turned not aside to the right hand or to the left.

2Kings 23:4 ¶  And the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, and the priests of the second order, and the keepers of the door, to bring forth out of the temple of the LORD all the vessels that were made for Baal, and for the grove, and for all the host of heaven: and he burned them without Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron, and carried the ashes of them unto Bethel. 5  And he put down the idolatrous priests, whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense in the high places in the cities of Judah, and in the places round about Jerusalem; them also that burned incense unto Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the planets, and to all the host of heaven. 6  And he brought out the grove from the house of the LORD, without Jerusalem, unto the brook Kidron, and burned it at the brook Kidron, and stamped it small to powder, and cast the powder thereof upon the graves of the children of the people. 7  And he brake down the houses of the sodomites, that were by the house of the LORD, where the women wove hangings for the grove. 8  And he brought all the priests out of the cities of Judah, and defiled the high places where the priests had burned incense, from Geba to Beersheba, and brake down the high places of the gates that were in the entering in of the gate of Joshua the governor of the city, which were on a man’s left hand at the gate of the city. 9  Nevertheless the priests of the high places came not up to the altar of the LORD in Jerusalem, but they did eat of the unleavened bread among their brethren. 10  And he defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of the children of Hinnom, that no man might make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire to Molech. 11  And he took away the horses that the kings of Judah had given to the sun, at the entering in of the house of the LORD, by the chamber of Nathanmelech the chamberlain, which was in the suburbs, and burned the chariots of the sun with fire. 12  And the altars that were on the top of the upper chamber of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars which Manasseh had made in the two courts of the house of the LORD, did the king beat down, and brake them down from thence, and cast the dust of them into the brook Kidron. 13  And the high places that were before Jerusalem, which were on the right hand of the mount of corruption, which Solomon the king of Israel had builded for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Zidonians, and for Chemosh the abomination of the Moabites, and for Milcom the abomination of the children of Ammon, did the king defile. 14  And he brake in pieces the images, and cut down the groves, and filled their places with the bones of men. 15  Moreover the altar that was at Bethel, and the high place which Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin, had made, both that altar and the high place he brake down, and burned the high place, and stamped it small to powder, and burned the grove. 16  And as Josiah turned himself, he spied the sepulchres that were there in the mount, and sent, and took the bones out of the sepulchres, and burned them upon the altar, and polluted it, according to the word of the LORD which the man of God proclaimed, who proclaimed these words. 17  Then he said, What title is that that I see? And the men of the city told him, It is the sepulchre of the man of God, which came from Judah, and proclaimed these things that thou hast done against the altar of Bethel. 18  And he said, Let him alone; let no man move his bones. So they let his bones alone, with the bones of the prophet that came out of Samaria. 19  And all the houses also of the high places that were in the cities of Samaria, which the kings of Israel had made to provoke the LORD to anger, Josiah took away, and did to them according to all the acts that he had done in Bethel. 20  And he slew all the priests of the high places that were there upon the altars, and burned men’s bones upon them, and returned to Jerusalem. 21  And the king commanded all the people, saying, Keep the passover unto the LORD your God, as it is written in the book of this covenant. 22  Surely there was not holden such a passover from the days of the judges that judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel, nor of the kings of Judah; 23  But in the eighteenth year of king Josiah, wherein this passover was holden to the LORD in Jerusalem. 24  Moreover the workers with familiar spirits, and the wizards, and the images, and the idols, and all the abominations that were spied in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, did Josiah put away, that he might perform the words of the law which were written in the book that Hilkiah the priest found in the house of the LORD.

1Kings 13:11 ¶  Now there dwelt an old prophet in Bethel; and his sons came and told him all the works that the man of God had done that day in Bethel: the words which he had spoken unto the king, them they told also to their father. 12  And their father said unto them, What way went he? For his sons had seen what way the man of God went, which came from Judah. 13  And he said unto his sons, Saddle me the ass. So they saddled him the ass: and he rode thereon, 14  And went after the man of God, and found him sitting under an oak: and he said unto him, Art thou the man of God that camest from Judah? And he said, I am. 15  Then he said unto him, Come home with me, and eat bread. 16  And he said, I may not return with thee, nor go in with thee: neither will I eat bread nor drink water with thee in this place: 17  For it was said to me by the word of the LORD, Thou shalt eat no bread nor drink water there, nor turn again to go by the way that thou camest. 18  He said unto him, I am a prophet also as thou art; and an angel spake unto me by the word of the LORD, saying, Bring him back with thee into thine house, that he may eat bread and drink water. But he lied unto him. 19  So he went back with him, and did eat bread in his house, and drank water. 20  And it came to pass, as they sat at the table, that the word of the LORD came unto the prophet that brought him back: 21  And he cried unto the man of God that came from Judah, saying, Thus saith the LORD, Forasmuch as thou hast disobeyed the mouth of the LORD, and hast not kept the commandment which the LORD thy God commanded thee, 22  But camest back, and hast eaten bread and drunk water in the place, of the which the LORD did say to thee, Eat no bread, and drink no water; thy carcase shall not come unto the sepulchre of thy fathers.

And here, told very matter of factly and without condemnation, a man of God, an old prophet who dwells in an evil place full of idolatry as we have seen, lies to this prophet and convinces him to disobey God and then has no choice but to pronounce judgment on him as God compelled him. It is clear here that God had a plan for this man of God to make a point and if you don’t view this in terms of eternity it would make no sense. God used the willingness of the old prophet to lie to judge His messenger in his, the messenger’s, flesh, a type of Israel deceived by false religion.

1Kings 13:23 ¶  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. 24  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. 25  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. 26  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 word 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 spake unto him. 27  And he spake to his sons, saying, Saddle me the ass. And they saddled him. 28  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. 29  And the prophet took up the carcase of the man of God, and laid it upon the ass, and brought it back: and the old prophet came to the city, to mourn and to bury him. 30  And he laid his carcase in his own grave; and they mourned over him, saying, Alas, my brother! 31  And it came to pass, after he had buried him, that he spake to his sons, saying, When I am dead, then bury me in the sepulchre wherein the man of God is buried; lay my bones beside his bones: 32  For the saying which he cried by the word of the LORD against the altar in Bethel, and against all the houses of the high places which are in the cities of Samaria, shall surely come to pass. 33  After this thing Jeroboam returned not from his evil way, but made again of the lowest of the people priests of the high places: whosoever would, he consecrated him, and he became one of the priests of the high places. 34  And this thing became sin unto the house of Jeroboam, even to cut it off, and to destroy it from off the face of the earth.

Apparently the younger prophet’s death was a symbol of God’s judgment on Israel, having not done what they were told to do and following the advice of false religion.

John Gill noted that the lion and the ass standing together showed the singular providence of God with the lion not tearing the carcass of the prophet who was judged for disobedience but was still beloved by God. This is symbolic for Israel in its rebellion against the God who loved them. There was no repentance by Jeroboam, though, as he continued to do evil. Perhaps the old prophet in wanting his bones buried with those of the younger prophet was seeking forgiveness and mercy.