Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 1 Kings 13:20
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:
20. as they sat at the table ] They were having a proper meal. The expression ‘to eat bread and to drink water’ signifies ‘to take food and drink’ and must not be understood literally. The idea meant to be conveyed by the prohibition is that nothing of any sort was to be taken.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
1Ki 13:20-22
And it came to pass as they sat at the table.
The two erring prophets
1. If the word of God has spoken, the vision or the interpretation which essentially contradicts it cannot be followed without destruction. Nothing short of a real, well-attested revelation could have furnished a better excuse for departing from the word of the Lord; and yet for departing he was slain. Here a lesson Is written as it were on the arch of heaven, and hung out for a warning to all generations, not to depart, on any pretence, from the plain word of God. Whatever He has said we must believe and obey, and an angel from heaven must not be allowed to contradict it. We may compare Scripture with Scripture to ascertain what He has actually spoken; but that being determined, we must suffer neither our own reasoning, nor the authority or reasoning or ridicule or glosses of others to weaken our confidence in any revealed truth. Men act over again the part so strongly condemned in the history before us. They leave the plain revelation of God for another guide more congenial with their feelings. At the suggestion of others who set up pretensions to superior knowledge, or at the sole instance of their own depraved hearts, they depart from truth and duty in defiance of the plain prescriptions of Gods word. Let them beware. These paths lead down to death, and these steps take hold on hell. The Almighty God will rend them like a lion, and there shall be none to deliver. All this becomes more credible when we see, as we do in the account before us:
2. That it is some selfish and sinful bias which leads men to forsake the wool of God for fables. In the present ease it is most plain by what influence and by what process of mind the man of God came to believe the fatal lie. It was under the spur of an appetite awakened by long abstinence. Pressed with hunger and fainting with thirst, in a sultry climate in the heat of the day, no sooner was the sound in his ear that God had released him from the burdensome restraint, than he rushed to the conclusion that so it was. He opened his ear to hear the refreshing tidings, as he would his parched lips to receive the cooling draught. Any one can almost see the operations of his mind, who has ever studied his own. That selfish desire of personal gratification,–that impatience under the restriction of a burdensome command,–predisposed him to fall in with the suggestion, and to believe (for he doubtless did believe) that God had released him from the prohibition. How easily do men believe what they wish should be true. No man ever went over from the revelation of God to believe a lie, without being led by a selfish and sinful bias.
3. We perceive in this history how men, and even prophets, will lie to draw others from the pathway of the Lord. The Jewish priests and Roman soldiers equally conspired to cheat the world, by a deliberate lie, out of that infinitely important fact on which the whole Gospel rests. Every revival of religion brings out confessions of this sort. The religion of these several classes is a religion supported, not by their reason, but by their passions. So it was with the religion of Jeroboam.
4. It may be our duty so to bear testimony against errors and vices, as to refuse to eat or drink or associate with those on whom they are found. And when the evil is so great as to call for this marked condemnation, no feelings of courtesy ought to turn us aside from the course of duty; nor ought such a withdrawment to be stigmatised as uncharitableness or bigotry. All this is fully supported by the history before us.
5. We learn from the history before us that strong resistance of temptation will not screen us from death if we are overcome at last. This man of God made a noble stand against the temptation by which he fell. When men have long resisted temptation and are overcome at last, they are prone to raise some excuse from the resistance they have made. But there is no excuse. The virtue of their past resistance is annihilated. They have sinned, and the sentence is out that they must die.
6. Seducers are often made the instruments of punishing their own victims. The old prophet, after decoying the man of God to his house and table, is made the organ of the terrible denunciation against him. The tempter becomes the instrument of punishment. In sin and sinful things is found the punishment of sin. If you touch what is polluted, it will thrust you through with a dart.
7. From this illuminated section of Divine providence we learn that good men, when they transgress, are often more severely punished in this life than the wicked. Instead of being protected by the sanctity of their profession, their nearness to God, the dignity of their office, or any services they may have rendered, they frequently receive a double portion of the cup of trembling. But there is another reason why, under certain circumstances, God punishes His children in this life more than others. When their sins are public, it behoves Him to wipe off the aspersion thus cast upon Himself.
8. This piece of history affords a specimen of the complexness of Gods providence, and particularly the extensive effects which are sometimes connected with the punishment of His people, beyond the immediate ends of the chastisement. In the case under consideration, the immediate ends in view were to disown the communion which the prophet had held with idolaters, and to show those idolaters Gods abhorrence of sin, and His unalterable deter-ruination to punish it on whomsoever found. But besides these ends, the miraculous death of the prophet for disobeying what he had publicly declared to be a part of his instructions, furnished irresistible proof of his Divine mission, and of the truth of the prediction which he had hurled against the altar of idols. By his death also his body was left at Bethel, where his sepulchre, with a broad and legible inscription, hard by the temple of idols, daily delivered anew the same denunciations of heaven, and proved a standing testimony against the idolaters.
9. God corrects His children in measure, and does not let loose all His wrath, but in the midst of wrath remembers mercy. Thus always does He break the stroke by which He chastises His children; and when the end of the infliction is answered, He opens to them a Fathers heart. And at last, when for sin He has sunk them in death, He will set himself down to guard their dust until the last morning bids it rise. (E. D. Griffiths, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 20. The word of the Lord came unto the prophet that brought him back] “A great clamour,” says Dr. Kennicott, “has been raised against this part of the history, on account of God’s denouncing sentence on the true prophet by the mouth of the false prophet: but if we examine with attention the original words here, they will be found to signify either he who brought him back; or, whom he had brought back; for the very same words, asher heshibo, occur again in 1Kg 13:23, where they are now translated, whom he had brought back; and where they cannot be translated otherwise. This being the case, we are at liberty to consider the word of the Lord as delivered to the true prophet thus brought back; and then the sentence is pronounced by GOD himself, calling to him out of heaven, as in Ge 22:11. And that this doom was thus pronounced by God, not by the false prophet, we are assured in 1Kg 13:26: ‘The Lord hath delivered him unto the lion, according to the word of the Lord which HE spake unto him.’ Josephus expressly asserts that the sentence was declared by God to the true prophet.” The Arabic asserts the same.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
As they sat at the table; there the prophet meets with a severe judgment, where he was pleasing himself with this seasonable refreshment.
The word of the Lord came by secret instinct into his mind, as sometimes God spake to Moses and other prophets when they were in company with others.
Unto the prophet that brought him back; so he makes this prophet publicly to call himself liar, and to pronounce a terrible sentence against him, to whom he professed so much kindness. Indeed the Hebrew words are ambiguous, and by others rendered thus, to the prophet whom he had brought back which agrees very well with the Hebrew phrase, and may seem to be the best translation, by comparing 1Ki 13:23, where the very same phrase is so rendered; and 1Ki 13:26, where this message is said to be spoken to him. But these arguments are not cogent; not that from 1Ki 13:23, because it is a common thing for the same phrase in divers verses, and sometimes in one and the same verse, to be diversely used; nor that from 1Ki 13:27, for that may be rendered concerning him. And therefore our translation is better, as is manifest from 1Ki 13:21.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
And it came to pass, as they sat at the table,…. The old prophet, with his sons, and the man of God; the Arabic version adds, “and did eat”, there being a pause in the Hebrew text, as if something was wanting, and to be understood and supplied:
that the word of the Lord came unto the prophet that brought him back; that is, to the old prophet, who was the means of bringing back the man of God; the word did not come to him who had transgressed the command of the Lord, but to him who was the occasion of it; though Abarbinel is of opinion that the word came to the latter, and so some versions, both ancient and modern, render the clause, “to the prophet whom he had brought back” f and which is countenanced by what is said, 1Ki 13:26,
according to the word of the Lord which he spoke unto him: but the former sense best agrees with what follows.
f Syr. Ar. Junius & Tremellius.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
As they were sitting at table the word of the Lord came to the old prophet, so that he cried out to the man of God from Judah: “Because thou hast been rebellious against the command of the Lord, and hast not kept the commandment, … thou wilt not come to the grave of thy fathers,” i.e., thou wilt meet with a violent death by the way. This utterance was soon fulfilled.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
Prophet Slain, verses 20-34
It is hard to reconcile the behavior of the old prophet of Judah. It is apparent that he knew the Lord and spoke in his name. That he was terribly backslidden is evident. That he grossly abused and set a stumblingblock in the path of his brother in the ministry is humanly unforgivable. That the Lord can and does forgive the most onerous sins is also admissible. No record exists of what the Lord thought of the old prophets conduct, nor of what kind of judgment befell him for his terrible falsehood and delusion. A lesson might be gleaned herein, that the young ministers should be cautious of following the leadership of older ones whose dedication to the Lord is not proven to them. Usually an older preacher can give sage counsel to the younger, but the test of the Scriptures would be applied as Paul gave it to the Thessalonians (1Th 5:12).
How astounded the prophet from Judah must have been when the old prophet was suddenly possessed of the Lord to cry out to him with words of doom for his disobedience. The very architect of his fall is the annunciator of his doom! But is this not appropriate? His sin had found him out, indeed (Num 32:23)! The prophet of Judah while satisfying his carnal desires learns the price of his spiritual lapse. His testimony was annulled, his ministry shipwrecked and bankrupt. His useful life for the Lord was finished, for he had failed to hold his body in subjection (1Co 9:27).
The Judaean prophet could not escape his destiny. The old prophet even helped him on his way to his rendezvous, which he had foretold would be before he reached his home again. His body would never rest in the sepulchres of his fathers. Very shortly on his road a lion came out, killed him, and stood by his body there in the road. A strange sight was reported in Bethel that day by travelers. They had seen a lion standing by the body of a dead man, but not eating it, while a donkey stood there also, docile and unfearful.
When the news reached the old prophet of Bethel he knew at once what had happened. Again he commanded his sons to saddle the donkey for him, and again he went out after the man of God from Judah. He found him as reported, with the lion and donkey still standing guard as it were, teaching all who observed the terror of disobeying the known will of God (Heb 10:31). The body was taken up by the old prophet, brought into the city on the donkey. There he buried him in his own tomb and mourned over him. The old prophet had much to mourn for; his own failure to stand against the sin of Jeroboam, his shameful part in the fall of the man of God, the emasculation of the message of the prophet out of Judah to Jeroboam, and the untimely demise of a man of God because of disobedience to his calling.
The old prophet gave instruction to his sons that he should be buried in the same tomb, with the bones of the prophet of Judah, for his prophecy concerning defilement of the altar by Josiah would surely come to pass. He wished to preserve his own tomb against the time when the bones of false ministers would be desecrated and burned on the pagan altar. His scheme succeeded (2Ki 23:18).
The saddest part of the sequel is the reaction of King Jeroboam. He had a marvelous demonstration of God that day, which he could not deny. It consisted of a dire warning concerning his new religion and what would transpire from it. But when he saw the spokesman of the word suddenly cut off by a divine stroke .for disobedience he must have discounted the import of what had been told him. Anyway the Scriptures say he did not turn back from his plans, continuing to elevate the lowest of men into the priesthood and to set up high places for the worship of his calves. He may have been “almost persuaded”, but how could he believe in a message from a prophet who is suddenly stricken by divine judgment? This thing became the sin by which the house of Jeroboam was for ever to be remembered, and in the short run to seal his physical destruction.
Many good lessons should be learned from this incident. By way of summary note: 1) though one refuse, the Lord will raise up another to preach His word and sound His warning against sin; 2) evil opposers cannot successfully frustrate God’s word; 3) weariness in the Lord’s work may be weakness in the faith; 4) weakness of faith allows one to fall into bad situations; 5) one should be on constant guard against those who lead them astray; 6) to fail God is to encourage the failure of His word previously spoken by the one who has failed.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
C. THE CONDEMNATION OF THE MAN OF GOD 13:2026
TRANSLATION
(20) And it came to pass as they were sitting at the table, that the word of the LORD came unto the prophet who brought him back; (21) and he cried unto the man of God which came from Judah, saying, Thus says the LORD, Because you rebelled against the word of the LORD, and did not keep the commandment which the LORD your God commanded you, (22) but have returned and eaten bread and drunk water in the place of which He spoke unto you, Do not eat bread and do not drink water, your corpse shall not come unto the grave of your fathers. (23) And it came to pass after he had eaten bread and after he had drunk, that he saddled for him a donkey, for the prophet which he had brought back. (24) And when he had gone, a lion found him in the way and slew him, and his corpse was cast in the way, with the donkey standing beside it; also the lion was standing beside the corpse. (25) And behold men were passing by, and they saw the corpse cast in the way, and the lion standing beside the corpse, and they came and told it in the city where the old prophet lived. (26) When the prophet who had brought him back from the way heard, he said, He is the man of God, who rebelled against the word of the LORD; therefore the LORD has given him to the lion, which has torn him and slam him, according to the word of the LORD which he spoke to him.
COMMENTS
The man of God fell for the lie and returned to Bethel to share the hospitality of the old prophet (1Ki. 13:19). How quickly obedience can turn to disobedience when ones guard is down! During the meal the old prophet received a genuine revelation from God (1Ki. 13:20). The Holy Spirit took control of the old prophet and compelled him to cry out against the man of God. He who denounced the sin of Jeroboam is now himself denounced (1Ki. 13:21). Part of the punishment of the old prophet was this revelation, for it forced him to admit to his guest that he had told an untruth. Furthermore, he was forced to pronounce the sentence of doom on the life of a godly man.
The punishment of disobedience is severe. The man of God would experience an ignominious death (indicated by the word carcass) and the disgrace of burial among strangers. Only burial in the family sepulcher was regarded as dignified.[353] The supreme warning in these verses is plain: Disobedience brings punishment irrespective of past faithfulness and service.
[353] Slotki, SBB, p. 101.
The gloomy meal at an end, the Bethel prophet saddled his donkey for the man of God who seems to have been traveling on foot (1Ki. 13:23). The donkey may have been lent or given to the man of God by the false prophet to salve his conscience or as an act of courtesy. The donkey is mentioned specifically at this point because of the role this animal was to play at the end of the story.
As he was making his way south toward Judah, a lion[354] pounced upon the man of God and slew him. That this death was no accident is indicated by the peculiar behavior of the donkey and the lion, both of which simply stood near the corpse of the fallen prophet (1Ki. 13:24). The lion standing guard at the spot is a marvelous picture of perfect obedience to God in contrast to the fallen prophet who has paid the price of disobedience.
[354] Lions of a small breed were known in Palestine and the Near East in Old Testament times (1Sa. 17:34; Amo. 3:12, etc.), and are known to have become extinct only in the twelfth century A.D.
Those who had traveled that highway reported in Bethel what they had seenthe corpse of a man in the way with a lion standing nearby (1Ki. 13:25). Hearing this report, the old prophet knew instantly the identity of that corpse and the reason for this tragedy (1Ki. 13:26).
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(20) The word of the Lord came.It is, perhaps, the most terrible feature in the history that the Divine sentence is spokenno doubt, as in the case of Balaam, unwillinglythrough the very lips which by falsehood had lured the prophet of Judah from the right path, and at the very table of treacherous hospitality. Josephus, with his perverse tendency to explain away all that seems startling, misses this point entirely, and assigns the revelation to the prophet of Judah himself. Striking as this incident is, it is perhaps a symbol of a general law constantly exemplifying itself, that the voice of worldly wisdom first beguiles the servants of God to disobedience by false glosses on their duty to Him, and then proclaims unsparingly their sin and its just punishment.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
20. The word of the Lord came unto the prophet that brought him back So God may often speak through a wicked prophet. So he did through Balaam, uttering the sublimest oracles of blessing, though that soothsayer would fain have cursed Israel. He made even the dumb ass speak with man’s voice, and rebuke the madness of the prophet. The attempt of Dr. Kennicott, to make the latter part of this verse mean the prophet whom he had brought back, is uncalled for, and precluded by the unmistakable meaning of the same words in 1Ki 13:26. On the faulty translation of the words in 1Ki 13:23 see note there.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
1Ki 13:20 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:
Ver. 20. And it came to pass, as they sat at the table. ] Where this prophet was eating and drinking against God’s express charge, there doth he hear his doom denounced by the same mouth that had seduced him; Ut inde poenam veraciter sumeret unde culpam negligenter admisit, saith Gregory, that the punishment might answer to the sin.
That the word of the Lord came,
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Sign upon Sign Unheeded
1Ki 13:20-34
There is a tragic note in this paragraph. The man of God had performed Gods errand bravely and well, and his words were verified by the result; but he perished as a castaway. See 1Co 9:27. If only he had obeyed Gods word, as it came directly to himself, he might have been entrusted with many similar errands; but Alas, my brother! was a true elegy on the part of the man who had led to his downfall. How careful we should be never to dissuade a young soul from some heroic purpose which has formed itself in his imagination! Too many young men have perished on the threshold of their life-work, because older prophets have cried, Spare thyself; have mercy on thy flesh.
God never goes back on His first instructions. If He has clearly spoken to your soul, refuse to take your marching-orders from others. No man, however aged or holy, has any right to intrude into the sacred dealings of God and the individual disciple. We may always detect the false voice, because its suggestions so exactly chime in with the weakness of our nature, in its desire to eat bread, drink water, and enjoy the society of our fellows.
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
the word of the Lord: “A great clamour,” says Dr. Kennicott, “has been raised against this part of history, on account of God’s denouncing sentence on the true prophet by the mouth of the false prophet; but if we examine with attention the original words here, they will be found to signify either he who brought him back, or, whom he had brought back; for the very same words, asher heshivo, occur again, 1Ki 13:23, where they are now translated, whom he had brought back; and where they cannot be translated otherwise. This being the case, we are at liberty to consider the words of the Lord as delivered to the true prophet, thus brought back; and then the sentence is pronounced by God himself, calling to him out of heaven, as in Gen 22:11. And that this doom was thus pronounced by God, not by the false prophet, we are assured in 1Ki 13:26. The Lord hath delivered him unto the lion, according to the word of the Lord, which He spake unto him.’ Josephus – and also the Arabicasserts, that the sentence was declared by God to the true prophet.” Num 23:5, Num 23:16, Num 24:4, Num 24:16-24, Mat 7:22, Joh 11:51, 1Co 13:2
Reciprocal: 1Ki 13:11 – an old prophet 1Ki 14:6 – for I am Jer 1:2 – the word
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
THE DISOBEDIENT PROPHET
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, etc.
1Ki 13:20
I. Consider what was the mission or work of this prophet of Judah.Jeroboam, like many a statesman since his time, looked upon religion, not as the happiness and strength of his own life, but simply as an instrument of successful government. He saw that if, after the separation of the ten tribes, Jerusalem should still continue to be the religious centre of the whole nation, sooner or later it would become the political centre too. The prophet was to Jeroboam what Samuel was to Saul after the victory over Amalek. He announced Gods displeasure at the most critical moment of his life, when an uninterrupted success was crowned with high-handed rebellion against the gracious Being who had done everything for the rebel. The prophet placed the king under the ban of God. It was a service of the utmost danger; it was a service of corresponding honour.
II. Consider the temptations to which the Jewish prophet was exposed in the discharge of his mission.It was not difficult for him to decline Jeroboams invitation to eat and drink with him. The invitation of the old prophet was a much more serious temptation, and had a different result. This old prophet was a religious adventurer who had a Divine commission and even supernatural gifts, yet who placed them at the service of Jeroboam. He wanted to bring the other prophet down to his own level. Looking at the sacred garb, the white hairs, of the old prophet of Beth-el, the prophet of Judah listened to the false appeal to his own Lord and Master, and he fell.
III. Notice the prophets punishment.By a solemn, a terrible, irony the seducer was forced to pass a solemn sentence on his victim. If the sterner penalty was paid by the prophet who disobeyed, and not by the prophet who tempted, this is only what we see every day. The victims of false teaching too often suffer, while the tempter seems to escape. The lesson from the story is that our first duty is fidelity to Gods voice in conscience.
Canon Liddon.
Illustrations
(1) No gifts could save this prophet from his ruin when once he left the pathway of obedience. He was a man of God inspired for a great workthere was given to him the power of working miracleshe was courageous and thoroughly in earnesthe had said in his heart Here am I, send meyet darkness fell on him, and all was lost, spite of his calling, and all his gifts and graces, because he disobeyed the will of heaven. That is a lesson for the brightest boys, and for the girls who are beautiful or gifted. Are we not tempted to think, if we are finely dowered, that God will forgive us for a little liberty? But for the genius, as for the dullest brain, there is only one path to peace and power and safety, and that is to walk in Gods commandment, and strive to be obedient to His will.
(2) The prophet turned from the stir and throng of Bethel to the solitude of the road that led to Judah, and it was then, in the very flush of victory, that he was tempted again, and yielded to temptation. Many an army has been put to flight in the hours that followed on some great success. They became carelessthey grew secure and easyand all unexpectedly they were assailed again. And as it is with armies, so with men. It is a glad and a good thing to be victorious. But the season that follows on a moral victory is often a season that is big with danger. That is what Paul means when, writing to the Ephesians, he bids them having done all, to stand. This prophet had done all that God had laid on him, yet having done it all, he failed to stand. There is danger when the breaker lifts its head and with a wild thunder dashes on the shore, but not less dangerous is its retreat, as it moves back again into the deeps.
(3) The vital importance of this prophets work is to be found not only in his message, but in the fact that he was called to utter it when the kingdom of the north was in its infancy. Now in such circumstances would you not have thought that the name of the prophet would have been written large? Would you not have expected it upon the page of scripture, so to be held in perpetual remembrance? Instead of that we do not know his name, nor his home, nor his father or his motherhe is just a man of God out of Judah. Do you remember what Milton calls the desire for fame? He calls it the last infirmity of noble minds. Some of the greatest things the world has known have been done by men whose names are in oblivion.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
1Ki 13:20-22. The word of the Lord came, &c. God obliged the prophet, who had caused him to sin, to denounce a punishment against him for it, that it might the more affect him; nothing being more piercing than to be reflected on by those who have caused us to err. And he cried unto the man of God With a loud voice, the effect of his passion, both for his own guilt and shame, and for the prophets approaching misery. Forasmuch as thou hast disobeyed the mouth of the Lord That is, the word of command coming out of his mouth; thy carcass shall not come into the sepulchre of thy fathers Thou shalt not die a natural, but a violent death, and that in this journey, before thou returnest to thy own habitation.