1 Kings 13:1–34

13:3 Straightaway a sign is described that will confirm the prophetic word: “Behold, the altar shall be torn down, and the ashes that are on it shall be poured out.” But before this interim demonstration of Yahweh’s power to destroy the altar occurs, Jeroboam intervenes to protect the altar.

13:4 The king’s intervention does not go well. The prophet’s emphatic cry against the altar meets with Jeroboam’s resistance to the word of God. As the king “stretch[ed] out his hand from the altar” and commands his attendants to “seize” the prophet, Jeroboam acts in ways strongly reminiscent of Pharaoh’s repeated encounters with Moses in the early chapters of Exodus (cf. Ex. 7:1–13). His attempts to derail the plans of God are similarly unsuccessful. “His hand, which he stretched out against him, dried up, so that he could not draw it back to himself” (lit., “return it to himself”—the idea of turning/returning becomes a key one in the chapter).

13:5–6 The promised sign is then enacted, as the altar is “torn” apart like the garment in 1 Kings 11:11, 30 and “the ashes [are] poured out from the altar,” rendering the broken altar unusable.² Once more, we are reminded that all of this transpires “by the word of the Lord.” However, Jeroboam’s primary concern is not for his cult but for his hand! His true theological position emerges in his request to the man of God, as he asks him to “entreat now the favor of the Lord your God, and pray for me, that my hand may be restored to me.” There is no pretense that his bull gods are the same God who brought the people from Egypt. His position—and probably his rule—is compromised by his incapacity; hence he pleads with the man of God. Remarkably, God graciously answers his prayer, “and the king’s hand was restored to him and became as it was before.” It remains to be seen whether the king will learn anything from this word and sign.

13:7–10 The next short scene provides a bridge between the man of God’s encounter with the king and that involving the old prophet from Bethel. The king understandably offers to reward the man of God for his intercession and invites him back to his palace. There is nothing in the text to suggest that the offer is insincere. Nor is there anything to prepare us for the strength of the man of God’s response. He retorts, “If you give me half your house, I will not go in with you,” thus refusing any reward from this apostate king and ensuring that his message of judgment will not be watered down in any way. In addition, he maintains that he “will not eat bread or drink water in this place.” This “place” is not the place Yahweh had chosen (see 1 Kings 11:32; cf. Deut. 12:5), and the man has been “commanded . . . by the word of the Lord” neither to eat nor drink but like some well-known later men of wisdom, to go home by another way (cf. Matt. 2:12).

13:11–13 The scene shifts to a nameless “old prophet [who] lived in Bethel.” We are told nothing about this man, but his age suggests that he long predated Jeroboam’s innovations, meaning he would know of the ways of the Lord. Will this man be a kindred spirit, having been schooled in the ways of Yahweh, or an ally of the heretic king? There is no explanation of his absence from the ceremony at Bethel that the man of God so rudely interrupted, but “his sons” fill him in on the details. These “sons” could be his apprentices, but they seem more likely to be family members (cf. 1 Sam. 2:12–25). The sons give their father a complete account of events. The old man’s response is unexpected, asking, “Which way did he go?” and then telling them to “saddle the donkey for me.”³ We are left wondering what has caused this burst of activity from the old man, but we are left in suspense.

13:14–17 Initially, events unfold as we might expect. They take place at “an oak,” which may tie this story to earlier events (cf. Gen. 35:4; 1 Sam. 10:3; see also Judg. 6:11). The invitation to “come home with me and eat bread” seems innocuous enough, although we are still left wondering why this prophet from Bethel is so keen to spend time with this “man of God . . . from Judah.” Given the fact that he has already rebuffed the king, it is no surprise when the man of God continues to abide by the word of the Lord, declining his invitation both to eat and to follow him. It is at this point, however, that the story takes a decidedly unexpected turn.

13:18–19 Having established his credentials (“I also am a prophet as you are”), the old prophet from Bethel lies to the man of God, attempting to entice him to go against the command of God, even using some of the phrasing of the original warning given to him earlier in the chapter. He also claims that “an angel spoke to me by the word of the Lord.” The phrase “by the word of the Lord” is the key to understanding this section. Twice the prophet from Judah underscores that he must act according to what has been said to him “by the word of the Lord” (vv. 9, 17), thus modeling that God’s people need both to discern the “word of the Lord” and then also to obey it. But now he fails in that very thing, showing a lack of both obedience and discernment. When the old prophet claims that the angel told him to “bring him back with you into your house that he may eat bread and drink water,” there is no hint that the man of God challenges these words. He simply falls for the lie.

13:20–22 Confirmation that the message of these events is focused on the “word of the Lord” is made explicit in verse 20. In another unexpected reversal, the actual “word of the Lord” now comes to the lying old prophet from Bethel. It seems that neither his lack of orthodoxy nor his moral deviance prevents God from speaking the truth through him, and so he “cries” out (rather than simply speaking) to the man of God from the south, pronouncing judgment on him. The reason is simple: “because you have disobeyed the word of the Lord and have not kept the command that the Lord your God commanded you.” His decision to dine with the old prophet has catastrophic consequences: “Your body shall not come to the tomb of your fathers.” God’s disapproval of the one who hears the word of God and yet chooses to ignore it will be made obvious.

13:23–25 It is not entirely clear to whom the pronouns are referring in verse 23, but the most natural way of reading the text is that the old prophet is the subject of the verbs. He takes the initiative in sending the Judahite on his way, now seated on a donkey.⁴ The account of what happens next is abrupt: “As he went away a lion met him on the road and killed him.” The supernatural direction of these events (which clearly transpire according to the word of Yahweh) is highlighted by the selectivity of the lion, who attacks the man of God but completely ignores the defenseless donkey. God uses lions elsewhere in Scripture (Isa. 38:13; Lam. 3:10–11; Hos. 5:14; Amos 3:8). The fact that the lion attacks the prophet from Judah (long associated with the lion; Gen. 49:9) heightens the tragedy of this whole incident. The man who knew that he must not return “by the way” finds his end “on the road,” underlining the tragic reason behind his death. This death is witnessed by passersby, and the news travels rapidly to Bethel, as “they came and told it in the city where the old prophet lived.”

The complexities of this story lead to a clear warning to the people of Bethel (and, by extension, to the people of the entire northern kingdom). Their nation has ignored the word of God, and it stands under judgment. The truth is to be found in the words of the man of God from Judah. The fact that the Judahite prophet meets such a grisly end underlines that, for the people of Judah, the challenge is to heed the words of God they continue to hear through authentic prophets of the Lord.

13:26 The words of the prophet in Bethel confirm the key concerns of this narrative. He identifies the corpse as the “man of God who disobeyed the word of the Lord” and then correctly identifies the cause of the tragedy, ascribing it to “the word that the Lord spoke to him.” Repeatedly we see that it is the “word of the Lord” driving events forward.

13:27–30 As he had done before, the old man asks his sons to “saddle the donkey for me.” (He had more than one donkey; cf. v. 23.) As the narrative slows almost to a halt, the man surveys the scene, and the writer makes explicit what we noted earlier: “The lion had not eaten the body or torn the donkey.” Given the apparent duplicity marking his encounter with the Judahite man of God, it is striking that the prophet brings the man’s body back to Bethel “to mourn and to bury him.” There seems to be genuine camaraderie flowing from a common commitment to listening to and proclaiming the word of Yahweh. This is reflected in the prophet’s use of his “own grave” and the fact that “they mourned over him, saying, ‘Alas, my brother!’” Like their prophets, Judah and Israel have much in common, but all too often their common origins are reflected in their common disobedience.

13:31–32 The old prophet then makes a very strange request. On his own death, he instructs his sons to “lay my bones beside his bones.” The reason for this instruction is given in verse 32, taking us right back to the beginning of the narrative: “For the saying that he called out by the word of the Lord against the altar in Bethel and against all the houses of the high places that are in the cities of Samaria shall surely come to pass.” The man of God from Judah spoke the truth. Now this old shrine prophet wants to affirm as much. The reader, as well as the old man himself, should now be very aware of this reality, as well as of the consequences of ignoring God.

13:33–34 The closing statements of the chapter return to the response of Jeroboam to the word of God (v. 33 begins lit. “after this word”). Despite the doom-laden prophecy and the ominous downfall of the one who delivered it, “Jeroboam did not turn from his evil way.” The northern ruler continues to pursue his “alternative cult” strategy. This “thing” (or “word”) has sown the seeds of the demise of the nation “so as to cut it off and to destroy it from the face of the earth.” The fate of the nation of Israel (and, by extension, Judah in this narrative) will be determined by their response to the word of the Lord.