Readings:
1 Kings 13
Ecclesiastes 4-6

1 Kings 13

An unnamed prophet is sent by God to the northern kingdom of Israel to prophecy against the altar that had been set up by Jeroboam in Bethel. He tells the king, who’s there offering incense, that the altar will be destroyed and the bones on the false priests that Jeroboam has instituted will be burned on the destroyed altar. He says all this will be done by a king of Judah named Josiah, and that will come to pass in a about 300 years.

While he’s speaking, the king points at him and demands he be arrested, but his hand withers and shrivels up. He then begs the prophet to pray for his hand to be healed, he does and it is healed. At this point a reasonable person would do something like repent of the sins that had brought this man to your kingdom. I don’t know, maybe he could make a pilgrimage down to Jerusalem and offer sacrifice of sin on the actual altar and given by actual priests. But Jeroboam isn’t that kind of person.

Now comes the twist in the story; the king offers the prophet a feast, probably as a way of bribing him into entreating God on his behalf a kind of Old Testament simony. But the prophet reveals that he was instructed to speak the prophecy to the king and then return to Judah by a different road without eating or drinking anything until back in Judah. And so he leaves.

Meanwhile, there’s an old prophet living in bethel, who’s sons return home and tell him about this incident with the king. He sets out to find the prophet and this is where things get extremely interesting. After being invited to his home, he’s told the same story about not eating and drinking in this country, but the old prophet lies to him and says that an angel appeared to him and said it’s ok now.

So they go back to his house and as they’re eating God speaks through the old man that brought him back and declares a death sentence on him for disobeying. So what’s the lesson here? For me it would be if God gives you a direct command, and then a person comes and says “oh am angel told me it’s ok, you can do what God told you not to do now” I would believe him one bit.

He goes and retrieves his body and then buries it in bethel. He instructs his sons to bury him in the same grave as the prophet when he dies, and this is because he believes the judgment prophecy against bethel and when we get to its fulfillment in 2 Kings we’ll see that this decision to be buried together serves him well.

I’ve often pondered this particular story, and it’s ending, to try and figure out what the motivations were for the old prophet to do this. I’ve yet to figure it out, so if a reader would like to leave a comment and give their opinion I’d appreciate it.

Tomorrow’s Readings:
1 Kings 14
Acts 27