THE MYSTERIOUS PROPHET OF JUDAH
CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES.—
1 Kings 13:1. There came a man of God: an unknown prophet. Josephus suggests Jadon, confounding him with Iddo (2 Chronicles 13:22), but he lived on during Abijab’s reign; whereas this man died immediately. Names fade; ministries endure. By the word of the Lord—בִּדְבַּר—“By the word” means not commanded by, but in the power of the word, obeying its impulsion. Jeroboam stood by the altar (see notes on 1 Kings 12:33)—Acting a foremost part in the national apostasy.
1 Kings 13:2. “Cried against the altar,” as if ignoring the king; for the profaned altar possessed a vaster solemnity than the mere agent of its profanation. And the prediction of its ruin would carry with it and include the doom of the violator of God’s temple—the lesser included in the greater. The “altar” also symbolically stood for the whole system of idolatry imposed now upon Israel. Josiah by name—One of the most minutely delineated prophecies of Scripture, and most minutely fulfilled, after a lapse of 360 years (2 Kings 22:1; 2 Kings 23:15). Evidence of literal inspiration of prophets. Possibly the word יֹאשִׁיָּהוּ—Josiah—may be (as Keil suggests) descriptive of the child who should do this work of retribution, and not necessarily his personal name, the word meaning “whom Jehovah sustains.” Yet Divine Providence arranged that the prophecy should assert itself even in the name which the predicted person bore.
1 Kings 13:3. A sign the same day—A portent and pledge of the coming event. מוֹפֶת means a prodigy rather than a simple “sign.”
1 Kings 13:6. Entreat now the face of the Lord thy God—“Entreat,” חִלָה, to soften; “entreat the face,” soften the rigour of its expression.
1 Kings 13:7. Come home with me—A guilesome attempt to get the man under his influence, since he had experienced his alarming power; or to lessen the startling impression which the event of his arm withering had produced on the people—an event calculated to convey an appearance of Divine rebuke of the king. If the people became alarmed the king’s control would be gone.
HOMILETICS OF 1 Kings 13:1-10
THE INVINCIBLE COURAGE OF A DIVINELY AUTHORISED MESSENGER
THE audacity of Jeroboam must not go unreproved or unpunished. He had assumed sacerdotal functions, and stood by the altar to offer sacrifice. He had introduced dangerous innovations, and involved the whole nation in the guilt of idolatry. His conduct is to be denounced at the very altar where his offence culminated in its highest aggravation. It required more than ordinary bravery to confront so strong-willed and reckless a king, who seemed impatient of contradiction, and was accustomed to be obeyed. But Jehovah had already provided an agent, and qualified him for the work. A stern-visaged prophet of Judah, like a spectral figure emerging out of misty space, appears upon the scene, armed with supernatural powers before which the proud king was humbled and made to tremble. The passage illustrates the invincible courage of a divinely authorized messenger.
I. It aided him in the full and faithful declaration of the Divine message (1 Kings 13:1-3).
1. As to the promise of a coming avenger. “Behold, a child shall be born unto the house of David, Josiah by name.” The very name of the avenger is predicted, an unusual instance of particularity in Divine prophecies. Only three other similar instances are recorded: Israel (Genesis 17:19); Solomon (1 Chronicles 22:9); and Cyrus (Isaiah 45:1). The All-Prescient Jehovah, who sees the end from the beginning, may cause events to be foretold minutely by His prophets, though in the general law of His providence He does not do so. He only can be the most capable judge as to how much of the future should be revealed.
2. As to the particular character of the punishment to be imposed. “Upon thee shall he offer the priests of the high places,” &c. (1 Kings 13:2). This prophecy was exactly fulfilled (2 Kings 23:15-20). God is too righteous to indulge in idle threats. They who disregard warning are without excuse when the punishment falls.
3. As to the visible tokens of the authenticity of the message. “And he gave a sign the same day,” &c. (1 Kings 13:3). The altar was rent, and the ashes poured out (1 Kings 13:5), as an evidence that the prophet was Jehovah’s ambassador, and spoke with the Divine sanction. Without this sign the prophecy of an event that did not take place for three hundred and fifty years would have wanted authority with those who knew nothing about the strange, mysterious messenger. God gives to His servants all the power necessary to accomplish their difficult and often unwelcome mission; and woe be to him who has not the courage or fidelity to act in harmony with his commission—neither to fall short of it, nor to go beyond.
II. It rendered him fearless in the presence of an angry and unscrupulous monarch (1 Kings 13:4). Like all usurpers and tyrants, Jeroboam’s remedy for all difficulties was force. He would have made short work of the man who had dared to interrupt him in the very act of performing the highest function of his self-assumed priesthood, and who denounced him and his idolatrous policy in the presence of his courtiers and supporters. The divinely authorised messenger is as bold as a lion (Proverbs 28:1). and is not to be intimidated by the fear of consequences. Few prophets suffered more than Jeremiah; yet all the cruelties of his enemies were impotent in bribing him to silence, or in impairing his fidelity. A sense of the Divine call to service, however painful and perilous, fills the soul with an incorruptible bravery.
III. It was supported by unmistakable evidences of supernatural power The king’s hand was withered, and the altar rent asunder (1 Kings 13:4-5). He who had not scrupled to stir up rebellion and to seize a crown, did not scruple to lay his hand menacingly on God’s servants; but in vain. How unexpected was the result! God will protect His messengers, who are ever the special butts of malice: he who touches them, touches the apple of His eye. Before God strikes, He warns: He willeth not that any should perish, but rather that they should come to repentance. It does not appear that either Jeroboam or his followers were moved to repentance by all they witnessed—another example of the hardening nature of sin, and the powerlessness of external miracles to affect and transform man’s spiritual nature. How many beheld the miracle-working power of Christ, and yet died in unbelief!
IV. It was not inconsistent with an act of mercy (1 Kings 13:6). Jeroboam prayed, not for pardon, but for the restoration of his withered limb. An impenitent heart ever betrays itself in greater concern for its sufferings than its sins. They who in prosperity reject the warnings of God’s messengers are ready enough in distress to have recourse to their prayers. To pray for those who despitefully use and persecute us is the way to obtain the promised beatitude (Matthew 5:10; Matthew 5:44). Those who are most severe and faithful in telling us of our sins are the most eager and genuine in rendering sympathetic help when we are in trouble. Courage and tender-heartedness go together.
V. It enabled him to resist the strongest temptation to disobedience (1 Kings 13:7-10).
1. The temptation appealed to his physical needs. “Come home with me and refresh thyself” (1 Kings 13:7). Weary and faint as he must have been with his journey, this invitation would cost the prophet some self-denial to resist. Satan ever tempts most powerfully at the weakest point and at the weakest moment. But the prophet must have no fellowship or communion with their works of darkness—not so much as even to eat and drink with them. He was not to accept the hospitality of any dweller at Bethel, in order to show in a marked way, which men generally could appreciate, God’s abhorrence of the system which Jeroboam had “devised of his own heart.”
2. The temptation offered immediate temporal advantage. “And I will give thee a reward” (1 Kings 13:7). It was customary to honour a prophet with a gift if he performed any service that was requested at his hands (1 Samuel 9:7-8; 1 Kings 14:3; 2 Kings 5:5; 2 Kings 8:9). The prophet was tempted with three things: royal hospitality, refreshment, and reward. How far these offers influenced the future action of the prophet can be only imperfectly conjectured. At this point of his history they had no power to corrupt his fidelity. Neither offers nor threats must be allowed to prevail with us to swerve a single step from the path of duty.
3. The temptation was resisted by a remembrance of God’s Word. “For so was it charged me by the Word of the Lord” (1 Kings 13:9). This was the weapon by which the Sinless One conquered the most furious onslaughts of the great adversary (Matthew 4:4; Matthew 4:7; Matthew 4:10). The Word of God is an impregnable defence, against which the arrows of temptation are shot in vain.
LESSONS:—
1. Faithful rebukes often produce proud wrath.
2. In the way of duty the Divinely-authorized messenger need fear no danger.
3. To reject Divine warnings aggravates transgression and invites vengeance.
THE CALF WORSHIP DENOUNCED
I. The great business of the prophet is evidently to denounce the altar and the sacrifices in Bethel. Of course, the rationalist teacher exclaims, “These were the offences of Jeroboam. He was an intruder upon the special privileges of the Jerusalem hierarchy; he had courage to introduce priests taken from the lowest of the people; he broke through the formalities of the Levitical law. Such a man in our days would be called a reformer or asserter of national and individual independence. Therefore he is denounced by the ecclesiastics who have compiled the Jewish records.” Yes, if the establishment of visible sensible worship be a great step in the progress of the human intellect—if the introduction of a set of priests continually at work to make that worship more visible, more sensual, more gross, to be a mode of fulfilling the aspirations of those who desire moral and spiritual liberty—if the breaking through the fetters of a law which restrained all sacerdotal inventions whatsoever, and bore witness continually that sacrifices were not offered to appease a tyrant, but to remove an obstacle between a righteous Lord and His unrighteous subjects—if the consequent establishment of a devil-worship be that which wise men of the nineteenth century after Christ call reformation, Jeroboam deserves all their patronage, and the man of God who came out of Judah to pronounce a curse upon his altar, all their wrath.
II. And this is precisely the question, not for this passage of the history only, but for every subsequent passage of it. The revolting kings of Israel, in whom modern enlightenment discovers the champions of human progress, were introducing the most unlimited sacerdotal tyranny, were making that sacerdotal tyranny an instrument of regal tyranny. The priests of the high places, the prophets of the grove, were building their own power upon the degradation of the multitudes whom they drew after them, were using that power to confirm every unrighteous decree, to remove every real moral restraint from the kings. The prophets, who, we are told, would never have been praised except in a book compiled by the supporters of a certain set of caste interests, were bearing a protest, at the hazard of their lives, for a righteous order which no caprices of human superstition or human will could set aside, for a spiritual authority which not only did not demand the slavery of the conscience, but was incompatible with it, for an actual relation between the Most High and His creatures which not only did not involve their regarding Him as an object of terror or distrust, but proved such habits of mind to contain the very essence of sin.
III. Men like the one we are now considering are said to speak the Word of the Lord, or sometimes in the Word of the Lord. Their function assumes that the thoughts of man’s heart and the utterances of it are of all things the most sacred; that a presence is there which men are seeking in dark groves, on high places, in sun, or sea, or air; that this Presence is not a phantom, not a creation of their own, but He who is, He who formed them; that the best and wisest man is He who confesses this presence with awe and wonder, who believes that he is standing before a living Being to whom all within is naked and open, who desires that that Being should direct him, act upon him, use him for His own purposes, who knows that those purposes are right purposes, who is sure that they cannot concern him more than they concern his fellows. To a man thus taught and trained, idolatry was something absolutely appalling. He had no measure of its enormity, only he was sure that a people worshipping calves, seeking God in high places, were flying from a friend and a deliverer, to enemies and destroyers; from the living and the true, to death and falsehood. He knew that it was so. He was certain that he was not uttering himself or his own fancies, when he said that it was so. God was speaking through his lips: God was pronouncing sentence upon that which defied him. What signified who might stand before the altar, who might be burning incense upon it? He no more could or dared tremble at the worshipper than at the thing worshipped. Both were creatures of the Eternal God. The one was setting himself up, the other was set up in contempt of Him: each alike must come down. The truth must stand fast and fulfil itself. He had only to proclaim the truth.
IV. But how shall the idolater know it and be convinced of it? The arm, we are told, which was stretched out to perform the sacrifice, and then to seize the prophet, was dried up so that he could not pull it again to him. “Here,” you say, “is a miracle; such a one as we expect in all records of this kind.” Precisely, such a one as you might expect in a record of this kind, and as you would not expect and not meet with in a record of another kind written by the supporters of a body which was interested in superstition, and trying by all means to sustain the reputation of it. The man of God testifies to Jeroboam that the juices and springs of life are renewed from an invisible source, that it is another than the dead thing which he is worshipping who can dry them up or give them their natural flow—a protest exactly in accordance with that which Moses bore against the gods of Pharoah, a protest on behalf of regularity and law, and for a God of regularity and law, with whom are the issues of daily life and death, against the seeker of charms in natural things, against the worshipper of capricious deities. The other part of the sign is precisely of the same kind. The altar is rent and the ashes are poured out from the altar, as a sure and everlasting testimony that law and order shall not be violated with impunity by any ruler, under any religious pretext, that his religious acts are more hateful in the sight of God than all his other acts, and must hasten the vengeance upon those.
V. The story of the prophet is continued in these words. (Read 1 Kings 13:7-10). The invisible teacher who had bid him go forth on his journey and carry the message to the king, had made him understand as clearly, that when he had done his errand, he was to go back into Judah. He had no doubt that this was what he ought to do. It was part of his commission. The other part of it would not be faithfully discharged if this was forgotten. These words and acts of the prophet were connected with his own life, they belonged to his very self. His conscience, as well as his powers of thought and reflection, were not crushed or stifled by the Divine communication, but were awakened by it into activity. And the conscience so awakened was proof against any solicitations of the king. (Condensed from F. D. Maurice.)
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
1 Kings 13:1-10. The man of God out of Judah.
1. He comes led by the Word of God, and goes on his dark, difficult way in faith, without taking counsel with flesh and blood.
2. He stands, strong and bold, before the king, fears him not, testifies against his sins, and announces the judgment of God.
3. He makes entreaty for him who was about to lay hold on Him, and heaps coals of fire on his head.
4. He resists the offers of the king, and will not be secured by bribes.
—The testimony against the service of the false gods.
1. It proceedeth from a nameless, unknown, insignificant man, who, without worldly consequence, has nothing and knows nothing, except only the power of the Divine Word. That is the manner of the Lord in His kingdom. He accomplishes by means of small, insignificant instruments, what no king, with all his power, can do. The altars of heathendom are shattered by means of the testimony of fishers and tax-gatherers (1 Corinthians 1:27-29), even as were the altars of the false worshippers of God by means of a poor, world-despised recluse.
2. It was received at first with scorn, wrath, and violence; but the wrath is powerless and avails nothing; the altar is rent, and the threatening arm is dried up. Humble entreaties then take the place of wrath (Isaiah 26:16). But though the withered arm be restored, the heart remains withered as before. Physical aid is always readily received by men, whilst they shut their hearts to the testimony against their sins.—Lange.
1 Kings 13:1. But O, the patience and mercy of our long-suffering God, that will not strike a very Jeroboam unwarned! Judgment hovers over the heads of sinners, ere it light. If Israel afford not a bold reprover of Jeroboam, Judah shall. When the king of Israel is in all the height both of his state and his superstition, honouring his solemn day with his richest devotion, steps forth a prophet of God, and interrupts that glorious service with a loud inclamation of judgment. Doubtless, the man wanted not wit to know what displeasure, what danger must needs follow so unwelcome a message; yet, dares he, upon the commission of God, do this affront to an idolatrous king, in the midst of all his awful magnificence. The prophets of God go upon many a thankless errand. He is no messenger for God that either knows or fear the faces of men.—Bp. Hall.
1 Kings 13:2. God announces beforehand His judgments to sinners, that they may have time and space for repentance. Woe to them who misemploy the respite, for the measure of their sins will be full. In the new covenant we have a far weightier prophecy. Unto us is born a Son, named Jesus, out of the House of David; who will come again and pronounce judgment upon those who know not God, and who obey not the gospel (2 Thessalonians 1:8-9).—Lange.
—The prophet directed his speech to the altar out of detestation of such an abomination: and, as having no hope to prevail with Jeroboam, who stood by it, and was more insensible than that altar, or than the heap of stones which Bede once preached unto.—Trapp.
—It was the altar, not the person of Jeroboam, which the prophet thus threatens: yet not the stones are stricken, but the founder in both their apprehensions; so dear are the devices of our own brain to us, as if they were incorporated into ourselves. There is no opposition of which we are so sensible as that of religion. That the royal altar should be thus polluted by dead men’s bones and the blood of the priests, was not more unpleasing than that all this should be done by a child of the house of David; for Jeroboam well saw that the throne and the altar must stand or fall together; that a Son of David could not have such power over the altar, without an utter subversion of the government, of the succession; therefore is he thus galled with this comminatory prediction.
—Probably a prophecy against Jeroboam’s own person, instead of against the insensate altar, would have touched him less nearly. But this showed that his policy would come to nought, and that the power he was establishing with so much solicitude would be utterly subverted, while the house of David would still subsist in its strength, for only so could a king of that house be able to do this upon an altar in this realm. The king grasped the full meaning of this message, and it filled him with rage against the man who had dared to deliver it then and there.—Kitto.
1 Kings 13:3. The miracles which the Lord our God performs are not only proofs of his almighty power to amaze us, but likewise significant signs which reveal to us His eternal decrees, and lead us to the recognition of that heavenly truth which sanctifies our hearts.
1 Kings 13:4. Although faithful teachers often accomplish nothing and fail most signally with men of high degree, yet must they never on this account abandon their office. For if thou warn him thou hast delivered thy soul (Ezekiel 3:19), and although the obdurate remain untouched, yet it shall not remain without fruit (Isaiah 55:10). How did even this warning work itself out and bear fruit after three hundred years (2 Kings 23:15). Sinners eminent by wealth and position will only listen to prophets who are dumb dogs and cannot bark (Isaiah 56:10). When a true servant of the Lord cries out, “The axe is already laid at the root of the tree,” they arise in wrath and cry out, “Seize him” (2 Timothy 4:1-5). He who attacks a servant of God because of his testimony, never remains unpunished. In vain doth the enemy stretch forth his hand against those who are under God’s protection (Job 7:4; Leviticus 4:29; Psalms 37:17). Those who will not listen to the word of truth, God often visits with bodily pain in order to humble them and teach them to pray and supplicate.—Cramer.
—A fearful stroke, had he well considered it; but his heart was as hard as his hand withered. Jeroboam had as great a miracle wrought before him herein, as St. Paul had at his conversion; but without the Spirit’s concurrence, neither miracle, nor ministry, nor misery, can in the least measure mollify the heart of an obdurate and obstinate sinner. Valens, the Arian emperor, would have signed a sentence of banishment against Basil, but could not by reason of a sudden trembling of his right hand, so that he could not write one letter of his own name, but for anger tore the paper in pieces, and let Basil alone. There is a story of one of our late innovators, who, turning with the times and beginning to bow towards altars, never went upright more; and of another who, hearing perjury condemned by a godly preacher, and how it never escaped unpunished, said in a bravery, “I have often forsworn myself, and yet my right hand is no shorter than my left.” These words he had scarce uttered, when such an inflammation arose in that hand, that he was forced to go to the chirurgeon and cut it off lest it should have infected the whole body; and so it became shorter than the other. The Jews tell us, that when Jeroboam’s hand was dried up, the false prophets told him that this fell out by chance, and so kept him from thinking of God who had smitten him. Let the saints learn to put their confidence in God; for if He deny concourse and influence, the arm of all adverse power shrinketh up presently.—Trapp.
1 Kings 13:4-5. The importance of the authentication of the man of God by a miraculous sign appears from the conduct of Jeroboam towards him. Without waiting for the confirmation of his word by the announced miraculous sign, the king stretches his hand towards him with the words, “Lay hold on him;” but must now experience in the hand with which he could set aside the prophet who was disagreeable to him, the omnipotence of the Lord who has power to protect his servants. The outstretched hand is withered by a miracle—that is, stiffened, deprived of vital juice—so that he cannot draw it in again. On this follows the miraculous sign announced, and Jeroboam’s wicked arrogance is broken down by the double miracle; he is constrained to entreat the prophet to intercede for him with the Lord his God, that his hand may be restored.—Keil.
—Resolute wickedness is impatient of reproof, and, instead of yielding to the voice of God, rebelleth. Just and discreet reprehension doth not more reform some sinners than exasperate others. How easy is it for God to cool the courage of proud Jeroboam! The hand which his rage stretches out, dries up and cannot be pulled back again; and now stands the king of Israel, like some antique statue, in a posture of impotent endeavour, so disabled to the hurt of the prophet, that he cannot command that piece of himself. What are the great potentates of the world in the powerful hand of the Almighty? Tyrants cannot be so harmful as they are malicious. It must needs be a great strait that could drive a proud heart to beg mercy where he bent his persecution; so doth Jeroboam, holding it no scorn to be beholden to an enemy. In extremities the worst men can be content to sue for favour where they have spent their malice.—Bp. Hall.
1 Kings 13:6. He who desires for himself the intercession of others must himself draw near humbly and penitently to God and implore His mercy. In this wise can we know if we are indeed children of God and guided by His Spirit, if we pray and supplicate for those who have done their worst to us, and thus overcome evil with good (1 Peter 3:9).
—The faith of the wicked in the prayers of the good.
1. Shows that religion may be respected while it is personally ignored.
2. That religion bears external evidence of its own superiority.
3. That the wicked are ever ready to share in the benefits of religion while they reject its claims.
4. That the example of a religious life has a powerful influence for good.
—The display of miraculous power will not avail to change the heart.
1. It appeals mainly to the external senses.
2. The judgment may be convinced while the will remains unchanged; men reject religion, not for want of evidence, but for want of will.
3. To refuse divinely attested truth is to incur the greater guilt.
1 Kings 13:7. Although the ungodly often hold in high esteem these holy men especially raised up by God, yet they never follow their instructions and warnings (Mark 6:19). What boots it that we gratefully acknowledge the material blessings which meet us, if we leave unfulfilled the very object of these blessings, namely, the turning of our hearts from sin and the world to God. Unbelief and impenitence cannot be outweighed by even the highest friendship and humanity. When the world can effect nothing more by force and threats, it seeks to gain its ends by plausible love tokens.—Osiander.
1 Kings 13:8-9. There is no bribe to which the man of God will yield: to him, that which God has commanded him seems, in all times and all places, in evil as in good days, the fixed and definite plan of action. The best weapon and defence against the snares of our spiritual enemy is the law and Word of God. It is far from being unimportant with whom we eat and drink, i.e., in fellowship and intimate alliance (1 Corinthians 5:2).—Starke.
1 Kings 13:9. The reasons for the Divine commands.
1. Are not always apparent.
2. Are always grounded in wisdom and righteousness. 3 Disobedience is inexcusable even where the Divine reasons are not understood.
—He was charged also not to return by the way that he came; probably lest the account of what was done should have reached the ears of any of the people through whom he had passed, and he suffer inconveniences on the account, either by persecution from the idolaters, or from curious people delaying him in order to cause him to give an account of the transactions which took place at Bethel. This is a reason why he should not return by the same way; but what the reason of this part of the charge, if not the above, is not easy to see.
—This command seems to have been given simply to test the obedience of the prophet by laying him under a positive as well as a moral obligation. When he turned back with the old prophet, and retraversed a road over which he had already passed, he disobeyed this injunction, as by eating and drinking he disobeyed the other.—Speaker’s Comm.
1 Kings 13:10. If in a certain position thou hast done what God commanded, and left undone what He forbade, then go on thy way peaceful and content, how dark and unknown soever it may seem to thee.