CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES.—
1 Kings 13:11. An old prophet in Bethel: who had been faithless amid surrounding faithlessness. His alertness to win the prophet of Judah to his house arose from
(1) his interest (professional) in a fellow-prophet’s mission—this feeling awoke immediately he heard of one of his own class being near.
(2) A sense of shame may have stirred in him that a prophet from a distance should have come to do what he himself, being near, should have long ago done.
(3) He may have desired to reinstate himself in the king’s confidence, and in public estimation, by uniting himself in this way with a distinguished and true prophet. There may have been no desire on his part to induce the prophet of Judah into sinning, but he himself prevaricated in order to succeed in his wish to gratify his curiosity or calm his self-rebuke by this act of courtesy.
1 Kings 13:18. An angel spake unto me by the word of the Lord—Not “the Lord spake,” but an “angel,” or messenger, one of his sons; hiding the real facts, and conveying a false impression.
1 Kings 13:20. The word of the Lord came, &c.—Making deceitful lips speak truth.
1 Kings 13:21. And he cried—Rather, “it cried.” The man was but the passive agent; the Word of God used the man’s organs of utterance.
1 Kings 13:31. Bury me in the sepulchre wherein, &c.—Deeply impressed now that he was a true prophet, and that it was an evil and a bitter thing to sin against the Lord. Possibly he had a superstitious hope that by burial with this true prophet he himself might be advantaged when the dead should be raised, or that his own bones would be allowed to rest undisturbed in company with a man of God.—W. H. J.
HOMILETICS OF 1 Kings 13:11-32
TEMPTATIONS TO DISOBEDIENCE
I. Assail us at the moment we are most clearly conscious of duty done. The mysterious prophet of Judah had, with great effort and at great peril, accomplished his important mission, and, in obedience to the positive directions he had received, was returning homeward by a different route, when a temptation came upon him from a most unexpected quarter. It is ever so. There is little space afforded for self-gratulation on the achievement of one difficult task ere we are confronted with another; and woe to him who is off his guard at that moment. It is not always in the midst of the storm that the mariner finds his greatest danger, but in the deceitful and uncertain calm when some sudden and unexpected gust may strike his vessel unprepared. It was only lately that the Eurydice, a noble British man-of-war, after successfully navigating the world, was approaching the shores of England with every stitch of canvas spread, when her sails were smitten with a terrific blast, and in a few moments she heeled over and sank to the bottom of the sea, with hundreds of brave seamen whose hearts were beating with joy in the near prospect of home! (1 Corinthians 10:12).
II. Are most dangerous when they come to us with a pretended religious sanction (1 Kings 13:18). The prophet of Bethel was old (1 Kings 13:11), and commanded the reverence that belongs to age. He was recognized as a prophet, and had so much regard for his sacred office as to be absent from the king’s idolatrous sacrifices, though he allowed his sons to be there (1 Kings 13:11-12). His object might be to curry favour with the king by making the man of God contradict himself, and thus impair the moral weight and authority of the message that had been so faithfully delivered, and weaken its impression on the minds of the people. He gained his end by telling a lie—a lie that was aggravated by its boldness and profanity (1 Kings 13:18). The prophet of Judah was too guileless to suspect the trap that was laid for him, though, being himself in direct communication with Jehovah, he ought not to have acted upon a contradiction of the command imparted to himself, or any other authority than that from which he had received it. He was beguiled; he turned back, and his doom was sealed. The most dangerous allurements of evil are presented when it robes itself in the external garb of goodness. When rack, and sword, and faggot fail to intimidate, a false show of piety will fatally deceive! Ah! how much need have we to cry—
Awake, my soul, when sin is nigh,
And keep it still awake.
III. Cannot be yielded to with impunity.
1. The disobedient are made conscious of their sin (1 Kings 13:20-22). The two prophets were startled at their humble meal by hearing the voice of the Lord uttering unmistakable condemnation; and this time the false prophet was made the vehicle of a true message from heaven, which he understood, we may well suppose, with real concern, and delivered with reluctance. A conviction of wrong-doing always precedes punishment: the sinner will be made to understand what it is for which he suffers.
2. The disobedient are certainly punished (1 Kings 13:23-24). The punishment may be strange, singular, and in a form utterly unexpected; but it will be certain. Here a lion was made the instrument of vengeance. It is said that lions like not to attack man unless driven to extremity for prey, and that an ass is choice food for a lion, while it is well known that a lion kills to eat. But in this case we see the natural instinct of the brute controlled by a superior power: the man is assailed and slain; his body and that of the ass remain unmolested. God is not restricted to any one method of punishing transgression: all the powers of the universe wait on His bidding.
3. The punishment of the disobedient is evident (1 Kings 13:25). The scene was patent to every passer-by, and soon became the common talk of the city. Where the offence was committed, there its punishment was witnessed. Jehovah will vindicate His righteous government of the universe by the most public and terrible punishment of sin (2 Corinthians 5:10).
4. The punishment of the disobedient is not unlamented (1 Kings 13:26-30). The awful transactions in which the prophet of Bethel was thus called to take a part could not but make a profound impression on his mind, and might be beneficial in promoting his spiritual reformation. He sorrowed over the unfortunate fate of his brother-prophet, and interred his body in his own tomb (1 Kings 13:29-30). Do not think, O sinner! that your transgressions are unnoticed, or that you are the only one affected by them: they cannot be regarded with indifference by a Just and Beneficent God. And if you will persist in your disobedience, breaking through all restrictions, and spurning all help—if you will court ruin, and voluntarily surrender youself to the inevitable consequences of your sins—He who has done all He consistently can to recall you to obedience resolves you shall not perish unwept and unlamented; and as you drop into the abysmal depths of unutterable woe the voice of Infinite Pity shall exclaim in tones which, though not intended to do so, can only sharpen the stings of remorse: O! that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments, &c. (Isaiah 48:18).
IV. Will not prevent the ultimate fulfilment of the Divine Word (1 Kings 13:31-32). “The saying which he cried by the Word of the Lord shall surely come to pass.” Thus did the faithless prophet bear his testimony to the faithfulness of God. Jehovah is stronger than the Tempter, and will ere long expose his most plausible deceptions, baffle his wicked designs, and consign him to his own place.
LESSONS:—
1. False prophets are the most dangerous and fatal enemies of God’s people.
2. They who seek to seduce the soul from its allegiance to God’s Word, however specious their pretexts, are the emissaries of Satan.
3. We may be tempted to do evil by counterfeit appearances of piety, when we should not be driven to it by any fear of suffering.
This passage may also be homiletically treated as follows:—
AN UNFAITHFUL PROPHET
I. Is content to live in the midst of idolatry and moral corruption without lifting up a protesting voice (1 Kings 13:11). The prophet of Bethel could not be ignorant of the innovations of the idolatrous king; and while it does not appear that he actually sanctioned them by his presence, he did not restrain his sons from worshipping at the unholy altar. He lacked the courage to protest against the wickedness of the king, though he might be often powerfully moved to do so. He resisted the impulse until it became feebler; and he sank down a voiceless witness to the insults that were daily offered to his God. “He seemed to be one of those mixed characters, true to history and human nature, which perpetually appear among the sacred persons of the Old Testament; moved by a partial wavering inspiration; aiming after good, yet failing to attain it; full of genuine tender admiration for the prophet of whose death he had been the unwilling cause, the mouthpiece of truths which he himself but faintly understood.” To disobey repeated calls to duty only confirms the soul in its unfaithfulness, and renders it content with evils against which it was wont to loudly and faithfully protest. There are times when silence becomes a sin.
II. Will descend to the most deceptive practices to tempt the faithful from their allegiance (1 Kings 13:12-19). What the prophet of Judah did, showed the old prophet what he should have done. Filled with shame for his neglect, and wishful to restore himself in his own opinion and in the opinion of others who had perhaps accused him of unfaithfulness, he sought to have intercourse with so courageous a witness for God, and to gain prestige by having him under his own roof. The objects were thoroughly selfish, and to accomplish it he did not scruple to tell a lie (1 Kings 13:18). The most abandoned crave for companion ship in their sins, and will resort to all kinds of methods to bring down others to their own level. It is impossible to say to what depths of iniquity one single act of unfaithfulness may lead (Luke 16:10).
III. Is compelled to own the solemn reality and authority of the Divine Word. A message came to the old prophet the source and meaning of which he could not mistake (1 Kings 13:20-22). God may often speak through a wicked prophet. He did so through Balaam, uttering the sublimest oracles of blessing, though that sooth-sayer would fain have cursed Israel. The Bethel-prophet was also firmly convinced that the prophecy against the altar would certainly come true; and he therefore directed his sons to bury his corpse in the same grave as that of the Judah-prophet (1 Kings 13:30-32). “The bones of the seducer and seduced being thus intermingled in the tomb, it so happened, as the former probably intended, that his bones escaped at the appointed time the defilement to which they would otherwise have been subjected. The tomb of the prophet that came out of Judah was then recognised, and for his sake the contents were spared from dishonour” (2 Kings 23:17-18). The Word of God will vindicate itself, even in the lips of those who have sometimes ignored its authority.
IV. Involves his victims in fatal disaster (1 Kings 13:23-26). We are ready to admit that the old prophet did not intend to bring upon his victim the result that really happened. He might have a vague impression that his disobedience would not escape some kind of punishment; but had he foreseen how awful and immediate that punishment would be, he would not have persisted in his plot. But that is ever the way with wrong-doing; it goes farther than it intended, and stands aghast at the ruin it has itself produced.
V. Need not be devoid of brotherly sympathy and respect, nor be beyond the reach of reformation (1 Kings 13:28-30). The Bethel-prophet sincerely mourned over the sad fate of his brother prophet, and, with the most genuine respect, reverently interred his body in his own grave. The heart that was thus touched with fraternal pity was perhaps also smitten with grief on account of sin. He repented his unfaithfulness in the past; and he showed his desire to henceforth imitate the spirit and example of the dead prophet, by giving particular directions that his body should be laid in the same grave. As if he said:—“If I can have no more fellowship with my brother in life, I will at least be united to him in death; our common grave, to which I shall soon go down in sorrow, shall be a lasting testimony against the sin of Jeroboam.”
LESSONS:—
1. It is a great honour and a great responsibility to be a prophet of the Lord.
2. An unfaithful prophet has a great power for evil.
3. The unfaithfulness of the messenger does not invalidate the Divine authority of the message.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
1 Kings 13:11-32. The history of these two prophets offers an important view of the relation of this class to the new order of things: in the prophet out of Judah we see a man of God full of life and strength, but who yet proved unstable in these disturbed times; in the old Israelite we look upon one in whom the fire is almost quenched, it only glimmers faintly—a type of the expiring high and manly strength of Israel; he is still upheld by faith in God’s Word rather than by self-reliance. They both yet speak and testify in death. The fall and death of the man of Judah set forth two great truths.
1. He who thinketh he standeth, let him take heed (1 Corinthians 10:12). He had conducted himself grandly and nobly, and victoriously withstood a severe temptation, yet he yielded to a lesser one. The higher a man stands the deeper is his fall, and to whom much is given from him will much be required (1 Corinthians 16:13; 1 Corinthians 10:13). Only those who are true unto death can obtain the crown of life.
2. How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out (Romans 11:33). He who is holy in all His ways, knows how to establish firmly that which is threatened with destruction and annihilation by human treachery and deceit. The death and the grave of the man of God announce, in louder and more threatening accents than did his lips, the altar is rent.—Von Gerlach.
1 Kings 13:11-19. I do not know any passage more useful than this for disabusing us of a prejudice which the mere word prophet is liable to create in our minds. “If the man was inspired,” we say to ourselves, “inspired by God, we must be sure he would do the right thing, and say the right thing. It would destroy all our security if we thought otherwise.” No, brethren; it would destroy no security at all which the Bible designs to give us. On the contrary, we shall lose a great security, we shall fall into a great danger, if we do not strictly adhere to the teaching of the Bible on this subject, but set up certain canons of our own. The first obvious lesson which this passage teaches us is, that a prophet, a true prophet, a prophet of God, might be grossly deceived. The second is, that he must be deceived if he yielded to any pretences of inspiration on the part of any man, though that man were called a prophet, and were a prophet, when what he said went against a sure witness and conviction as to his own duty. The third is, that a prophet, not habitually a deceiver, might on a certain occasion wilfully deceive—in the plain language of Holy Writ, might lie. All these statements we accept on the authority of Scripture. And if we accept them, we may derive the very greatest profit from them. We are often apt to suppose that a prophet or inspired man is one who is raised above laws and government, who can lay down laws for himself, whose internal power is itself the rule for others and for his own conduct. The Scripture teaches us quite a different lesson. The characteristic quality of the prophet, when he is true, is obedience. He is nothing in himself. He is merely a servant. In the acknowledgment of his service, of the power which is upon him, his strength consists. But it is no mere impulse to which he yields himself. He is liable to all the same chances and foolish impulses as other people. He is particularly liable to confound these impulses with God’s teaching and commands. He is, therefore, to be more suspicious of himself, more watchful against this confusion, than other men. If he once forgets the Invisible Ruler and Lawgiver, no one will commit such flagrant errors, such falsehood, such blasphemy.—Maurice.
1 Kings 13:11-15. The old prophet, when he hears of the man of God, hastens upon his way, and spares neither care nor pains to see him and bring him to his house. How much time, pains, and money are expended by the children of this world to see and hear what will gratify their senses, whilst they stir neither hand nor foot to acquire that which pertains to their peace and salvation!
1 Kings 13:11. Doubtless he was a prophet of God, but corrupt, resty, vicious. Prophecy doth not always presuppose sanctification: many a one hath had visions from God, who shall never enjoy the vision of God. A little holiness is worth much illumination.—Bp. Hall.
1 Kings 13:14. The danger of delay.
1. Gives an opportunity to be overtaken by the tempter.
2. The difficulties of our mission seem to multiply.
3. Often involves suffering and disaster.
1 Kings 13:16-19. So in indifferent ordinary matters, which God has either ordered or forbidden, we must observe unerring obedience. Whatever obtains success and position by means of deceit cannot be followed by blessing, but rather by a curse. The Scripture is not silent concerning the sins of the man of God; and this, not that we may excuse our sins by his, but that we may guard ourselves from haughtiness and spiritual pride.
1 Kings 13:18. There is no temptation so dangerous as that which comes shrouded under a vail of holiness, and pretends authority from God Himself. Jeroboam threatens, the prophet stands undaunted: Jeroboam fawns and promises, the prophet holds constant. Now comes a grey-headed seer, and pleads a counter message from God; the prophet yields and transgresses. Satan may affright us as a fiend, but he seduces us as an angel of light. Who would have looked for a liar under hoary hairs and a holy mantle?—Bp. Hall.
—Falsehood.
1. Is always inexcusable.
2. Aggravated when in the garb of sanctity.
3. Never fails to produce mischief.
4. An evidence of moral degradation.
—The door of his heart seems to have been standing ajar, almost half opened already, to the invitations of the old man. Otherwise, surely he would have said: “Thou a prophet! How is it, then, that thou dwellest at Bethel, the house of Jeroboam’s corrupt worship? If thou hadst been indeed a prophet of the Lord, thou wouldst have denounced that worship, and I should not have been sent from Judah to lift up my voice against it.”—Wordsworth.
1 Kings 13:20-22. The same sentence which the old prophet pronounced upon the man of God he pronounced upon himself, while he had led and betrayed him to disobedience. How often does the judgment which we utter for others fall upon ourselves, when we have sinned equally, or in greater measure (Romans 2:1).—Lange.
—O woful prophet! when he looks on his host, he sees his executioner; while he is feeding his body, he hears of his carcase; at the table he hears of his denied sepulchre; and all this for eating and drinking where he was forbidden by God, though bidden as from God. The violation of the least charge of God is mortal; no pretences can warrant the transgression of a Divine command.—Bp. Hall.
—Punishment.
1. Results from disobedience.
2. Is not inflicted without due warning.
3. Is certain.
4. In the hands of God, is never unjust.
1 Kings 13:21. It has been asked, how did the prophet from Judah sin? or, at any rate, how did he sin so grievously as to deserve the punishment of death? Was he not justified in believing that God might revoke His command? Would it not have been wrong in him to suspect the old prophet of telling a lie? To such enquiries it may be replied: With God is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. He cannot revoke a command until the circumstances under which the command was given are materially changed. The circumstances here were not changed. Again, if God gives a command and revokes it, He will revoke it as plainly and with as much evidence as He gave it. Here there was neither the same plainness, nor as strong evidence. The evidence to the man of God was in the one case the mere word of a man, and of a man who, by his lingering at Bethel, yet not rebuking Jeroboam, was clearly not a very good man; while in the other case the evidence had been the direct word of God. It was not the duty of the man of God to disbelieve the old prophet; but it was his duty not to have suffered himself to be persuaded. He should have felt that his obedience was being tried, and should have required, ere he considered himself released, the same, or as strong evidence as that on which he had received the obligation. With respect to the question whether the sin was such a heinous one as to deserve death, we may answer—first, that the sin, disobedience to certain positive commands of God, was one which it was at this time very important to punish signally, since it was exactly the sin of Jeroboam and his adherents; and secondly, that temporal death is not among God’s heaviest punishments, that it comes on men both naturally and miraculously for light offences, and that in such cases we may regard it as sent in lieu of future punishment, and therefore as in some sort a mercy. We are not to suppose that the man of Judah perished eternally because he perished temporally.—Speaker’s Comm.
1 Kings 13:23-31. A stern punishment, it will be said, for such a crime. An actual punishment, certainly—one which asserted the fact that a prophet will not be more, but less, excused for his transgressions than another man. What was the magnitude of the punishment, we are no judges. A man who has been witness of a great national sin, and has foretold a great national calamity, who has found out the falsehood of a friend and a prophet, and who is conscious of having done wrong himself, may not think the sentence a very hard one which calls him out of a confused world; or more hard because it comes in a form which assures him that there is an eternal order which will vindicate itself in spite of his errors and those of all other men. A man of God who had learnt to trust God, could trust Him when He was slaying him, and see that there was a deep and awful righteousness and wisdom in the way in which the creatures of God going forth to seek their meat from Him may, without the least departure from the ordinary law of their kind, be made the instruments of punishing man’s transgressions. The prophet who betrayed him, and then had the heavy punishment of being forced to proclaim the wrong which he himself instigated, is surely the greater object of compassion, especially if, as the narrative half leads us to suspect, his conscience was blunted, and he was able to understand Jeroboam’s sin without any keen sense of his own. A man with a clear apprehension of the evil doings of rulers, and admiration for those who protest against them with a prophetical power of uttering the truth, yet with no love of truth or resolute abhorrence of falsehood, is a very painful but a very instructive spectacle. Everyone must be conscious of something akin to such a state of mind—some possibility of it, at all events, in himself. He should think of that with trembling and with the prayer—“See if there be any wicked way in me. Lead me in the way everlasting.” There is something very pathetic in the homage to a truer and better man, which is expressed in the words—“Lay my bones beside his bones.” The lion slew him for returning with me to eat bread and drink water; yet I should have been glad to die his death; for I feel that he was right within, and, therefore, that there is a sacredness in his carcase which I would wish mine to share! Maurice.
1 Kings 13:23-25. The judgments of God often fall suddenly and unexpectedly, thus proving that though long delayed, they are sure to come, even as this, after the lapse of three hundred years, was the punishment threatened for the golden calf-worship.
1 Kings 13:23-24. The last dread journey.
1. Was entered on with the oppressive consciousness that it must lead to death.
2. Was occupied with tormenting apprehensions as to what might be the particular form of death.
3. Was suddenly terminated by the appointed agent of retribution.
4. How many sad, painful journeys there are in the course of human life!
5. Who can tell the issue of a single journey?
1 Kings 13:23. This old Bethelite that had taken pains to come and fetch the man of God into sin, will not now go back with him to accompany his departure. Doubtless he was afraid to be enwrapped in the judgment which he saw hanged over that obnoxious head. Thus the mischievous guides of wickedness leave a man when they have led him to his bane, as familiar devils forsake their witches when they have brought them once into fetters.
1 Kings 13:24. The very wild beasts are led by a providence; their wise and powerful Creator knows how to serve himself of them. The lions guard one prophet, kill another, according to the commission received from their Maker. What sinner can hope to escape unpunished when every creature of God is ready to be an avenger of evil? Where a holy man buys so dearly such a slight frailty, what shall become of our heinous and presumptuous sins? Violent events do not always argue the anger of God; even death itself is to His servants a fatherly castigation.—Bp. Hall.
1 Kings 13:25-29. The chastisement with which God visits our fellow-men for their sins is both a warning to reflect upon our sins and deserts, and a call to work active deeds of love with all our might, in life and in death.
—The fierce beast stands by the carcase, as to avow his own act and to tell who sent him, so to preserve that body which he had slain. O wonderful work of God! The executioner is turned guardian; and as the officer of the Highest, commands all other creatures to stand aloof from his charge, and command the fearful ass that brought this burden thither not to stir thence, but to stand ready pressed to carry it to the sepulchre; and now, when he hath sufficiently witnessed to all passengers that this act was not done upon his own hunger, but upon the quarrel of his Maker, he delivers up his charge to that old prophet who was no less guilty of this blood than himself.—Bp. Hall.
1 Kings 13:28. These strange circumstances at once showed the miraculous nature of the death, and were of a nature to call men’s attention to the matter, and cause the whole story to be bruited abroad. By these means an incident which Jeroboam would have wished to be hushed up, became, no doubt, the common talk of the whole people.
1 Kings 13:30-31. We often for the first time, at the grave of a friend, recognise what we possessed in him, and how we have sinned against him. One look into the open grave of one dear to us in life is adapted beyond anything to remind us of our own end. It is a very natural thing to rest in death near those who were closely bound to us in life by ties of blood or strong affection; but yet stronger should be the wish to die in the Lord, and enter into eternal glory. Then, whatever in the providence of God we may find our grave, there shall we rest in peace, for the earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof (Psalms 24:1).—Lange.
1 Kings 13:30. Grief. I. One of the fruits of sin. II. Is never out of place at the grave. III. Is intensified when at the grave of one whose death we have accelerated. IV. May lead to a blessed reformation of life.
—It is hard to find a man absolutely wicked: some grace will betray itself in the most forsaken breasts. It is a cruel courtsey to kill a man, and then to help him to his grave; to betray a man with our breath, and then bedew him with our tears. The prophet had needed no such friend, if he had not met with such an enemy.
1 Kings 13:32. The infallibility of the Divine Word. I. Is not affected by time or the opposition of men. II. Is sustained by the testimony of competent witnesses. III. Is a powerful reason for placing implicit faith in it. IV. Constitutes it an unerring standard of judgment.