We occasionally hear of a man of God delivering messages. Sometimes they are not named, which was the case here. Sadly, it appears that were none in the north, so God had to send someone from the south in Judah to the north with an important message for Jeroboam who was standing by the altar (v1,2). The messenger said that a child would born to the house of David, Josiah by name. It was a message against the altar that Jeroboam was sacrificing on, wrongly as he wasn’t a priest, that the priests would be sacrificed on it and men’s bones burned on it. It was fulfilled 340 years later (see 2 Kings 23:15) when in the days of Josiah, the King of Judah, “…. the altar that was at Bethel, and the high place which Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel sin, had made, both that altar and the high place he broke down; and he burned the high place and crushed it to powder, and burned the wooden image.”
The man of God also gave a sign saying, “This is the sign which the LORD has spoken: Surely the altar shall split apart, and the ashes on it shall be poured out.” (v3)
When Jeroboam heard this, he called for the arrest of the man. As he stretched out his hand towards the man, his hand withered, so that he was unable to pull it back. The altar was split in two and the ashes poured out, exactly as the man of God had said in his message from the LORD (v3-5). Trying to silence the man, was plainly pointless and God’s judgment was twofold, on Jeroboam and the place of his idolatry, the altar.
The king was clearly troubled and asked the man of God to pray for him and ask the LORD for his hand to be restored. The man of God did so, and his hand was restored (v6). So much for his own puny gods, they couldn’t answer his prayers. We see the mercy of God in answering the prayer. However, was Jeroboam truly repentant?
Jeroboam invited the man back to his home and even offered him a reward, but the man of God refused (v7-10). He said that even if the king offered him half his house, he would not take it, nor would he eat his bread nor drink water there. He told Jeroboam that the LORD had so instructed him, also to leave by another route. He did so and came to Bethel. To have fellowship with Jeroboam would have been embracing him in his idolatry.
The man of God’s problems weren’t over as the sons of an old prophet living in Bethel told their father what the man of God had done. His sons knew which way he had gone, and the old prophet told them to saddle his donkey, and he rode on it and found him as he sat under an oak tree. He asked the man to go to his home and have some refreshment, but the man of God refused for the same reason as before (v11-17) he remained faithful to the word of God. It was irrelevant whether it was the king or a prophet, his answer was the same.
However, the prophet had obviously fallen from his loyalty to God, and he lied that God had given him a different message (v18,19). He said that he too was a prophet, and angel had brought him a message that the man of God should accept his invitation to go back to his house for refreshments. The man of God went with him after being taken in by the lie from the old prophet. Being an old prophet probably led to the man of God being persuaded in deference to his seniority.
However much he was persuaded, the man of God should have followed the word given to him by God. God does not change His mind, nor does He contradict Himself. His lapse ended his role as a man of God.
We must be very wary of those who say, ‘God has told me.’ God has spoken through His word, the Bible, and whilst we have to make decisions every day, we must be certain that whatever we do must never go contrary to God’s word. Often what people say as being told to them by God, may sound very enticing, attractive and persuasive, we must be careful and prayerful in how we react to it and all we do. The Bereans (Acts 17) went away and checked what Paul and his fellow missionaries spoke, and they were described as ‘noble’ for doing so. We can be led astray very easily by clever sounding words and advice from apparently spiritual people. Many have been led to their doom and destruction. And many false religions and doctrines have been started like that. Many years ago, I was told by a respected friend that God had told them that I had been healed of a certain illness, I believed it to my great detriment.
In verses 20-22, we then see that whilst the man was eating with the prophet who had lied, the true word of God came to him, and he told the man of God the true words of God, “Because you have disobeyed the word of the LORD, and have not kept the commandment which the LORD your God commanded you, but you came back, ate bread, and drank water in the place of which the LORD said to you, “Eat no bread and drink no water,” your corpse shall not come to the tomb of your fathers.”
At very least, the old prophet now spoke the truth, he was either brave or brazen, to say that he had lied before. However, his false words were catastrophic for the man of God, who, because he had disobeyed, would not be buried in his father’s tomb. I understand that for a body not to be buried in the family tomb, and be buried amongst strangers, was a disgrace.
It seems unfair that the punishment on Jeroboam and the old prophet was not as severe as the man of God for his disobedience. The old prophet had seduced the man of God and Jeroboam had committed idolatry. At this point we don’t know what happened to both of them, but they would face God’s judgment.
The prophecy about the man’s death was soon fulfilled. After setting out towards home, the man of God was attacked by a lion which killed him, and his body thrown by the side of the road. The donkey stood by it and the lion did too (v23-25). Interestingly, the lion did not eat the dead body, nor did it eat the donkey, or the people who passed by, as they were prone to do, rather it stood by the donkey and the dead body. This showed that the lion was even obedient to God’s purpose.
For those who might doubt, history shows that lions were present in Israel and middle east until the 13th century.
The people who saw it went and told the old prophet, who, maybe out of a guilty conscience for persuading the man of God to disobey, went on his donkey and found the corpse by the road with the lion and the donkey standing by (v25-32). He brought the dead body back to the city on the donkey and gave it a proper burial in his own tomb. They mourned over him, saying “Alas my brother!” It seems that he was only feeling sorry for the man, not any real repentance for the lies which led to his death. The man’s prophecy came true in that he wasn’t buried in the tomb of Judah’s fathers.
The old prophet called his sons and told them, “When I am dead, then bury me in the tomb where the man of God is buried; lay my bones beside his bones. For the saying which he cried out by the word of the LORD against the altar in Bethel, and against all the shrines on the high places which are in the cities of Samaria, will surely come to pass.”
He realised that he had lied and led the man astray, but he had respect for him for being brave to speak out against the king.
However, there was definitely no repentance on the part of the king, Jeroboam. He did not turn from his evil way but continued to appoint priests from every class of people, whoever he wished. One would have expected him to learn from the man of God and what happened to him, but he did not. This was said to be the sin of Jeroboam which led him and his action to extermination (v33,34). He ignored all of God’s warnings. He had no excuse; he had personally met Ahijah (ch 11) and been told the word of God, which he would have prospered if he had obeyed, but he disobeyed and not only did he sin himself but caused Israel to sin. This is often referred to when the Bible records kings which did evil in the sight of God (e.g 1 Kings 15:33,34 King Baasha).
Jeroboam is an example to all of the dangers of evil. He failed to listen to the voice of God. He had great privileges but scorned them. Not only did he, himself, fall into sin but he led his nation into sin. Even when we come to Ahab, probably the worst (1 Kings 16:30,31) we read, “For He tore Israel from the house of David, and they made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king. Then Jeroboam drove Israel from following the LORD, and made them commit a great sin. For the children of Israel walked in all the sins of Jeroboam which he did; they did not depart from them, until the LORD removed Israel out of His sight, as He had said by all His servants the prophets. So Israel was carried away from their own land to Assyria, as it is to this day.” (2 Kings 17:21-23)
