Year One, November 8

The LORD Your God…Is a Jealous God1

1 Kings 13:11-30

11Now an old prophet lived in Bethel. And his sons came and told him all that the man of God had done that day in Bethel. They also told to their father the words that he had spoken to the king. 12And their father said to them, “Which way did he go?” And his sons showed him the way that the man of God who came from Judah had gone. 13And he said to his sons, “Saddle the donkey for me.” So they saddled the donkey for him and he mounted it. 14And he went after the man of God and found him sitting under an oak. And he said to him, “Are you the man of God who came from Judah?” And he said, “I am.” 15Then he said to him, “Come home with me and eat bread.” 16And he said, “I may not return with you, or go in with you, neither will I eat bread nor drink water with you in this place, 17for it was said to me by the word of the LORD, ‘You shall neither eat bread nor drink water there, nor return by the way that you came.’” 18And he said to him, “I also am a prophet as you are, and an angel spoke to me by the word of the LORD, saying, ‘Bring him back with you into your house that he may eat bread and drink water.’” But he lied to him. 19So he went back with him and ate bread in his house and drank water.

20And as they sat at the table, the word of the LORD came to the prophet who had brought him back. 21And he cried to the man of God who came from Judah, “Thus says the LORD, ‘Because you have disobeyed the word of the LORD and have not kept the command that the LORD your God commanded you, 22but have come back and have eaten bread and drunk water in the place of which he said to you, “Eat no bread and drink no water,” your body shall not come to the tomb of your fathers.’” 23And after he had eaten bread and drunk, he saddled the donkey for the prophet whom he had brought back. 24And as he went away a lion met him on the road and killed him. And his body was thrown in the road, and the donkey stood beside it; the lion also stood beside the body. 25And behold, men passed by and saw the body thrown in the road and the lion standing by the body. And they came and told it in the city where the old prophet lived.

26And when the prophet who had brought him back from the way heard of it, he said, “It is the man of God who disobeyed the word of the LORD; therefore the LORD has given him to the lion, which has torn him and killed him, according to the word that the LORD spoke to him.” 27And he said to his sons, “Saddle the donkey for me.” And they saddled it. 28And he went and found his body thrown in the road, and the donkey and the lion standing beside the body. The lion had not eaten the body or torn the donkey. 29And the prophet took up the body of the man of God and laid it on the donkey and brought it back to the city to mourn and to bury him. 30And he laid the body in his own grave. And they mourned over him, saying, “Alas, my brother!”

This is a very frightful illustration of the great truth that the Lord our God is a jealous God. He expects those he honors, by making them his servants, to obey him. He has clearly stated, “Among those who are near me I will be sanctified.”2 To treat any of God’s commands as unimportant may bring God’s chastisement3 on even the best of people. The old prophet at Bethel must have backslidden very far from God, or he would not have tempted the man of God so wickedly. However, the man of God should not have been so quick to believe a story that contradicted what God had personally commanded him. The Lord saw it necessary to take his life. Let us hope that as a righteous man he had hope in his death. Let us hope also that the death of the prophet from Judah became a warning to the old prophet at Bethel and was the means of restoring him to his right state before God. This may have been one of those terrible, but righteous acts where the Lord calls back his wandering followers. It is a lesson for all of us to walk before God with a fear of offending him and a holy jealousy that his name is honored.

^{_______________}

¹ Deuteronomy 6:15

² Leviticus 10:3

³ chasten, chastening or chastisement - The act of discipline which may include scolding, criticizing or pain inflicted for the purpose of correction or moral improvement.