1 Kings 13: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

A man of God comes from Judah to Bethel and speaks against the altar Jeroboam has built, naming a future king, Josiah, who will burn human bones on it. When Jeroboam orders his arrest, the king's hand withers and is healed after the man of God prays, and the altar splits as the promised sign. The man of God has been told to eat nothing there and to go home by another road, but an old prophet in Bethel lies to him and brings him back to eat; on the road afterward a lion kills him, and the old prophet buries him and asks to be buried beside him. Jeroboam goes on appointing priests for the high places, and the chapter says this sin led to the end of his family line.

Claim by Claim

1. 13:1
   • A man of God came from Judah to Bethel.
   • The man of God came by the word of the LORD.
   • Jeroboam was standing by the altar to burn incense.
2. 13:2
   • The man of God cried out against the altar by the word of the LORD.
   • He addressed the altar directly, calling it altar twice.
   • He said this is what the LORD says.
   • He said a son will be born to the house of David.
   • He said the son's name will be Josiah.
   • He said Josiah will sacrifice upon the altar the priests of the high places who burn incense upon it.
   • He said human bones will be burned upon the altar.
3. 13:3
   • The man of God gave a sign that same day.
   • He said this is the sign which the LORD has spoken.
   • He said the altar will be torn apart.
   • He said the ashes that are on the altar will be poured out.
4. 13:4
   • King Jeroboam heard the word of the man of God which he cried against the altar in Bethel.
   • Jeroboam stretched out his hand from the altar.
   • Jeroboam said to seize the man of God.
   • The hand Jeroboam stretched out against him withered.
   • Jeroboam could not draw his hand back to himself.
5. 13:5
   • The altar was torn apart.
   • The ashes were poured out from the altar.
   • This happened according to the sign the man of God had given by the word of the LORD.
6. 13:6
   • The king answered and spoke to the man of God.
   • The king asked him to entreat the favor of the LORD his God.
   • The king asked him to pray on his behalf that his hand be restored to him.
   • The man of God entreated the favor of the LORD.
   • The king's hand was restored to him.
   • The king's hand became as it was before.
7. 13:7
   • The king spoke to the man of God.
   • The king invited him to come home with him and eat.
   • The king said he would give him a gift.
8. 13:8
   • The man of God answered the king.
   • He said that even if the king gave him half his house, he would not go with him.
   • He said he would not eat bread in that place.
   • He said he would not drink water in that place.
9. 13:9
   • He said the LORD had charged him by the word of the LORD.
   • He said the command was to eat no bread.
   • He said the command was to drink no water.
   • He said the command was not to return by the way he had come.
10. 13:10
    • He went by another way.
    • He did not return by the way he had come to Bethel.
11. 13:11
    • A certain old prophet was living in Bethel.
    • His son came and told him all the deeds the man of God had done that day in Bethel.
    • They also told their father the words the man of God had spoken to the king.
12. 13:12
    • Their father asked them which way the man of God went.
    • His sons had seen the way the man of God went.
    • The man of God had come from Judah.
13. 13:13
    • The old prophet told his sons to saddle the donkey for him.
    • They saddled the donkey for him.
    • He rode on it.
14. 13:14
    • He went after the man of God.
    • He found the man of God sitting under a terebinth.
    • He asked him whether he was the man of God who came from Judah.
    • The man of God said that he was.
15. 13:15
    • The old prophet told him to come home with him and eat bread.
16. 13:16
    • The man of God said he could not return with him.
    • He said he could not go in with him.
    • He said he would not eat bread with him in that place.
    • He said he would not drink water with him in that place.
17. 13:17
    • He said a word had come to him by the word of the LORD.
    • He said the word was that he must not eat bread there.
    • He said the word was that he must not drink water there.
    • He said the word was that he must not return by the way he had come.
18. 13:18
    • The old prophet said to him that he too was a prophet like him.
    • The old prophet said an angel had spoken to him by the word of the LORD.
    • The old prophet said the angel told him to bring the man back to his house.
    • The old prophet said the angel told him the man should eat bread and drink water.
    • The old prophet was lying to him.
19. 13:19
    • The man of God went back with him.
    • He ate bread in the old prophet's house.
    • He drank water.
20. 13:20
    • They were sitting at the table.
    • The word of the LORD came to the prophet who had brought him back.
21. 13:21
    • The prophet cried out to the man of God who had come from Judah.
    • He said this is what the LORD says.
    • He said the man had rebelled against the mouth of the LORD.
    • He said the man had not kept the commandment that the LORD his God commanded him.
22. 13:22
    • He said the man had returned.
    • He said the man had eaten bread and drunk water in the place about which the LORD told him to eat no bread and drink no water.
    • He said the man's corpse would not come to the tomb of his fathers.
23. 13:23
    • After the man of God had eaten bread and after he had drunk, the donkey was saddled for him.
    • The saddling was done for the prophet who had brought him back.
24. 13:24
    • The man of God went on his way.
    • A lion met him on the road.
    • The lion killed him.
    • His corpse was thrown down on the road.
    • The donkey stood beside the corpse.
    • The lion stood beside the corpse.
25. 13:25
    • Men were passing by.
    • They saw the corpse thrown down on the road.
    • They saw the lion standing beside the corpse.
    • They came and told it in the city where the old prophet lived.
26. 13:26
    • The prophet who had brought him back from the way heard of it.
    • He said it was the man of God who rebelled against the mouth of the LORD.
    • He said the LORD had given him to the lion.
    • He said the lion had broken him and killed him.
    • He said this happened according to the word of the LORD which He spoke to him.
27. 13:27
    • He spoke to his sons and told them to saddle the donkey for him.
    • They saddled it.
28. 13:28
    • He went and found the corpse thrown down on the road.
    • The donkey and the lion were standing beside the corpse.
    • The lion had not eaten the corpse.
    • The lion had not broken the donkey.
29. 13:29
    • The prophet lifted up the corpse of the man of God.
    • He laid it on the donkey.
    • He brought it back.
    • The old prophet came to the city to mourn for him and to bury him.
30. 13:30
    • He laid the corpse in his own grave.
    • They mourned over him.
    • They said, Alas, my brother.
31. 13:31
    • After he had buried him, he spoke to his sons.
    • He said that when he died they should bury him in the grave where the man of God is buried.
    • He said to lay his bones beside the man of God's bones.
32. 13:32
    • He said the word the man of God cried by the word of the LORD against the altar in Bethel will surely come to pass.
    • He said the word was also against all the houses of the high places in the cities of Samaria.
33. 13:33
    • After this thing Jeroboam did not turn back from his evil way.
    • Jeroboam again made priests of the high places from among all sorts of the people.
    • Whoever wished it, Jeroboam consecrated him.
    • Such a one became one of the priests of the high places.
34. 13:34
    • This thing became sin to the house of Jeroboam.
    • The sin led to its being cut off and destroyed from the face of the earth.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

13:1

"Man of God" is a standard title for a prophet, someone who speaks on God's behalf, and this one is a stranger from the southern kingdom of Judah. Bethel lay about twelve miles north of Jerusalem, just inside the breakaway northern kingdom; Jeroboam, its first king, had set up a golden calf and a state sanctuary there so his people would not travel south to Jerusalem to worship (1 Kings 12). Burning the incense himself shows the king acting as head of that new cult, taking on a role that elsewhere belonged to priests.

13:2

"House of David" means the royal family line ruling in Jerusalem. Josiah became king of Judah roughly three hundred years after Jeroboam; 2 Kings 23:15-20 describes him doing exactly what is announced here. "High places" were open-air hilltop shrines with an altar, common throughout the region and used for worship of the LORD as well as other gods. Burning human bones on an altar made it ritually unclean and so permanently unusable, the most complete way to destroy a shrine short of dismantling it.

13:3

A "sign" here is a confirming event, something visible that happens on the spot to show that the longer prediction can be trusted.

13:4

The hand "drying up" means it withered and went rigid, the muscles seized so that he could not draw the outstretched arm back.

13:6

The King James "intreat the face of the LORD" translates a Hebrew idiom, literally something like "soften the face," used for begging a favor from a superior who has reason to be angry.

13:7

Offering a meal and a gift was the normal way a king rewarded a prophet, and accepting it created an ongoing bond of obligation between the two.

13:8

"Half your house" means half of the king's household and property, a set phrase for an extravagant offer.

13:9

Eating and drinking with someone in the ancient Near East signaled acceptance and fellowship; refusing food and drink was a deliberate, public refusal of relations with the place and its king. The text never explains why he was also forbidden to return by the same road.

13:11

A prophet is a person who tells others what God says.

13:13

"Ass" is simply the old English word for a donkey, the ordinary riding animal for someone who was not a soldier.

13:14

The Hebrew word covers both the oak and the terebinth, a large, long-lived tree that would have served as a known landmark on the road.

13:18

"Angel" means messenger; the old prophet is claiming to have received a later message from God that cancels the earlier one, the one thing that could plausibly override the traveler's orders.

13:21

"Thou hast disobeyed the mouth of the LORD" means he disobeyed what the LORD had said out loud. The mouth stands for the spoken command.

13:22

"Carcase" in 1611 English simply meant a dead body, without the disrespectful tone it carries now. Burial in the family tomb, with the bones of earlier generations, was the expected and honorable end; being left outside it was a severe punishment.

13:23

"To wit" is King James English for "that is to say," a phrase the translators added to make clear which man saddled the donkey for which.

13:24

Lions lived in the Jordan valley and the hill country of Israel until the Middle Ages, so an encounter on a road was a real hazard, though a lion that kills and then stands guard without eating, and without touching the donkey, is not natural behavior, which is the point the passers-by notice.

13:28

The details are the point: a hungry lion eats what it kills and would certainly attack a defenseless donkey standing nearby. A lion that kills and then simply stands guard is behaving in a way no ordinary predator does, which tells anyone who arrives that this was not a random accident on the road.

13:29

To mourn means to show you are sad because someone died. People did this out loud, together, so everyone could hear.

13:30

"Alas, my brother!" was a set formula in funeral lament, not a claim of family relationship; Jeremiah 22:18 quotes the same cry.

13:31

Burying two sets of bones together meant that whatever happened to one grave would happen to the other. 2 Kings 23:17-18 reports that Josiah, when clearing the tombs at Bethel, left this grave alone and so also spared the old prophet's bones.

13:32

The city of Samaria was not founded until decades after Jeroboam's reign (1 Kings 16:24); the name is used here for the northern kingdom's territory generally, which suggests this wording comes from a later hand looking back.

13:33

Israelite priesthood was normally restricted to the tribe of Levi and, for the altar itself, to the descendants of Aaron. "Of the lowest of the people" more likely means "from the people generally, from every class" rather than from the poorest; either way the point is that these priests had no priestly descent. "Consecrated" translates a Hebrew idiom, literally "filled his hand," the standard phrase for installing someone in priestly office.

13:34

"House" here means dynasty, Jeroboam's descendants and their hold on the throne. 1 Kings 15:27-30 reports the killing of the whole family a generation later.