Chapter 13 of 1 Kings tells a rather confusing story of a man of God from Judah that prophesied of the coming of Josiah, who would desecrate the altar at Bethel by burning human bones on it. He also prayed for and restored the hand of Jeroboam, the king of Israel, whose hand “dried up” so that he could not draw it back. He refused the king’s offer to return with him to be refreshed and rewarded for healing the king, saying he had been commanded by the word of the Lord to neither eat bread or drink water; nor return by the way he came to Bethel. Yet he did turn back and ate with the old prophet, who said an angel had commanded him, saying, “Bring him back with you into your house that he may eat bread and drink water” (1 Kings 13:18). But the old prophet lied to the man of God from Judah, who was killed by a lion for his disobedience.
The story begins with the Lord’s anger at Solomon, who turned away from the Lord and went after other gods, despite having the Lord appear to him twice. The Lord told Solomon he would tear the kingdom from him and give it to his servant. But for the sake of David his father, the Lord would retain one tribe for Solomon’s son (1 Kings 11:9-13).
Jeroboam was in charge of the force labor of the “house of Joseph,” Ephraim and Manasseh. The prophet Ahijah encountered Jeroboam alone in the open country and prophesied that he would rule over ten tribes, “because they have forsaken me and worshiped Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, Chemosh the god of Moab, and Milcom the god of the Ammonites, and they have not walked in my ways, doing what is right in my sight and keeping my statutes and my rules, as David his father did” (1 Kings 11:33). Solomon sought to kill Jeroboam, seemingly to remove a rival, but Jeroboam escaped to Egypt where he lived until the death of Solomon (1 Kings 11:40).
When Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, was to be crowned king, he rejected the request of the people to lighten the load of forced labor Solomon had imposed on Israel. This led to the failure of Israel to approve Rehoboam as their king. Instead, they made the returning Jeroboam king over “all Israel.” Only Judah and Benjamin remained loyal (1 Kings 12:20). Jeroboam became fearful that the three annual religious pilgrimages to Yahweh’s temple in Jerusalem—and contact with Davidic loyalists—would lead to revolution and an attempt to overthrow and kill him. So he installed Yahweh-symbols, the golden calves, in the shrines of Bethel and Dan—cities that were strategically located at the southern and northern boundaries of the new kingdom.
Bethel is located on the boundary between the Northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah, about 10 miles north of Jerusalem in the modern West Bank. The Old Testament mentions Bethel more than any other site except Jerusalem. It was a sacred site even before Jacob, who had a vision there to mark it as a sacred place (Genesis 28:10-22; 31:13). Later, Jacob erected an altar there at the direction of the Lord (Genesis 35:1-8). Dan was in northern Israel, at the foot of Mount Hermon. Tel Dan, a 50-acre mound, is about 25 miles north of the Sea of Galilee. As the northern most city of Israel, it was repeatedly referred to as the northernmost boundary of the kingdom. Archaeological work has indicated the site was used as a shrine previous to Jeroboam’s selection of Dan as a worship center. A religious complex and the foundations of an altar dating to the Iron Age were uncovered during archeological excavations.
According to Carl Schultz in the Theological Word Book of the Old Testament, the calves at Dan and Bethel were likely made as pedestals upon which YWVH was enthroned, as he was between the cherubim above the ark of the covenant. This was as much a political move as it was a religious one. Jeroboam saw the necessity of discouraging travel back-and-forth to Jerusalem, but he needed holy places in Israel’s territory that the people would accept as substitute shrines for authentic Yahweh worship. At least one site, preferably both, needed a sacred object to signify Yahweh’s real presence, as the ark did in the temple in Jerusalem. “However, since the calf was a symbol of fertility, the pedestal concept faded into the background and in the popular religion the calves, due to Canaanite influence, became identified with YHWH (II Kgs 17:16; Hos 8:5) and led to apostasy.”
In his commentary on 1 Kings Simon DeVries said the calf symbol had to create problems for those who were trying to worship God according to the books of Moses. All around Israel, and within Canaanite enclaves in its territory, were half-Yahwists to who the calf or bull was the symbol of male fertility. “Officially or unofficially, Baalism was in the land; it was destined in the days of Ahab to gain the mastery. Thus, the golden calves could have done nothing but confuse and mislead.”
Given the readiness with which Jeroboam revised Israel’s worship rituals, it seems likely he himself was not an orthodox follower of Yahweh. Similar to some modern individuals, he readily adjusted his worship style to suit his needs; and his own heart. Tellingly, the words he’s quoted as saying in verse 12:28, “Behold your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt,” are the same as Exodus 32:4, when Aaron introduced the golden calf to the Israelites. The message of the writer of 1 Kings seems to be that Jeroboam was as guilty of idolatry as Aaron, despite his political motives.
As Jeroboam stood ready to make offerings, the man of God out of Judah approached him at the Bethel altar and spoke: “O altar, altar, thus says the Lord: ‘Behold, a son shall be born to the house of David, Josiah by name, and he shall sacrifice on you the priests of the high places who make offerings on you, and human bones shall be burned on you.’”
The man of God said the sign that his prophecy would be legitimated by the destruction of this very altar (1 Kings 13:2-3). Angered by the prophecy, Jeroboam stretched out his hand and ordered that the man of God be seized. But his hand dried up and he could not draw it back. Jeroboam changed his tune, asking the man of God to pray to the Lord to restore his hand. He did and it was. According to the sign predicted by the man of God, the altar was torn down. The prophetic utterance was fulfilled some 300 years later when King Josiah destroyed the altars at Bethel and Samaria, burning human bones upon them (2 Kings 23:19-20).
The episode at Bethel validated the authenticity of the man of God and led to Jeroboam’s invitation for the man of God to refresh himself and receive a reward. He refused, saying the Lord further instructed him to not eat there, nor return by the way that he came. DeVries noted Bethel was a famous Yahweh shrine and was connected to Jerusalem by a major highway. “To return from it by another route would mean following perilous pathways through fields and thickets.”
At this point, the old prophet in Bethel is introduced. He did not attend when the king came to offer sacrifices as did his sons, perhaps pleading his age. He was alarmed when he heard what the man of God from Judah said and did; and apparently decided he needed to see the man for himself. When he found him sitting under an oak tree, he invited him back to his house for bread, which was refused with the repetition that the man of God from Judah was forbidden by the word of the Lord.
The Bethel prophet countered with what we are told was a lie—he said an angel spoke to him saying he should bring the prophet from Judah back to his home and give him bread and water. Now if his sons had told the old prophet all the man of God had done that day, he surely had heard of his refusal to eat and be rewarded by the king. Why ask again? DeVries suggested it was a further test by the old Bethel prophet of the authenticity of his prophecy. Remember what had just occurred.
The king had just instituted two alternate worship sites to Jerusalem and a revised order of worship in order to further separate the new nation of Israel from the Davidic kingship in Jerusalem. The destruction of the altar, and by implication the system of worship it represented, also predicted the ultimate triumph of Judah over Israel. Although healing the king’s withered hand validated the man from Judah as a prophet, would his word come true? Was it truly from the Lord? It seems he was determined to test the man of God from Judah further by falsely claiming to have heard from an angel he was to return and eat at the Bethel prophet’s home.
As they sat at the table, the word of the Lord came to the old Bethel prophet: Because the man of God from Judah had disregarded the word of the Lord and came back and eaten bread and drunk water where the Lord had forbidden, his body will not be buried in the tomb of his ancestors. As he went away, a lion killed him, but did not eat him. Rather, it stood beside his body. Travelers on the road saw this strange site and told of it when they reached Bethel. When the old prophet at Bethel heard, he knew it was the man of God. The prophet took the body back to Bethel to mourn and bury him in his own grave. DeVries said:
Very clearly and emphatically, the Judahite man of God has been instructed what not to do. Because he is unable to discern that the Bethelite prophet is only trying to test the authenticity of his inspiration, but trusts that prophet’s assurance that it is all right to disregard the divine instruction in this one instance, the man of God actually disobeys Yahweh. Through inspiration, the Bethel prophet denounces him for his sin and then announces the penalty. Now all that has to happen is that Yahweh will actually punish him, as he has said through the Bethel prophet. If the Judahite actually does die for his disobedience, the Bethel prophet will know that he did indeed have authority to denounce the holy altar at Bethel. And so it is: the lion kills him; the old prophet buries him. And the old prophet tenderly places his body in his own tomb, instructing his sons to bury him alongside himself, for truly this was a holy man, a man in whom was the very word of God. Had the prophecy not come true and the man of God come safely home to Judah, the message of the Bethel prophet would have been proven false, but not it alone. Most important, nonfulfillment would have proven the man of God false, a presumptuous liar who pretended to obey the word of God when he had received no true word from God.
The consequences of the prophetic word given by the man of God from Judah was simply of too great a magnitude to accept without further testing. While the man of God from Judah failed to discern the lie told to him and thus disobeyed Yahweh, He gave a further word to confirm the judgment would surely happen. Three hundred years later, when Josiah went to Bethel with his reforms and was pulling down the altar, defiling it by burning the bones from adjacent tombs, he saw and asked about the monument at the tomb of the prophet of Bethel. When he was told it contained the remains of the prophet who foretold what he had done against the altar at Bethel, he ordered to let him be; “let no man move his bones” (2 Kings 23:15-18).