And it came to pass as they sat at the table, that the word of Jehovah came to the prophet that brought him back;
The man of God from Judah has just done the one thing God forbade: he turned back and ate in the old prophet's house. And now, mid-meal, God speaks again — not to him, but to the man who lied him into that chair.
The timing is the point. God lets the meal begin before the sentence falls. One writer reads this as discipline for a believer, not judgment on an enemy:
God is judging according to everyone's work. That is, He is disciplining His people now. Judgment at the house of God has begun. And so it is here. The judgment on Jeroboam and his priests is delayed; the judgment of this man of God shall be immediate. He shall now be judged by the Lord, so that he may not be condemned with the world, or with Jeroboam, later on. The word alights upon him. It falls in judgment on him as he sits at the table of the old prophet, eating and drinking — for he was eating and drinking condemnation on himself.
The strangest detail in the verse is the channel. The same mouth that invented the angel now carries a real message from God:
But the man of God stepped off the path of obedience. Then the very man whom Satan had used to draw him off became the mouthpiece of the Lord, to announce the terrible consequence in his ears. He lied when Satan used him. He spoke truth when God used him. The erring man of God was killed by a lion because he disobeyed the word of the Lord. Yes — he stepped off the narrow path of obedience into the wide field of his own will, and there he was killed.
Was the old prophet a fake, then? One writer says the story points the other way, and names the motive behind the lie:
It is not said that he was a false prophet, and the outcome of the story would rather seem to show the contrary. But the old prophet was determined to test the man of God and see whether he could make him as unfaithful as himself. That would have been a miserable comfort to a bad conscience. Nothing troubles Christians who are not walking with God like the sight of any who are.
Nothing here lets the old prophet off. One writer reads his part in verse 20 as his own punishment: he must say out loud the condemnation of a sin he shares.
God chastises the old prophet severely for his lie. He becomes God's instrument to pronounce, against his will, the condemnation of his brother who had trusted his word. God forces him to judge in another the evil he had committed himself.
The lesson runs in both directions, and it is pointed at anyone who lets another person's voice override God's:
As to the man of God, he has to learn that if he values the word of his brother more than the word of God, the very one who drew him into disobedience will be the instrument in God's hand for exposing his sin.
Readers instinctively expect the liar to be struck down. The text goes the other way, and one writer says the instinct itself needs correcting:
If the man of God was false to God, God would be true to the man of God — and true in a most painful way. And notice, dear friends, it was entirely right. Yet in our foolishness we would have thought, "Surely the old prophet is the one who is going to die for this." Not so — it is the man of God. For it is those who ought to know best who, if they fail, God chastises most.
The announcement in verses 20–22 only names damage already done. By going back, his message and his life had stopped agreeing:
There his testimony was broken — his sword completely broken in his hand. He was called not merely to a word but to deeds. People will care little for your words if you do not show by your actions that you feel the truth you want to press on them.
One safeguard would have kept him out of the snare. It holds even when the pressure comes dressed as a fresh message from God:
What should have kept the man of God from falling into this snare? His own words give the answer. He admits that the word of the LORD had charged him to eat no bread, drink no water, and not return by the way he came. So his safeguard against every effort to draw him into a false association was unswerving obedience to the word of God. Someone has truly said: "Whenever God has made His will known to us, we must not let any later influence call it into question — even if that influence takes the form of the word of God… In every case our part is to obey what He has said."
- Word given. The man of God had a plain command. That command was his only protection, and no later voice could reopen it.
- Word faked. The old prophet's lie came dressed as a message from God, told by a man who wanted him as unfaithful as himself.
- Word returns. At the table God speaks again, and He uses the liar's own mouth: he lied when Satan used him, he spoke truth when God used him.
- Word judges. The sentence falls on the messenger first, not the deceiver, because God chastises most those who ought to know best.
- Word spares. The judgment is God disciplining His own now, so that they are not condemned with the world later.
and he cried to the man of God that came from Judah, saying, Thus saith Jehovah Forasmuch as thou hast disobeyed the word of Jehovah, and hast not kept the commandment that Jehovah thy God commanded thee,
The man of God from Judah had refused a king's table and a king's reward. Then he sat down to eat with a fellow prophet, in the town God had sent him to condemn. Mid-meal, God's word arrives — spoken aloud by the man who lied to get him there.
The charge rests on a command he knew and remembered. His failure was not ignorance. A second voice simply gave him a reason to set the first word aside.
The word of God was clear: he was neither to eat nor to drink there. He knew it, and he remembered it. But there seemed to be another message, a reason to set the Lord's command aside. God did not take back His word when the prophet disobeyed it. This also teaches us a lesson. Whenever God has made His will known to us, we must not let any later influence call it into question — not even an influence that comes in the form of the word of God. If we were morally nearer to the Lord, we would feel that the only true and right position is to follow what He told us at first.
The old prophet's good standing was part of the trap.
By appealing to brotherly love, the old prophet succeeds where the king's offer had failed. The old prophet was a pious and respectable man. Why should not the man of God believe what he said? But however pious he might be, should a man's word carry more weight than the word of God? The prophet from Judah is trapped by the age and authority of his brother prophet and by his sympathy for him. Let us ask ourselves seriously. What part do these ties play in our own religious life when we face the question of obedience to the Word?
No messenger outranks a word God has already given. One writer supplies the answer the man of God never gave.
If the word of his Lord had been living in him, he would have said at once: "If ten thousand prophets and ten thousand angels told me to go back, I would count them all liars. I would call them agents of the devil, sent to lure me off the holy, happy path of obedience." That would have been a wonderful reply. It would have the same heavenly ring as the apostle's glowing words. He wrote: "But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed."
The voice that announced the judgment was the voice that had caused the sin. That one arrangement punished both men at once.
God punishes the old prophet justly: He makes him expose his own double-dealing by pronouncing judgment on the man of God. The man of God has his own lesson to learn. If he values his brother's word above the word of God, then the very person who drew him into disobedience becomes God's instrument to expose his sin.
Our instinct says the liar deserved the heavier punishment. One writer explains why it fell the other way.
If the man of God was false to God, God would be true to the man of God — true in a most painful way. And note, dear friends, it was entirely righteous. It is a righteousness that matches God. In our foolishness we would have thought, "Surely the old prophet is the one who is going to die for this." Not so, but the man of God. For it is those who ought to know best who, if they fail, God chastens most.
The judgment had a limit.
It is not that his spirit did not go to the Lord. We are sure it did. But his body still did not reach the tomb of his fathers. The Lord did deal with him, and dealt with the body so that his spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord.
The chastening is not God's last word on these two men.
So it comes about that three hundred and fifty years later, Josiah carries out the word of the Lord given by the man of God. He burns the bones of the false prophets. But he spares the grave of the man of God who came from Judah, and the grave of the old prophet of Bethel. Through their unfaithfulness the people of God may come under His chastening. But through the faithfulness of God they will not share in the judgment that overtakes the world.
- Known — The command was plain, and he remembered it. His sin was not confusion. He let a later voice cancel God's first word.
- Kind — Threats and rewards failed. Warmth, age and office succeeded. The softest appeal was the deadliest.
- Claimed — Ten thousand prophets, or even an angel, cannot reverse what God has already said.
- Exposed — God made the deceiver announce the sentence. That punished the liar and showed the listener where his real authority lay.
- Chastened — The stroke fell hardest on the man who knew most. It touched his body, not his spirit. Centuries later his grave was still spared.
but camest back, and hast eaten bread and drunk water in the place of which he said to thee, Eat no bread and drink no water; thy carcase shall not come to the sepulchre of thy fathers.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.