I DO NOT UNDERSTAND!!
So the Jeroboam/Rehoboam story - the kingdom being ripped apart story - is crowded with prophets.
~ a prophet rips apart a cloak to tell Jeroboam he will be given 10 tribes
~ a prophet tells Rehoboam and all of Judah they are NOT to go to war against Israel
~ a prophet goes to Bethel and prophecies to the altar there ~ and when Jeroboam tries
to have the prophet seized, and Jeroboam's hand dries up, the prophet prays for the king
and God heal Jeroboam.
and also . . .
~ an old prophet who lies.
The prophet who prophecied to the altar ... well ...
he was killed by a lion . . . because he believed the prophet who lied.
In a story that is full of "are-you-seriously-kidding-me" events ... this part of the story may be, for me, the MOST baffling story in the whole Bible.
Ok, recap:
After the prophecy-to-the-altar-and-pray-for-the-king's-hand event, the prophet is invited home to eat dinner with the king, and told the king will give him a gift.
{seriously?
KING JEROBOAM: "Sooo Mr. Prophet, you just challenged me, and called me out publically. That is bad and I did try to have you arrested and then... ok, you did pray for my hand and God did heal it -- so how 'bout you come by for food and presents? No, I am not planning to repent, no...but I think you should come eat at my house anyway."
What??}
The prophet says, "Absolutely NOT!! I was commanded by the word of the Lord 'You must not eat bread or drink water or return by the way you came.' So the prophet does take a different road out of Bethel...but ... there is this other prophet. He is an old man and his sons give him a recap of the wild events in Bethel that day. This old prophet goes looking for the first prophet, finds him and invites him home to dinner. The first prophet says, 'I have been told by the word of the LORD: 'You must not eat bread or drink water there or return by the way you came.' Then the old prophet lies!!! : I am a prophet too. An angel came and told me to to get you and have you come eat dinner with me. And THEN, the first prophet believes him and goes with him to have dinner!! During dinner the old man gets a word from the Lord. He tells the young prophet, 'You have defied the word of the LORD and have not kept the command the LORD your God gave you. You came back and ate bread and drank water in the place where he told you not to eat or drink. Therefore your body will not be buried in the tomb of your fathers.' THEN they finish dinner. When they are finished the old prophet saddles a donkey for the first prophet, and he heads home. On the way, a lion met the first prophet and killed him. The lion does NOT kill the donkey or maul the prophet's body. The old prophet hears what happened, and goes to get the body. When the old prophet gets there both the lion and the donkey are just standing by the dead body of the first prophet.
1 Kings 13:29-32
So the prophet picked up the body of the man of God, laid it on the donkey, and brought it back to his own city to mourn for him and bury him. Then he laid the body in his own tomb, and they mourned over him and said, "Oh, my brother!" [Wow! Sounds like he was actually grieved, right? Yet, his very premeditated lie caused the death.]
After burying him, he said to his sons, "When I die, bury me in the grave where the man of God is buried; lay my bones beside his bones. For the message he declared by the word of the LORD against the altar in Bethel and against all the shrines on the high places in the towns of Samaria will certainly come true."
NIV
This story is stuffed full of question marks for me.
WHY did the prophet go home and eat with the old prophet? The prophet, when he confronted Jeroboam, KNEW what God had told him ... he uses a strong, emphatic word telling Jeroboam he has been commanded by God to neither eat nor drink there, and that he must go home by a different route.
WHY did the old prophet lie to him? There seems no reason. When the old man was told by the first prophet that GOD had told him not to eat or drink there, why lie? Why trick the prophet into disobeying or -- in God's words -- defying God When the prophet is killed by the lion, the old man seems genuinely grieved. He buries the first prophet in his own tomb and tell his sons that when he dies he wants to be buried beside him. There is nothing in what this old man says or does that -- to me -- shows that he thinks he did anything wrong. I mean, really! What am I missing? It is the old prophet's fault that the prophet is killed by the lion...right?
{Oh, and in a side note to this genuinely bizarre story: the lion kills the prophet, and doesn't maul the body and does not kill the donkey and the donkey stays there with the lion. Really?! was it like:
LION: "Hey donkey, don't want to alarm you but I'm gonna (huge swipe with his paw) kill this prophet ... uhh yeah, Ok. He's dead. So, no, you don't have go...don't rush off on my account. How's the wife and kids? ... some time later ... Here comes that old prophet guy -- yeah, that one you said lied to this guy. OH...he's picking up the body. Well, guess you're going with him. It's been real. Say Hi to the family for me. See ya."
Bizarre!}
WHY did God give a word to the old prophet during dinner and not to the first prophet? And WHY didn't God punish the old prophet? I actually get it that it is very important to believe AND OBEY God. The prophet should have stood his ground...he turned the king down, he should have turned the old prophet down too. But he was lied to! And, ok, I have an expectation of discernment in people who are prophetic -- why didn't he know the old man was lying?? ... but I have a really high expectation of honesty too.
Baffling...don't you agree?
~ a prophet rips apart a cloak to tell Jeroboam he will be given 10 tribes
~ a prophet tells Rehoboam and all of Judah they are NOT to go to war against Israel
~ a prophet goes to Bethel and prophecies to the altar there ~ and when Jeroboam tries
to have the prophet seized, and Jeroboam's hand dries up, the prophet prays for the king
and God heal Jeroboam.
and also . . .
~ an old prophet who lies.
The prophet who prophecied to the altar ... well ...
he was killed by a lion . . . because he believed the prophet who lied.
In a story that is full of "are-you-seriously-kidding-me" events ... this part of the story may be, for me, the MOST baffling story in the whole Bible.
Ok, recap:
After the prophecy-to-the-altar-and-pray-for-the-king's-hand event, the prophet is invited home to eat dinner with the king, and told the king will give him a gift.
{seriously?
KING JEROBOAM: "Sooo Mr. Prophet, you just challenged me, and called me out publically. That is bad and I did try to have you arrested and then... ok, you did pray for my hand and God did heal it -- so how 'bout you come by for food and presents? No, I am not planning to repent, no...but I think you should come eat at my house anyway."
What??}
The prophet says, "Absolutely NOT!! I was commanded by the word of the Lord 'You must not eat bread or drink water or return by the way you came.' So the prophet does take a different road out of Bethel...but ... there is this other prophet. He is an old man and his sons give him a recap of the wild events in Bethel that day. This old prophet goes looking for the first prophet, finds him and invites him home to dinner. The first prophet says, 'I have been told by the word of the LORD: 'You must not eat bread or drink water there or return by the way you came.' Then the old prophet lies!!! : I am a prophet too. An angel came and told me to to get you and have you come eat dinner with me. And THEN, the first prophet believes him and goes with him to have dinner!! During dinner the old man gets a word from the Lord. He tells the young prophet, 'You have defied the word of the LORD and have not kept the command the LORD your God gave you. You came back and ate bread and drank water in the place where he told you not to eat or drink. Therefore your body will not be buried in the tomb of your fathers.' THEN they finish dinner. When they are finished the old prophet saddles a donkey for the first prophet, and he heads home. On the way, a lion met the first prophet and killed him. The lion does NOT kill the donkey or maul the prophet's body. The old prophet hears what happened, and goes to get the body. When the old prophet gets there both the lion and the donkey are just standing by the dead body of the first prophet.
1 Kings 13:29-32
So the prophet picked up the body of the man of God, laid it on the donkey, and brought it back to his own city to mourn for him and bury him. Then he laid the body in his own tomb, and they mourned over him and said, "Oh, my brother!" [Wow! Sounds like he was actually grieved, right? Yet, his very premeditated lie caused the death.]
After burying him, he said to his sons, "When I die, bury me in the grave where the man of God is buried; lay my bones beside his bones. For the message he declared by the word of the LORD against the altar in Bethel and against all the shrines on the high places in the towns of Samaria will certainly come true."
NIV
This story is stuffed full of question marks for me.
WHY did the prophet go home and eat with the old prophet? The prophet, when he confronted Jeroboam, KNEW what God had told him ... he uses a strong, emphatic word telling Jeroboam he has been commanded by God to neither eat nor drink there, and that he must go home by a different route.
WHY did the old prophet lie to him? There seems no reason. When the old man was told by the first prophet that GOD had told him not to eat or drink there, why lie? Why trick the prophet into disobeying or -- in God's words -- defying God When the prophet is killed by the lion, the old man seems genuinely grieved. He buries the first prophet in his own tomb and tell his sons that when he dies he wants to be buried beside him. There is nothing in what this old man says or does that -- to me -- shows that he thinks he did anything wrong. I mean, really! What am I missing? It is the old prophet's fault that the prophet is killed by the lion...right?
{Oh, and in a side note to this genuinely bizarre story: the lion kills the prophet, and doesn't maul the body and does not kill the donkey and the donkey stays there with the lion. Really?! was it like:
LION: "Hey donkey, don't want to alarm you but I'm gonna (huge swipe with his paw) kill this prophet ... uhh yeah, Ok. He's dead. So, no, you don't have go...don't rush off on my account. How's the wife and kids? ... some time later ... Here comes that old prophet guy -- yeah, that one you said lied to this guy. OH...he's picking up the body. Well, guess you're going with him. It's been real. Say Hi to the family for me. See ya."
Bizarre!}
WHY did God give a word to the old prophet during dinner and not to the first prophet? And WHY didn't God punish the old prophet? I actually get it that it is very important to believe AND OBEY God. The prophet should have stood his ground...he turned the king down, he should have turned the old prophet down too. But he was lied to! And, ok, I have an expectation of discernment in people who are prophetic -- why didn't he know the old man was lying?? ... but I have a really high expectation of honesty too.
Baffling...don't you agree?
Yes!! I've been reading through this part of the Bible too AND just read this passage a couple of days ago (coincidence?!), and I have no idea what to do with it. It seems like the 2nd prophet really wanted to hang out with another man of God, which is why he lied?! But if he really respected/loved him he wouldn't have... So maybe he was testing him?? But that's not included in the text... And then he wants to be buried with him? Like he loved him enough to not be buried with HIS fathers?? But if he was testing him, then he would have been frustrated with his disobeying God... Maybe he was used like that mule who talked: an empty vessel that God used to test the prophet... And even after writing all of that... I still have no idea what to think.
ReplyDeleteI have always been frustrated with this text from the point of view of the young prophet. What if he was going... well God said explicitly there - and dinner with this guy is not "there" - So going to have dinner with him is in the grey area - so sure I'll do it, and besides I'm super hungry!
ReplyDeleteIf it wasn't necessarily flagrant disobedience then why did he get so judged by it? I'm just saying there is a lot of ambiguity!
I think that in this day of such wonderful grace that it's difficult to truly understand that God really means what He says. Numbers 15:30,31 says: "But the person who does anything presumptuously, whether he is native born or a stranger, that one brings reproach on the Lord, and he shall be cut off from among his people. BECAUSE HE HAS DESPISED THE WORD OF THE LORD, and has broken His commandment, that person shall be completely cut off; his guilt shall be upon him."
ReplyDeleteIt's about God's reputation, not either one of the prophets' reputation.
I think that God dealt harshly (and yet with great love because that's who He is) with Prophet #1 -because his sin would have would have brought doubt upon the prophecy he had just given and this would cast doubt on God's reliability. I think it's entirely possible that the "old prophet" or prophet #2 may have wanted to hang out with the younger one and sadly, he manipulated the younger prophet. I also think that the older prophet realized what he'd done and also recognized the veracity of God's word (vs. 32).
Grateful for Grace. GOOD word Barbara!! :)
Such an interesting passage of scripture. I like Leann's response above as I felt the same way. I do believe that the older prophect realized that his lie cost this young prophet his life and that is why he put him in his tomb. He wanted to honor him and this included wanting to be buried next to him. I agree that it is good that we live under grace.
ReplyDelete