By the word of the LORD a man of God came from Judah to Bethel, as Jeroboam was standing by the altar to make an offering. He cried out against the altar by the word of the LORD : “O altar, altar! This is what the LORD says: ‘A son named Josiah will be born to the house of David. On you he will sacrifice the priests of the high places who now make offerings here, and human bones will be burned on you.’ ” That same day the man of God gave a sign: “This is the sign the LORD has declared: The altar will be split apart and the ashes on it will be poured out.”
1 Kings is a funny book really – it seems such a mishmash of different bits. First we start with solomon and building the temple. Then when he kick the bucket theres a whole lot of “Blah was king of Israel/Judah – he was really bad, really really bad, worse that Thingy even. He reigned for 4 years and then he was killed by dodah. And we’re not going to tell you what he did because that’s in a different book.” Then suddenly Elijah pops up without much in the way of introduction and we here a bit about him. Then before you know it he’s looking for a replacement.
I did enjoy the bit of maths in 1 Kings 11 . Apparently, 10+1 = 12. So it turns out that the tribe of Benjamin is so insignificant that they don’t count, but that when lumped in with Judah, the one tribe, they don’t make it worth pretending there are two tribes.
So about “the man of God from Judah”… I found this passage pretty intreging. Why doesn’t “the man of God from Judah” ever get named? Loads of the other minor bit part prophets do, why not this one? Why does God punish him so severely, whilst the other prophet who lied doesn’t get punished? And why doesn’t the lion eat him?
Before I speculate too wildly on the first question. I’ll refer to Adam Clarke’s Commentary. This commentary seems to deal quite well with the questions I posed. So what does Adam Clarke say? “but conjecture is idle on such a subject”. Oh well! David Guzik’s Commentary on this passage notes that “that one does not need to be famous to be significantly used by God”. I kind of thought that perhaps we didn’t know his name becuase those in Isreal didn’t know who he was, since he was from Judah. And he never made it back to Judah to recount his side of the story. So it was probably just reported by someone in Isreal who only knew “he was a man of God from Judah”.
On to the second question. I’d kind of thought that perhaps he should have know that God doesn’t change his mind and that the other prophet was lying. I’d wondered about the whole Abraham/Isaac thing where God does give a new direction – Adam Clarke was once again helpful, and I’m going to make you read it for yourself rather than quoting it. Why God punished the “man of God from Judah” and not the old prophet from Isreal – I can’t really say. Perhaps it is as Guzik notes “often God begins strict judgment among His own people (1 Peter 4:17)“. I thought James 3:1 might be a better verse to refer to?
Why doesn’t the lion eat him? I think the lion wasn’t hungry! He just killed the bloke because God told/caused him to. I’m sure he would have eaten him if he was peckish – but he wasn’t! But yet again I speculate!
The Photo
A man of God from Oxford who I know!
50mm -exposure details probably don’t really matter! Intentionally extreme studio flash.