1 Kings 13:19

The Holy Bible, Berean Study Bible

Contextual Overview

¹¹Now a certain old prophet was living in Bethel, and his sons came and told him all the deeds that the man of God had done that day in Bethel. They also told their father the words that the man had spoken to the king. ¹²"Which way did he go?" their father asked. And his sons had seen the way taken by the man of God, who had come from Judah. ¹³So the prophet said to his sons, "Saddle the donkey for me." Then they saddled the donkey for him, and he mounted it ¹⁴and went after the man of God. He found him sitting under an oak tree and asked, "Are you the man of God who came from Judah?" "I am," he replied. ¹⁵Then the prophet said to the man of God, "Come home with me and eat some bread." ¹⁶But the man replied, "I cannot return with you or eat bread or drink water with you in this place. ¹⁷For 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.'" ¹⁸Then the prophet replied, "I too am a prophet like you, and an angel spoke to me by the word of the LORD, saying, 'Bring him back with you to your house, so that he may eat bread and drink water.'" The old prophet was lying to him, ¹⁹but the man of God went back with him, ate bread in his house, and drank water.²⁰While they were sitting at the table, the word of the LORD came to the prophet who had brought him back,

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

1 Kings 13:9, Genesis 3:6, Deuteronomy 13:1, Deuteronomy 13:3, Deuteronomy 13:5, Deuteronomy 18:20, Acts 4:19, 2 Peter 2:18, 2 Peter 2:19

Reciprocal: 1 Kings 13:22 - eaten

Gill's Notes on the Bible

So he went back with him,.... In which he sinned; for as he had most certainly the command of God not to eat and drink in that place, he ought to have had the countermand from the Lord, and not trusted to another person. There are some things indeed which may be said in his favour, and be an apology for him, as that this man was an ancient prophet of the Lord, as he appeared to him; and that though he was forbid to eat and drink with idolaters, yet he thought he might with a prophet of the Lord, and especially as he affirmed he had the direction of an angel of the Lord for it; nor could he conceive that the prophet had any interest to serve by it, but rather it might be chargeable and burdensome to him; and he might think the Lord, out of compassion on him, had countermanded his former orders, and the circumstances he was in might the more incline him to listen to these plausible pretences; but, after all, he ought to have taken no directions but from the Lord himself; in this he failed:

and did eat bread in his house, and drink water; contrary to the express command of God.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse 1 Kings 13:19. So he went back with him — He permitted himself to be imposed on; he might have thought, as he had accomplished every purpose for which God sent him, and had actually begun to return by another way, God, who had given him the charge, had authority to say, "As thy purpose was to obey every injunction, even to the letter, I now permit thee to go with this old prophet, and take some refreshment." Now God might as well have dispensed with this part of the injunction, as he did in the case of Abraham: Take thy son Isaac, thy only son, whom thou lovest-and offer him for a burnt-offering; but, when he saw his perfect readiness, he dispensed with the actual offering, and accepted a ram in his stead. Thus much may be said in vindication of the man of God: but if this be so, why should he be punished with death, for doing what he had reason and precedent to believe might be the will of God? I answer: He should not have taken a step back, till he had remission of the clause from the same authority which gave him the general message. He should have had it from the word of the Lord to himself, in both cases, as Abraham had; and not taken an apparent contradiction of what was before delivered unto him, from the mouth of a stranger, who only professed to have it from an angel, who pretended to speak unto him by the word of the Lord. In this, and in this alone, lay the sinfulness of the act of the man of God, who came out of Judah.