Study Desk

Now there was an old prophet living in Bethel; and his sons came and told him everything that the man of God had done that day in Bethel; they also told their father the words which he had spoken to the king.

Their father asked them, "Which way did he go?" For his sons had seen which way the man of God who came from Judah had gone.

and he went after the man of God. And he found him sitting under an oak (terebinth) tree, and he said to him, "Are you the man of God who came from Judah?" And he said, "I am."

So the man of God went back with him, and ate bread in his house and drank water.

And he cried out to the man of God who had come from Judah, "Thus says the LORD, 'Because you have disobeyed the word of the LORD and have not kept the commandment which the LORD your God commanded you,

When the prophet who had brought him back from the road heard about it, he said, "It is the man of God who was disobedient to the word of the LORD; therefore the LORD has given him to the lion, which has torn him and killed him, in accordance with the word of the LORD which He spoke to him."

Then the prophet picked up the body of the man of God and laid it on the donkey and brought it back, and he came into the city (Bethel) of the old prophet to mourn and to bury him.

Then after he had buried him, he said to his sons, "When I am dead, bury me in the grave in which the man of God is buried; lay my bones beside his bones.

So when Ahijah heard the sound of her feet as she came in the doorway, he said, "Come in, wife of Jeroboam. Why do you pretend to be another woman? For I have been sent to you [by God] with a harsh message.

"Go, tell Jeroboam, 'This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: "Because I exalted you from among the people and made you leader over My people Israel,

"All Israel shall mourn for him and bury him, for he alone of Jeroboam's family will come to [be placed in] the grave, because in him there was found something good and pleasing toward the LORD, the God of Israel, in the house of Jeroboam.

He walked in all the sins [of idol worship] that his father [Rehoboam] committed before him; and his heart was not entirely devoted to the LORD his God, like the heart of his father (forefather) David.

Nevertheless, for David's sake the LORD his God gave him a lamp (descendant on the throne) in Jerusalem, setting up his son after him and establishing Jerusalem,

because of the sins committed by Jeroboam and which he made Israel commit, and because he provoked the LORD God of Israel to anger.

for all the sins of Baasha and the sins of Elah his son, which they committed, and made Israel commit, provoking the LORD God of Israel to anger with their idols.

He walked in all the ways of Jeroboam the son of Nebat and in his sin, which he made Israel commit, provoking the LORD God of Israel, [to anger] with their idols.

Ahab also made the Asherah. Ahab did more to provoke the LORD God of Israel than all the kings of Israel who were before him.

Now Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the settlers of Gilead, said to Ahab, "As the LORD, the God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word."

But she said, "As the LORD your God lives, I have no bread, only a handful of flour in the bowl and a little oil in the jar. See, I am gathering a few sticks so that I may go in and bake it for me and my son, that we may eat it [as our last meal] and die."

"For this is what the LORD God of Israel says: 'The bowl of flour shall not be exhausted nor shall the jar of oil be empty until the day that the LORD sends rain [again] on the face of the earth.'"