1 Kings 13 Bible study: By the LORD's word

The chapter opens right after Jeroboam's feast: he "went up to the altar which he had made in Bethel" (12:33) "to burn incense" (12:33). "Behold, a man of God came out of Judah by the LORD’s word to Bethel; and Jeroboam was standing by the altar to burn incense" (13:1). Watch the phrase "by the LORD’s word" (tap word). He comes by it (13:1), cries by it (13:2), and gives his sign by it (13:5); his orders came by it (13:9, 13:17); and the old prophet claims it for his lie (13:18). Of the eleven verses in the whole WEB that say "by the LORD’s word", seven are in this chapter. The LORD's word also comes at the table (13:20), and the old prophet ends with it: "the saying which he cried by the LORD’s word against the altar in Bethel… will surely happen" (13:32).

1 Kings 13:18→leads toMatthew 7:15

The old prophet said to the man of God, "I also am a prophet as you are; and an angel spoke to me by the LORD’s word" (13:18), and the chapter adds, "He lied to him" (13:18). Teaching his disciples on the mountain (Matthew 5:1-2), Jesus said, "Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravening wolves" (Matthew 7:15), and "By their fruits you will know them" (Matthew 7:16). Jesus doesn't cite 1 Kings 13, so setting the two side by side is a reading, resting on a shared subject, one who comes as a prophet with words that aren't true, not on a shared word. Some hear in Jesus' warning what happened under the oak (13:14): a man who came as a fellow prophet, claiming the LORD's word, turned the man of God from what the LORD had told him (13:17-19). Others note that 1 Kings 13 never calls the old prophet a false prophet and that the LORD's word later came to him (13:20), and read Jesus' words in their own setting, without looking from one to the other.

שׁוּבshuvsay SHOOV

Strong's: "to turn back (hence, away)". Brown-Driver-Briggs: "turn back, return", and among its senses, "turn back from evil". In Hebrew this verb comes sixteen times in the chapter, more than in any other chapter of 1 Kings, and the WEB gives it many ways. Jeroboam's hand dried up "so that he could not draw it back again" (13:4), and it "was restored to him" (13:6). The command was "don’t return by the way that you came" (13:9), and "he went another way, and didn’t return" (13:10). Then the old prophet says, "Bring him back with you into your house" (13:18), and "he went back with him" (13:19). From there the old prophet is "the prophet who brought him back" (13:20, 13:26). The chapter ends with the same verb twice: "Jeroboam didn’t turn from his evil way, but again made priests of the high places" (13:33), where turn and again are both this verb.