Today, I am reading and commenting on 1 Kings 13-14.

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When I was reading this passage my first thought when I read where the man of God from Judah said that the sign that the Lord had spoken was that “the altar shall be torn down” and then a little later it said that “The altar also was torn down” was that the translation was confusing.  The NIV says that the sign would be that “the altar will be split apart.”  However, when I thought about it some more I realized that while the NIV is closer to how we would understand what actually happened, the ESV is probably closer to what the people present would have understood the man of God to have said.  Then when they witnessed the altar split apart they would have interpreted that part of his prophecy as being fulfilled.  The symbolism of using the words “torn down” for the altar being split apart would not have been lost on those who heard the man of God say them.

I usually get caught up with wondering why the old prophet from Bethel lied to the man of God and thus do not write about that part of the passage.  However, I realized that even that is part of the lesson we should see in that part of the passage.  First, the lesson: we should not allow ourselves to be talked into going against what we know God has commanded us.  The man of God knew that God had commanded him not to eat or drink in Bethel, but when the old prophet told him that he was also a prophet and that an angel had told him that the Lord told him to bring the man of God back so that the man of God could eat, the man of God believed the old prophet.  Perhaps, the man of God thought to himself, “Why would this prophet lie to me?”  He should not have allowed himself to be convinced to go against what he knew that God had commanded him.  In the same way, we should not allow someone to convince us to go against what we know that God has commanded us.  I want to be clear that this does not mean that we should not listen to the counsel of other Believers.  However, the man of God did not know this prophet and had no reason to believe that God had spoken to him.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.