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Prophets and Bones: The Mysterious Man of 1 Kings 13
The Book of Kings, appropriately, seems to be heavily concerned with the activities of the kings of Israel and Judah, and much of the text is dedicated to their rise, actions, and fall. The kings, however, are often not the major characters of the actual action that is going. The entire center of the book (1 Kings 17-2 Kings 10) is predominantly about the actions of two major prophets: Elijah and Elisha. Their centrality to the story is part of the reason that Kings was considered in the Hebrew Bible to be part of the Former Prophets. While the kingdom and its political dealings provide the framework of the narrative, it is often the prophets and their word from God that drives the action of the plot. Before Elijah and Elisha show up, however, there is another important prophetic character to consider: the unnamed “man of God from Judah” in 1 Kings 13.
1 Kings 13 comes after the split in the kingdom between Rehoboam and Jeroboam, with Jeroboam successfully controlling the 10 Northern tribes of Israel. Jeroboam had been promised these 10 tribes from God through the prophet Abijah, who also promised Jeroboam a lasting dynasty akin to David’s if he would remain faithful to God’s Law and uphold His worship (1 Kings 11:34-39). Unfortunately, Jeroboam’s pride and vanity get in the way of this potential future. Worried that the proper worship of Yahweh at the Temple in Jerusalem will lead the people to rebel against Jeroboam and return to Rehoboam (and not trusting in God’s promises that He made!), Jeroboam constructs two golden calves at the Israelite cities of Dan and Bethel for Israel to worship as the gods that brought them out of Egypt. He institutes a new feast day in place of those held in Judah and appoints non-Aaronic priests to serve at the temple he constructs in Bethel (1 Kings 12:28-33). The entire scene is a perverse reversal of the construction and ordination of Solomon’s temple, and God does not allow this blasphemy to go unnoticed.
The unnamed man of God comes to Jeroboam in Bethel as he is standing at the altar in the temple to ordinate it, and the man prophesies against both the altar and Jeroboam. He foresees a Judean king called Josiah who will slaughter the false priests of Jeroboam and burn human bones upon the altar to defile it, and says the sign that this is true is that the altar will split in half before Jeroboam. The king, furious at this prophet, stretches out his hand and orders his guards to seize the prophet. As the words come out of his mouth, though, his hand shrivels and is paralyzed! At the same moment, the altar of Bethel splits apart and pours out its ashes upon the ground (1 Kings 13:1-5). Realizing he has no power over this prophet, Jeroboam is forced to plead for healing from the very man who has ruined his grand ceremony. The prophet (perhaps surprisingly) graciously prays to the Lord, and Jeroboam is healed. The king then offers the prophet refreshment and a “reward,” which might seem to be an innocuous request. However, it is likely that Jeroboam is trying to bribe the prophet into loyalty; if this man can reverse Jeroboam’s shriveled hand, perhaps he can reverse the curse upon Bethel as well. The prophet, however, has been prepared for this: he has been ordered by God to refuse any sustenance until he returns home to Judah and is even to take a different way than he came to avoid being found or prevented on his mission. The man refuses Jeroboam’s offer and leaves for Judah (1 Kings 13:6-10).
We are then introduced to another unnamed prophet, this time an old one from Bethel. He is informed of the events that occurred in the city by his sons as well as the Judean’s location, and the old prophet chases the man down. He extends an offer of hospitality to the man of God, which he initially refuses on the same grounds as he did Jeroboam. The old prophet then lies and claims an angel told him to bring the man of God back to his house to eat with him. While the Judean should have suspected something was amiss, or at least consulted God about the apparent change in plans, he instead “went back” to the old prophet’s house; this is a clear violation of God’s command to “not return by the way which you came,” (1 Kings 13:9). This violation of God’s direct command will not go unpunished, even if the man of God is a prophet. While eating, the old prophet suddenly prophesies (this time accurately) that the man of God will be slain for his disobedience and his body will not return to Judah or his fathers’ grave (1 Kings 13:20-22). Sure enough, the man of God is slain by a lion as he continues his journey; the men who find him see both his donkey and the lion standing beside the body, indicating the supernatural causation of the prophet’s death. The old prophet, upon hearing this news, goes and retrieves the body, still eerily watched over by the same donkey and lion.
The old prophet mourns the man of God’s death and buries the man in the old prophet’s own grave. He then gives orders to his sons that the old prophet is to be buried in the same grave still, with his bones beside the bones of the man of God. His reasoning is that “For the thing shall surely come to pass which he cried by the word of the Lord against the altar in Bethel and against all the houses of the high places which are in the cities of Samaria,” (1 Kings 13:32). This is almost assuredly confirmed by the conclusion of the chapter, which notes that Jeroboam does not repent of his sins despite the incredible events that have occurred and continues to lead Israel down the path of idolatry. While this could be read as the old prophet repenting of his ways and recognizing the righteousness of God, it seems that is too generous a reading of this old prophet. It must be remembered that he lied about having an oracle from God, which directly led to the death of the other prophet. He wanted to share a meal with the man of God, which is the exact same thing that Jeroboam was doing; if the king was attempting to bribe the man of God to spare Bethel, it seems likely that the prophet of Bethel was attempting to do the same thing. When his hospitality fails to change the will of God, then, it seems that the old prophet takes further steps to protect himself; the man of God has prophesied that the bones of Bethel’s priests will be burned on the altar, and the old prophet is well aware of the implications that statement has for his own bones. To spare his corpse the indignity of this defilement, he is buried with a Judean prophet in hopes that his bones will be left untouched. Remember, bodies being properly buried and left undisturbed was considered by ANE cultures crucial for their hopes of an afterlife. It seems as if the old prophet was correct in his estimation; when King Josiah comes to Bethel and destroys the temple and altar there, he indeed starts to dig up the bones from the graves and burns them on the altar. The only grave left undisturbed is that of the old prophet and the man of God (2 Kings 23:15-18).
What is the point of this odd story? The fact that the man of God and old prophet are left unnamed in the story would seem to indicate that they are being used as symbols by the author of Kings, particularly as representatives of the nations of Judah and Israel. 2 Kings 17, which is a lengthy polemic against Israel explaining why their kingdom was destroy, notes in verse 19 that, “Also Judah did not keep the commandments of the Lord their God, but walked in the customs which Israel had introduced.” The idolatry of Israel ends up infecting Judah as well, and Judah’s choice to follow in Israel’s sinful ways (and even go further than Israel in the reign of Ahaz and Manasseh) is what leads to their exile and destruction. While Judah is a more righteous kingdom than Israel overall, with multiple kings that are said to walk in the footsteps of David, that does not excuse them from disobedience to God’s Law. Just like the man of God from Judah is not spared from his disobedience because of his faithful message to Jeroboam, Judah will face the consequences of their actions against God. The passage also serves, then, as foreshadowing of the fate of both Israel and Judah: they will go down to the grave together in exile, and the division of Jeroboam will be undone in the destruction of both kingdoms.
This is not the final mention of prophet’s bones in graves, however. A brief story appears in 2 Kings 13 concerning the bones of Elisha, the faithful prophet and deliverer of Israel. As a group of Israelites are burying a compatriot, a Moabite raiding band approaches. Panicking, the group throws their dead friend into Elisha’s grave (likely a tomb or cave). Amazingly, the man is resurrected when he touches the bones of Elisha (2 Kings 13:20-21). This remarkable event is then completely ignored as the narrative continues, but it serves an important coda for our story of bones in caves. Israel (and Judah like her) will soon be unceremoniously thrown out of the land of the living into the death of exile, particularly since the time of prophetic salvation has given way to prophetic judgment. Yet the prophets’ remains still have great power. If Israel will maintain contact with the teachings of the prophets in their exile, there remains hope that a miraculous restoration from exile might still occur! As Ezekiel will later prophesy, even the dry bones of Israel might be renewed into living flesh once more through the power of God (Ezekiel 37:1-14).
