1 Kings 13:16

13:11-22 The old prophet's conduct proves that he was not really a godly man. When the change took place under Jeroboam, he preferred his ease and interest to his religion. He took a very bad method to bring the good prophet back. It was all a lie. Believers are most in danger of being drawn from their duty by plausible pretences of holiness. We may wonder that the wicked prophet went unpunished, while the holy man of God was suddenly and severely punished. What shall we make of this? The judgments of God are beyond our power to fathom; and there is a judgment to come. Nothing can excuse any act of wilful disobedience. This shows what they must expect who hearken to the great deceiver. They that yield to him as a tempter, will be terrified by him as a tormentor. Those whom he now fawns upon, he will afterwards fly upon; and whom he draws into sin, he will try to drive to despair.

And he said, I may not return with thee, nor go in with thee,.... Into the city, and into his house in it, being such an idolatrous place, and especially being forbidden of God: neither will I eat bread nor drink water with thee in this place; he was resolute and determined to abide by the commandment of the Lord, though there is reason to believe that he was now both hungry and thirsty.

But the prophet informed him of a divine injunction expressly prohibiting him from all social intercourse with any in the place, as well as from returning the same way. The prohibition not to eat or drink in Beth-el was because all the people had become apostates from the true religion, and the reason he was not allowed to return the same way was lest he should be recognized by any whom he had seen in going.

Verse 16. - And he said, I may not [Heb. am not able to] return with thee, nor go in with thee: neither will I eat bread nor drink water with thee in this place. [The translation " in that place" adopted by Wordsworth (after the Vulgate, in loco isto ) does not agree with the Hebrew. And it is not required by the context. The tree was probably at no great distance from the town.] 1 Kings 13:16

Seduction of the man of God by an old prophet, and his consequent punishment. - 1 Kings 13:11-19 . The man of God had resisted the invitations of Jeroboam, and set out by a different road to return to Judah. An old prophet at Bethel heard from his sons what had taken place (the singular בנו יבוא as compared with the plural ויספּרוּם may be explained on the supposition that first of all one son related the matter to his father, and that then the other sons supported the account given by the first); had his ass saddled; hurried after him, and found him sitting under the terebinth (the tree well known from that event); invited him to come into his house and eat with him; and when the latter appealed to the divine prohibition, said to him ( 1 Kings 13:18 ), "I am a prophet also as thou art, and an angel has said to me in the word of the Lord: Bring him back with thee into thy house, that he may eat and drink," and lied to him (לו כּחשׁ without a copula, because it is inserted as it were parenthetically, simply as an explanation) - then he went back with him, and ate and drank in his house.