1 Kings 13:14

And went after the man of God, and found him sitting under an oak: and he said unto him, Art thou the man of God that camest from Judah? And he said, I am.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(14) An oak.—Properly, the oak, or terebinth; supposed to be known in that comparatively treeless country, like the oak at Shechem (Genesis 35:4; Genesis 35:8; Joshua 24:26; Judges 9:6), the oak at Ophrah (Judges 6:11), and the palm-tree of Deborah (Judges 4:5). This expression is an evident mark of the antiquity of the document from which the history is taken. It has been suggested that the narrative implies a needless loitering of the prophet of Judah on the way. Taken by itself, it would not necessarily convey this; but in relation to the temper indicated in the whole story, the thing may be not improbable.

Benson Commentary

1 Kings 13:14. And found him sitting under an oak — Being faint and weary with his journey, and possibly with the heat also, (which made him choose to rest in this shady place,) and especially with hunger and thirst, 1 Kings 13:9. And the old prophet might easily guess that this was the prophet from Judah, by his age and carriage, and, it may be, by his prophetic mantle, and by the character which his sons had given of him.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

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.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Under an oak - literally, "under the oak," or "the terebinth-tree." There was a single well-known tree of the kind, standing by itself in the vicinity of Bethel, which the author supposed his readers to be acquainted with.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

11. Now there dwelt an old prophet in Beth-el—If this were a true prophet, he was a bad man.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Sitting under an oak; being faint and weary with his journey, and possibly with the heat, which makes him choose this shady place; and especially with hunger and thirst, 1 Kings 13:9. And he might easily guess that this was the old prophet, by his age and carriage, and, it may be, by his prophetical mantle, and by the character which his sons had given him.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And went after the man of God, and found him sitting under an oak,.... To shelter him from the heat, and being faint, hungry, and thirsty; so the ancients of old made use of oaks for a covering, before houses were invented (e); thus Abraham pitched his tent in the plain, or under the oak, of Mamre, Genesis 13:18.

and he said unto him, art thou the man of God that camest from Judah? which he might guess at from his habit, and from the description his sons had given of him:

and he said, I am; owned himself to be the person he inquired after.

(e) Suidas in voce

Geneva Study Bible

And went after the man of God, and found him sitting under an oak: and he said unto him, Art thou the man of God that camest from Judah? And he said, I am.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

14. under an oak] The tree named in the Hebrew is probably the terebinth. The noun has the article in the original, and it refers perhaps to some well-known tree which was a landmark in the neighbourhood. The terebinth is a very longlived tree, and an aged one would be sure to become noted.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 14. - And he went after the man of God and found him sitting under an oak [Heb. the oak; i.e., the well-known oak. Possibly there was but one, or one of great size, in the neighbourhood - such trees are comparatively rare in Palestine. Possibly also this tree became well known from these events. It is singular that in another place (Genesis 35:8) we read of "the oak" (אַלּון) of Bethel, whilst in Judges 4:5 we read of the "palm tree" (תֹּמֶר) of Deborah, between Ramah and Bethel." And it is not at all improbable, seeing that in 1 Samuel 10:3 we read of the terebinth (אֵלון) of Tabor - in the A.V. rendered "plain of Tabor" - which Ewald ("Hist. Israel," 3:21; 4:31) considers to be only a dialectic variation of Deborah, and remembering the great age to which these trees attain, that the same tree is referred to throughout. The word here used, it is true, is אֵלָה (which is generally supposed to indicate the terebinth, but is also "used of any large tree" (Gesenius), and which, therefore, may be used of the אַלּון of Bethel. Both names are derived from the same root (אוּל fortis. Cf. Amos 2:9), and both indicate varieties - what varieties it is not quite clear - of the oak. Some expositors have seen in this brief rest the beginning of his sin, and certainly it would seem against the spirit of his instructions to remain so near a place (see note on ver. 16) from which he was to vanish speedily, and, if possible, unperceived. In any case the action betrays his fatigue and exhaustion], and he said unto him, Art thou the man of God that camest from Judah? And he said, I am. 1 Kings 13:14

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

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.