1 Kings 13:19

So he went back with him, and did eat bread in his house, and drank water.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Benson Commentary

1 Kings 13:19. So he went back with him — Too readily hearkening to his words, and not considering that what God himself had expressly commanded, nothing but the express command of the same God could set aside: otherwise the commands of God might be made of none effect by any one who should feign to have a divine commission.

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

But he lied unto him - It is always to be remembered that the prophetic gift might co-exist with various degrees of moral imperfection in the person possessing it. Note especially the case of Balaam.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

18. an angel spake unto me by the word of the Lord—This circuitous mode of speaking, instead of simply saying, "the Lord spake to me," was adopted to hide an equivocation, to conceal a double meaning—an inferior sense given to the word "angel"—to offer a seemingly superior authority to persuade the prophet, while really the authority was secretly known to the speaker to be inferior. The "angel," that is, "messenger," was his own sons, who were worshippers, perhaps priests, at Beth-el. As this man was governed by self-interest, and wished to curry favor with the king (whose purpose to adhere to his religious polity, he feared, might be shaken by the portents that had occurred), his hastening after the prophet of Judah, the deception he practised, and the urgent invitation by which, on the ground of a falsehood, he prevailed on the too facile man of God to accompany him back to his house in Beth-el, were to create an impression in the king's mind that he was an impostor, who acted in opposition to his own statement.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

So he went back with him,.... In which he sinned; for as he had most certainly the command of God not to eat and drink in that place, he ought to have had the countermand from the Lord, and not trusted to another person. There are some things indeed which may be said in his favour, and be an apology for him, as that this man was an ancient prophet of the Lord, as he appeared to him; and that though he was forbid to eat and drink with idolaters, yet he thought he might with a prophet of the Lord, and especially as he affirmed he had the direction of an angel of the Lord for it; nor could he conceive that the prophet had any interest to serve by it, but rather it might be chargeable and burdensome to him; and he might think the Lord, out of compassion on him, had countermanded his former orders, and the circumstances he was in might the more incline him to listen to these plausible pretences; but, after all, he ought to have taken no directions but from the Lord himself; in this he failed:

and did eat bread in his house, and drink water; contrary to the express command of God.

Geneva Study Bible

So he went back with him, and did eat bread in his house, and drank water.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

19. So he went back with him] The LXX., by reading slightly different vowel points, renders ‘So he turned him back’. Josephus thinks these things were from God as in the case of the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart. ‘These things happened, I think, according to the will of God, that Jeroboam might give no heed to the words of Jadon, as he had been convicted of falsehood’, i.e. he had said he would not return, and then had done so.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 19. - So he went back with him, and did eat bread in his house, and drank water [cf. ver. 10]. 1 Kings 13:19

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.