1 Raja-raja 13:1

13:1 Just then ¹  a prophet ²  from Judah, sent by the Lord, arrived in Bethel, ³  as Jeroboam was standing near the altar ready to offer a sacrifice.

1 Raja-raja 13:4-5

13:4 When the king heard what the prophet ⁴  cried out against the altar in Bethel, Jeroboam, standing at the altar, extended his hand ⁵  and ordered, ⁶  “Seize him!” The hand he had extended shriveled up ⁷  and he could not pull it back. 13:5 The altar split open and the ashes ⁸  fell from the altar to the ground, ⁹  in fulfillment of the sign the prophet had announced with the Lord’s authority. ¹⁰ 

1 Raja-raja 13:11

13:11 Now there was an old prophet living in Bethel. ¹¹  When his sons came home, they told their father ¹²  everything the prophet ¹³  had done in Bethel that day and all the words he had spoken to the king. ¹⁴ 

1 Raja-raja 17:18

17:18 She asked Elijah, “Why, prophet, have you come ¹⁵  to me to confront me with ¹⁶  my sin and kill my son?”

1 Raja-raja 17:24

17:24 The woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a prophet and that the Lord really does speak through you.” ¹⁷ 

[13:1]  ¹ tn Heb “Look.” The Hebrew particle הִנֵּה (hinneh) is a rhetorical device by which the author invites the reader to visualize the scene for dramatic effect.

[13:1]  ² tn Heb “the man of God.”

[13:1]  ³ tn Heb “came by the word of the Lord to Bethel.”

[13:4]  ⁴ tn Heb “the man of God.”

[13:4]  ⁵ tn Heb “Jeroboam extended his hand from the altar.”

[13:4]  ⁶ tn Heb “saying.”

[13:4]  ⁷ tn Heb “dried up” or “withered.” TEV and NLT interpret this as “became paralyzed.”

[13:5]  ⁸ tn Heb “the fat.” Reference is made to burnt wood mixed with fat. See HALOT 234 s.v. דשׁן.

[13:5]  ⁹ tn Heb “were poured out from the altar.”

[13:5]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “according to the sign which the man of God had given by the word of the Lord.”

[13:11]  ¹¹ map For location see Map4 G4; Map5 C1; Map6 E3; Map7 D1; Map8 G3.

[13:11]  ¹² tn Heb “and his son came and told him.” The MT has the singular here, but several other textual witnesses have the plural, which is more consistent with the second half of the verse and with vv. 12-13.

[13:11]  ¹³ tn Heb “the man of God.”

[13:11]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “all the actions which the man of God performed that day in Bethel, the words which he spoke to the king, and they told them to their father.”

[17:18]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “What to me and to you, man of God, that you have come.”

[17:18]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “to make me remember.”

[17:24]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “you are a man of God and the word of the Lord is truly in your mouth.”

[17:24]  sn This episode is especially significant in light of Ahab’s decision to promote Baal worship in Israel. In Canaanite mythology the drought that swept over the region (v. 1) would signal that Baal, a fertility god responsible for providing food for his subjects, had been defeated by the god of death and was imprisoned in the underworld. While Baal was overcome by death and unable to function like a king, Israel’s God demonstrated his sovereignty and superiority to death by providing food for a widow and restoring life to her son. And he did it all in Sidonian territory, Baal’s back yard, as it were. The episode demonstrates that Israel’s God, not Baal, is the true king who provides food and controls life and death. This polemic against Baalism reaches its climax in the next chapter, when the Lord proves that he, not Baal, controls the elements of the storm and determines when the rains will fall.