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appointed, symbolical, and forming a unity of which no part could be touched without
impairing the whole. It was a movement which, if we may venture so to say, called for
immediate and unmistakable interposition from on high. Here, then, if anywhere, we
may look for the miraculous, and that in its most startling manifestation. Nor was it
long deferred.
It was, as we take it, the first occasion on which this new Feast of Tabernacles was
celebrated, perhaps at the same time also the dedication of the new Temple and the
inauguration of its services. Bethel was in festive array, and thronged by pilgrims - for
no less a personage than the king himself was to officiate as Chief Pontiff on that
occasion. Connecting, as we undoubtedly should do, the last verse of 1 Kings 12: with
the first of chapter 13, and rendering it literally, we read that on this feast which he
"made" (i.e. of his own devising) "to the children of Israel," the king "went up on the
altar," that is, up the sloping ascent which led to the circuit around the altar on which
the officiating priest stood. The sacrifices had already been offered, and their
smoldering embers and fat had mingled with the ashes (1 Kings 13:3).^205 And now the
most solemn and central part of the service was reached. The king went up the inclined
plane to the middle of the altar^206 to burn the incense, when he was suddenly arrested,
and the worshippers startled by a voice from among the crowd (comp. here the similar
event in John 7:37). It was a stranger who spoke, and, as we know him, a Judaean, "a
man of Elohim." He had come "in^207 the word of Jehovah" (1 Kings 13:1) - not merely
in charge of it, nor only in its constraining power, but as if the Word of Jehovah itself
had come, and this "man of God" been carried in it to deliver the message which he
"cried to the altar in the word of Jehovah" (ver. 2). It was to the spurious and rival altar
that he spake, and not to the king - for it was a controversy with spurious worship, and
King Jeroboam was as nothing before Jehovah.
That altar, and the policy which had reared it, would be shivered, the altar
desecrated,^208 and that by a son of David^209 whereof he gave them immediate symbolic
evidence that Jehovah had spoken by his mouth that day,^210 by this "wondrous sight,"
(^211) that the altar would be rent, and the ashes laden with the fat of the sacrifices poured
out.
Arrested by this uncompromising announcement from one whom he regarded as a
daring fanatical intruder, the king turned quickly round, and stretching out his hand
towards him, commanded, "Seize him!" But already a mightier Hand than King
Jeroboam's was stretched out. Now, if ever, would Jehovah vindicate His authority,
prove His Word, and show before all the people that He, Whose authority they had cast
off, was the Living God. Then and there must it be shown, in the idol-temple, at the
first consecration of that spurious altar, at the first false feast, and upon King
Jeroboam, in the pomp of his splendor and the boastfulness of his supposed power
(comp. here Acts 12:22, 23). The king had put forth his hand, but he could not draw it
(^)