He said to him, "I also am a prophet like you, and an angel spoke to me by the word of the LORD, saying, 'Bring him back with you to your house, that he may eat bread and drink water.'" But he lied to him.I don't understand exactly why the old prophet lied here, but this is my best guess. This prophet lived in Israel, not Judah. Israel has forsaken God's temple, and the old prophet hasn't done anything about it that we've seen. He hasn't protested, hasn't been given prophecy against it, and he hasn't moved south to Judah so that he can still worship at the Temple.
Now comes a prophet from Judah, who goes and prophesies against the high place and its altar. In his presence a miracle happens, and Jeroboam's arm withers. He prays for the king, and the arm is healed. Then he finds out the man is headed home, without so much as drinking on the way back to avoid contamination. Could it be that he does all this specifically to get the prophet in trouble, as punishment for disrupting the status quo? The old prophet apparently doesn't mind the new system, and here this out-of-towner, this near-foreigner, comes in a starts messing with things. This might have been simple retribution.
I certainly hope I'm not guilty of this, sinning when God is revealing His will and plan, in a selfish attempt to thwart God's work.
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