SHOW NOTES

• • The Story of the Prophet Iddo (also called the Midrash of the Prophet Iddo^[1] and Visions of Iddo the Seer) is a lost work mentioned in the Bible, attributed to the biblical prophet Iddo who lived at the time of King Rehoboam according to Wikipedia.

    Hi everyone, I’m Tammy Becker, welcome to the Almighty God and Gospel Girl Podcast.  This week’s readings are 2 Chronicles 13 to 2 Chronicles 36.  In these pages we find the mention of a person called Iddo.  There is a lot of conversation about Iddo, Iddo the prophet, the lost works of the visions of Iddo, and so on.  So, I thought we would take a little dive into some of the things I was able to come up with in my research about Iddo. 

    Just a quick reminder, as in all things, never take my word for it or anyone else’s, it should be your personal journey with our Lord to pursue His Holy Word and let Him discern what it is meant for you to know.  What I put on my podcast is my findings, but I am only human and fatally flawed.  That is why I encourage you all to get in your Bibles and study, do the work and let God do the rest.  I’m merely here to help pull out some interesting things for you to research.  If you want to follow along with this podcasts show-notes, grab any links mentioned or see the graphics just go over to my website at youministries.com.

    Let’s get started.

    The Story of the Prophet Iddo is described at 2 Chronicles 9:29, relating to the acts of Solomon.  Here is that and some other Biblical references I found on Wikipedia:

     2 Chronicles 9:29

    "Now the rest of the acts of Solomon, first and last, are they not written in the book of Nathan the prophet, and in the prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite, and in the visions of Iddo the seer against Jeroboam the son of Nebat?"^[2]

    It is also described in 2 Chronicles 12:15, relating to acts of Rehoboam:

    "Now the acts of Rehoboam, first and last, are they not written in the book of Shemaiah the prophet, and of Iddo the seer concerning genealogies? And there were wars between Rehoboam and Jeroboam continually."^[3]

    The book is also described at 2 Chronicles 13:22, relating to relating to acts of Abijah:

    "And the rest of the acts of Abijah, and his ways, and his sayings, are written in the story of the prophet Iddo."^[4]

    Nehemiah 12:16 and Zech 1:1 tell us that Zechariah the Prophet was a son of Iddo. And Zechariah returned to the land from Captivity.

    Now listen to this story…

    Iddo.  Some believe this is the “unnamed man of God” mentioned in 1 Kings 13.  And let me quote the entire story from the NIV version, and then keep in the back of your mind to research what you find on Iddo being is this the quote “unnamed man of God”

    13 By the word of the Lord a man of God came from Judah to Bethel, as Jeroboam was standing by the altar to make an offering. ² By the word of the Lord he cried out against the altar: “Altar, altar! This is what the Lord says: ‘A son named Josiah will be born to the house of David. On you he will sacrifice the priests of the high places who make offerings here, and human bones will be burned on you.’” ³ That same day the man of God gave a sign: “This is the sign the Lord has declared: The altar will be split apart and the ashes on it will be poured out.”

    ⁴ When King Jeroboam heard what the man of God cried out against the altar at Bethel, he stretched out his hand from the altar and said, “Seize him!” But the hand he stretched out toward the man shriveled up, so that he could not pull it back. ⁵ Also, the altar was split apart and its ashes poured out according to the sign given by the man of God by the word of the Lord.

    ⁶ Then the king said to the man of God, “Intercede with the Lord your God and pray for me that my hand may be restored.” So the man of God interceded with the Lord, and the king’s hand was restored and became as it was before.

    ⁷ The king said to the man of God, “Come home with me for a meal, and I will give you a gift.”

    ⁸ But the man of God answered the king, “Even if you were to give me half your possessions, I would not go with you, nor would I eat bread or drink water here. ⁹ For I was commanded by the word of the Lord: ‘You must not eat bread or drink water or return by the way you came.’” ¹⁰ So he took another road and did not return by the way he had come to Bethel.

    ¹¹ Now there was a certain old prophet living in Bethel, whose sons came and told him all that the man of God had done there that day. They also told their father what he had said to the king. ¹² Their father asked them, “Which way did he go?” And his sons showed him which road the man of God from Judah had taken. ¹³ So he said to his sons, “Saddle the donkey for me.” And when they had saddled the donkey for him, he mounted it ¹⁴ and rode after the man of God. He found him sitting under an oak tree and asked, “Are you the man of God who came from Judah?”

    “I am,” he replied.

    ¹⁵ So the prophet said to him, “Come home with me and eat.”

    ¹⁶ The man of God said, “I cannot turn back and go with you, nor can I eat bread or drink water with you in this place. ¹⁷ I have been told by the word of the Lord: ‘You must not eat bread or drink water there or return by the way you came.’”

    ¹⁸ The old prophet answered, “I too am a prophet, as you are. And an angel said to me by the word of the Lord: ‘Bring him back with you to your house so that he may eat bread and drink water.’” (But he was lying to him.) ¹⁹ So the man of God returned with him and ate and drank in his house.

    ²⁰ While they were sitting at the table, the word of the Lord came to the old prophet who had brought him back. ²¹ He cried out to the man of God who had come from Judah, “This is what the Lord says: ‘You have defied the word of the Lord and have not kept the command the Lord your God gave you. ²² You came back and ate bread and drank water in the place where he told you not to eat or drink. Therefore your body will not be buried in the tomb of your ancestors.’”

    ²³ When the man of God had finished eating and drinking, the prophet who had brought him back saddled his donkey for him. ²⁴ As he went on his way, a lion met him on the road and killed him, and his body was left lying on the road, with both the donkey and the lion standing beside it. ²⁵ Some people who passed by saw the body lying there, with the lion standing beside the body, and they went and reported it in the city where the old prophet lived.

    ²⁶ When the prophet who had brought him back from his journey heard of it, he said, “It is the man of God who defied the word of the Lord. The Lord has given him over to the lion, which has mauled him and killed him, as the word of the Lord had warned him.”

    ²⁷ The prophet said to his sons, “Saddle the donkey for me,” and they did so. ²⁸ Then he went out and found the body lying on the road, with the donkey and the lion standing beside it. The lion had neither eaten the body nor mauled the donkey. ²⁹ So the prophet picked up the body of the man of God, laid it on the donkey, and brought it back to his own city to mourn for him and bury him. ³⁰ Then he laid the body in his own tomb, and they mourned over him and said, “Alas, my brother!”

    ³¹ After burying him, he said to his sons, “When I die, bury me in the grave where the man of God is buried; lay my bones beside his bones. ³² For the message he declared by the word of the Lord against the altar in Bethel and against all the shrines on the high places in the towns of Samaria will certainly come true.”

    ³³ Even after this, Jeroboam did not change his evil ways, but once more appointed priests for the high places from all sorts of people. Anyone who wanted to become a priest he consecrated for the high places. ³⁴ This was the sin of the house of Jeroboam that led to its downfall and to its destruction from the face of the earth.

     

    That is such a good story I had to read the entire thing so that you could get a feel and remember back when we read kings of how the Sept if jeroboam was but who was this man of God who was the prophet could this person that said he was the man of God be Iddo, so that's what some people think.

Also, the story of Iddo is consider a story that is and I quote “lost work mentioned in the bible”.  According once again to Wikipedia, A lost work is a document, literary work, or piece of multimedia produced some time in the past, of which no surviving copies are known to exist. It can only be known through reference. This term most commonly applies to works from the classical world, although it is increasingly used in relation to modern works. A work may be lost to history through the destruction of an original manuscript and all later copies.

Works—or, commonly, small fragments of works—have survived by being found by archaeologists during investigations, or accidentally by anybody.

So, let me leave you with this…is Iddo the “unnamed man of God” mentioned in 1 Kings 13.  I guess you will need to go do some deep diving into your Bible for now and ask God for the discernment on that one.  Let me know what you come up with in your studies.