Prophet Joad

The Prophet Joad lived around the tenth century B.C. and was from Samaria. In the third Book of Kings, chapter thirteen, the Saint is simply called "a man of God."

The Lord sent this Prophet from Judea to Bethel to rebuke King Jeroboam of israel for turning his people to idolatry. Joad arrived at Bethel just as Jeroboam stood at the altar he had built in order to offer a sacrifice. Joad warned those who had gathered before the altar that a son would be born to the house of David, and he would be named Josiah. Joad went on to say that the priests of the high places who offered sacrifice on that altar would be burned upon it. When Jeroboam heard this prophecy he ordered that the man of God be seized. Then Jeroboam himself reached out to grab the Prophet, and the King's hand withered. He begged the Prophet to plead with the Lord to heal his hand, and the King's hand was restored to the way it was before.

Jeroboam was grateful, and he invited Joad to come into his home and receive a gift. The man of God declined, saying that God had ordered him not to eat any bread or drink any water, and not to return home by the way he had come. So he left by a different way.

In Bethel there was a false prophet named Emba, whose sons informed him of what the man of God had done that day, and what he said to the King. Emba told his sons to saddle his ass, and show him which way the man of God had gone. He found Joad sitting under an oak tree and inquired, "Are you the man of God who came from Judea?"

Joad replied, "I am."

Then the false prophet invited him to come and eat bread with him, but the man of God repeated the same words he had spoken to Jeroboam.

Emba said, "I am also a prophet such as you are, and an Angel spoke to me by the word of the Lord, saying, 'Bring him to your house and let him eat bread and drink water.' But that was a lie! So the man of God went to Emba's house and there he ate bread and drank water. While they sat at the table, the word of the Lord came to Emba, who declared: "Thus says the Lord: 'Because you have resisted the Lord's word, and did not keep the commandment which the Lord your God gave you, your body shall not be entombed with your fathers.'"

Then the man of God saddled his ass and left. A lion found him and killed him, and cast his body aside. The ass stood by the body, and so did the lion. Some men passed by and saw the lion and the ass standing by the carcass. Then they went to the city where the false prophet lived and told him about seeing the body of the man of God who rebelled against the word of the Lord. Emba went to retrieve the body, and noticed that the lion had not devoured it, nor did the lion attack the ass.

Then the old man took the body and brought it to his own city, and placed it in his tomb. Emba told his sons to bury him next to the man of God when he died; "for the word will surely come to pass, which he spoke against the altar in Bethel, and against the high houses in Samaria."

The Prophet Joad should not be confused with the Prophet Joel (October 19), who is one of the twelve minor Prophets.