Then the prophet replied, “I too 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, so that he may eat bread and drink water.’” The old prophet was lying to him,
The man of God had honestly and resolutely refused the king's invitation, though he promised him a reward; yet he was over-persuaded by an old prophet to come back with him, and dine in Beth-el, contrary to the command given him. Here we find how dearly his dinner cost him. Observe with wonder, I. The old prophet's wickedness.
Commenting on 1 Kings 13:11-22
And it came to pass, as they sat at the table,.... The old prophet, with his sons, and the man of God; the Arabic version adds, "and did eat", there being a pause in the Hebrew text, as if something was wanting, and to be understood and supplied: that the word of the Lord came unto the prophet that brought him back; that is, to...
an angel spake unto me by the word of the Lord--This circuitous mode of speaking, instead of simply saying, "the LORD spake to me," was adopted to hide an equivocation, to conceal a double meaning--an inferior sense given to the word "angel"--to offer a seemingly superior authority to persuade the prophet, while really the authority was secretly known to the speaker to be inferior.