Iddo (prophet)

Iddo or Eido (Hebrew: עדו or עידו or עדא ('iD'o - First Kings 4:14) was a minor biblical prophet, who appears to have lived during the reigns of King Solomon and his heirs, Rehoboam and Abijah, in the Kingdom of Judah.

Although little is known about him, and he appears only in the Books of Chronicles, Iddo seems to have been rather prolific in his day, with his prophecies concerning the rival King Jeroboam I of Israel recorded in a lost book of visions (see 2 Chronicles 9:29). He also composed a history of King Rehoboam, known as the "Words of Shemaiah the Prophet and Iddo the Seer" (2 Chronicles 12:15), and of his son King Abijah (2 Chronicles 13:22). Some, such as Rashi, identify him with the unidentified "man of God" from I Kings 13:1. Iddo, on account of his prophecies against Jeroboam, has been identified by Josephus ("Ant." viii. 8, § 5) and Jerome ("Quæstiones Hebraicæ," to 2 Chron. 12:15) with the prophet who denounced the altar of Jeroboam and who was afterward killed by a lion for having disobeyed the Lord's command to not eat or drink on the way back from having prophesized to Jeroboam. His remains were laid to rest in the tomb of a prophet of Samaria who had detained him. (I Kings xiii). 300 years later during the reign of King Josiah when Jeroboam's altar was defiled by burning human bones on them by order of King Josiah, the king asked whose nearby tombstone this was; told it was that of the "man of God" who had predicted the doom of the altar and of the Bethel prophet, Josiah ordered the tomb to be left in peace as this prophecy had been fulfilled.{2 Kings 16-18}. Jerome identifies Iddo also with the Oded (father of Azariah) of II Chron. xv. 8.E.G.[1]

Another Iddo is mentioned in Ezra 8:17 as the chief man at the place Casiphia. Ezra requests assistance from Iddo and his brethren to bring servants for the Temple. It is this Iddo Ezra refers to when he calls the prophet Zechariah a "son of Iddo" in Ezra 5:1 and 6:14. The Book of Zechariah 1:1 and 1:7 mention Iddo as the paternal grandfather of Zechariah.

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