sacrifice, all drenched in water, was an impressive show of YHWH’s might. The specific notice that the altar was destroyed need not be an addition to the story by a late reader sensitive to the prophet’s seeming sanction of a YHWH altar outside of Jerusalem in contradiction of Deuteronomic law (see further in Comment). and licked up the water that was in the trough. The fire “dried them up, until there was no moisture in the trough” (Qimḥi); in this sense, * lḥk is used of the ox, said “to lick