‘The altar shall be broken in an instant and all the fat of the victims on it shall be spilled upon the ground’ (Ant. 8.232). Not only does this duly take place, but Jeroboam’s hand becomes paralysed when he stretches it out to order Jadon’s arrest. Subsequently, however, a false prophet argues that these supposed signs have a natural explanation: Jeroboam’s hand had been temporally numbed by the fatigue of carrying the sacrifice, and the new altar had collapsed under the weight of the things placed
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