25; Deuteronomy xviii. 18:
"Jehovah testified to them by all the prophets and seers saying,
Turn ye from your evil ways and keep my commandments and statutes,
according to all the Torah which I commanded your fathers and which
I sent unto you by my servants the prophets."
The most unblushing example of this kind, a piece which, for historical
worthlessness may compare with Judges xix.-xxi. or 1Samuel vii. seq.,
or even stands a step lower, is 1Kings xiii. A man of God from Judah
here denounces the altar of Bethel, at which King Jeroboam is in the
act of offering sacrifice, in these terms:
"O altar, altar, behold a son shall be born to the house of David,
Josiah by name; and upon thee shall he offer the priests of the
high places, that burn incense upon thee, and men's bones shall be
burned upon thee."
And to guarantee the truth of this prophecy, to be fulfilled three
hundred years afterwards, he gives the sign that the altar shall
burst asunder, and the ashes of the sacrifice upon it be poured
out--which at once takes place. This legend, however, does not
really belong to the Deuteronomist, but is a still later
addition, as is easily to be seen from the fact that the sentence
xii.
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