When the king heard the saying of the man of God, which he cried against the altar at Bethel, Jeroboam stretched out his hand from the altar, saying, 'Seize him.' And his hand, which he stretched out against him, dried up, so that he could not draw it back to himself — Jeroboam's attempt to arrest the prophet becomes its own judgment: his hand withers—a sign of divine curse and the power of the prophetic word. The verb וַתִּיבַשׁ (vatibash, was dried up) employs the language of divine affliction, a plague in response to his blasphemous hostility toward the prophet. The withering hand serves as a visible sign that the prophet speaks with genuine divine authority. The phrase לֹא יָכוֹל לְהָשִׁיבָהּ אֵלָיו (lo yachol lehashivah elayv, he could not draw it back) emphasizes the hand's permanent paralysis, a catastrophic loss of agency.

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