1 Kings 13:4
And it came to pass, when king Jeroboam heard the saying of the man of God, which had cried against the altar in Beth-el, that he put forth his hand from the altar, saying, Lay hold on him. And his hand, which he put forth against him, dried up, so that he could not pull it in again to him.
At Bethel a messenger cried against the altar with the sign that it would split and spill its ashes, and when Jeroboam in anger stretched out his hand to order him seized, that hand dried up, withered and became powerless so he could not draw it back. The sudden withering stopped the profane offering and restrained the attack as a swift rebuke confirming the word by divine power and showing God's displeasure with defiance and idolatrous worship, yet God spared the king's life and healed the arm when he earnestly asked for prayer. That sign should have led Jeroboam to repent, abandon his evil course and serve the Lord, but he was not humbled and instead hardened his heart and persisted in wrongdoing. The memory of the withered arm lived on to Ahab, filling him with dread of God's messenger so that though he feared and hated Elijah he dared not lift his hand against him and obeyed the summons to meet him.
Hand Withered at Bethel
The verse belongs to the confrontation at Bethel, where a man of God cried a message against the altar, giving as its accompanying sign that the altar would be split apart and its ashes poured out. In anger at those words against the altar, Jeroboam ordered the messenger to be seized. When he put forth his hand from the altar against the man of God, that outstretched hand immediately dried up, withered, became powerless and paralyzed, so that he could not pull it back again to himself.
The sudden withering interrupted the idolatrous offering and the profane sacrifice he was making. It restrained his attack on the messenger and left his arm and hand helpless. Rather than destroying the defiant king at once, God bore with him to arouse him. When the king earnestly asked the man of God to pray for him, the hand was healed.
The stroke was a swift rebuke and a confirming sign that the word spoken against the altar was backed by divine power. It showed God's displeasure with defiance and with the attempt to seize His messenger. It marked the idolatrous sacrifices as an abomination to God. It declared His displeasure with the attempt to establish false worship and to turn Israel away from worship at Jerusalem, while the palsied arm together with the tearing apart of the altar warned the king that he should stop doing wrong.
Warning Rejected and Remembered
The withered hand, together with the altar torn apart and the fate and death of the disobedient prophet, was meant to bring Jeroboam to repentance. It should have led him to abandon his evil ways and his plans for false worship, to stop doing wrong, and to turn and serve the Lord. The rent altar, the palsied arm, and the prophet's end stood as united warnings of divine displeasure that he should have heeded.
He was not humbled by the warning before the judgment fell. When the message was cried against the altar he answered not with humility but by ordering the messenger seized. Instead of repenting he hardened his heart, chose his own way, and persisted in wrongdoing, showing how sin hardens the heart.
The memory of that withered arm lived on and stayed with Ahab. It filled him with dread mingled with astonishment when Elijah summoned him. Though he feared and hated Elijah as God's messenger and dreaded another woe against Israel, he dared not lift his hand to harm him. He could not avoid obeying the summons, so the trembling king went to meet the prophet.
The larger story of the disobedient prophet in this chapter does not by itself prove anyone to be a deceived prophet. To call a person a deceived prophet on that ground alone is an accusation that must be supported. It must be supported by showing how that person has walked contrary to God.