The Hyperlinked Bible
Intertextuality Pair
Quotation
Later text
He even pulled down the altar at Bethel, the high place set up by Jeroboam son of Nebat, who had caused Israel to sin. Then he burned the high place, ground it to powder, and burned the Asherah pole. And as Josiah turned, he saw the tombs there on the hillside, and he sent someone to take the bones out of the tombs, and he burned them on the altar to defile it, according to the word of the LORD proclaimed by the man of God who had foretold these things.
Earlier text
1 Kings 13:2BSB
And he cried out against the altar by the word of the LORD, "O altar, O altar, this is what the LORD says: 'A son named Josiah will be born to the house of David, and upon you he will sacrifice the priests of the high places who burn incense upon you, and human bones will be burned upon you.'"
In 1 Kings 13:2, the unnamed man of God from Judah prophesies against Jeroboam's altar at Bethel with extraordinary specificity: "A son named Josiah (יֹאשִׁיָּהוּ, Yo'shiyyahu) will be born to the house of David, and upon you he will sacrifice the priests of the high places who burn incense upon you, and human bones will be burned upon you." Approximately three centuries later, 2 Kings 23:15-16 records the exact fulfillment: Josiah pulls down the Bethel altar, grinds it to powder, burns the Asherah pole, takes bones from nearby tombs and burns them on the altar to defile it — "according to the word of the LORD proclaimed by the man of God who had foretold these things." The oracle's other clause — that Josiah would "sacrifice the priests of the high places" upon the altar — is discharged at 2 Kings 23:20, where he slaughters the priests of the high places on the altars and burns human bones on them; the two clauses reach precise fulfillment at 2 Kgs 23:15-16 (the bones) and 23:20 (the priests of the high places). This is one of the most explicit prophecy-fulfillment pairs in the Old Testament, with a specific name given centuries in advance and confirmed by the narrator upon fulfillment.