Golden Calves at Bethel and Dan
25 Then Jeroboam fortified Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim and lived there. From there he went out and built up Peniel. 26 Jeroboam thought to himself, “The kingdom will now likely revert to the house of David. 27 If these people go up to offer sacrifices at the temple of the LORD in Jerusalem, they will again give their allegiance to their lord, Rehoboam king of Judah. They will kill me and return to King Rehoboam.”
Jeroboam’s logic seems sound, but he didn’t trust the Lord. God promised to give him the ten tribes. His first thought was to make improvements to Peniel. That was the place where Jacob had wrestled with the Angel of the Lord (Genesis 32) on his way to meet with his brother Esau. At Peniel, Jacob was worried that Esau would take revenge for what Jacob had done, but he was surprised to find that Esau had forgiven him, that he was prospering, and that he embraced him in brotherly friendship (Genesis 33:4). Jeroboam should have trusted that God would preserve this new northern kingdom and prosper it, but he didn’t.
28 After seeking advice, the king made two golden calves. He said to the people, “It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Here are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.” 29 One he set up in Bethel, and the other in Dan. 30 And this thing became a sin; the people came to worship the one at Bethel and went as far as Dan to worship the other.
Jeroboam wasn’t introducing open idolatry with these golden calves. He quotes the Israelites at Mount Sinai. When the people got nervous when Moses was upon the mountain too long, they asked Aaron to make them an image they could worship, just as they had seen the Egyptians do. When Aaron made a golden calf, the people said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt” (Exodus 32:4).
We can distinguish what Jeroboam did from what King Ahab will do a few chapters later. Ahab actually introduced Baal worship to a false god and forbade the people from worshiping the true God. Jeroboam’s idea wasn’t good, and he will be condemned for it over and over again. But we will see that Ahab’s sin was so utterly repulsive to the Lord that God wiped out his entire family.
That doesn’t mean we’re going to let Jeroboam off as a reformer or an innovator. These bulls calves were objects of worship (“Here are your gods”), and the people worshiped both of them. Not at both of them, but they worshiped both of these calves. That’s why the author tells us that “thing thing became a sin.” Those calves became a stumbling block to Israel for decades and even centuries to come.
31 Jeroboam built shrines on high places and appointed priests from all sorts of people, even though they were not Levites. 32 He instituted a festival on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, like the festival held in Judah, and offered sacrifices on the altar. This he did in Bethel, sacrificing to the calves he had made. And at Bethel he also installed priests at the high places he had made. 33 On the fifteenth day of the eighth month, a month of his own choosing, he offered sacrifices on the altar he had built at Bethel. So he instituted the festival for the Israelites and went up to the altar to make offerings. (NIV)
Jeroboam’s reign had not begun well.
Another innovation of Jeroboam’s was a change in the requirements for the priesthood. He also tried to imitate the festivals of Judah. What’s astounding about this isn’t that one man tried to change things up in the religious life of the people—that happens all the time. What’s astounding is that the people swallowed it hook, line and sinker.
A few did not. A few prophets and a few believers remained in the north who were faithful to God (in a few weeks, we’ll take a short break in Kings to read one of these prophets). We don’t have to follow the group when it goes astray. We might think we’re being yeast that can cause change, but it’s not wrong to stand up for what God has said, for what the gospel is, and to proclaim the word of God truly and purely.
May God sanctify you with his truth. His word is truth.
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. His wife, Kathryn, attended Chapel from 1987-1990 while studying Secondary Education (Theater and Math) at UW-Madison. Kathryn’s father, John Meyer, was also the first man to serve as a Vicar at Chapel.
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