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Context No. 218 of 4322 · 1 Kings

Context · Reflection

1 Kings 12:25-33: in context

25Then Jeroboam built Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim, and lived in it; and he went out from there and built Penuel. 26Jeroboam said in his heart, “Now the kingdom will return to David’s house. 27If this people goes up to offer sacrifices in the LORD’s house at Jerusalem, then the heart of this people will turn again to their lord, even to Rehoboam king of Judah; and they will kill me, and return to Rehoboam king of Judah.” 28So the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold; and he said to them, “It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Look and behold your gods, Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” 29He set the one in Bethel, and the other he put in Dan. 30This thing became a sin, for the people went even as far as Dan to worship before the one there. 31He made houses of high places, and made priests from among all the people, who were not of the sons of Levi. 32Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, like the feast that is in Judah, and he went up to the altar. He did so in Bethel, sacrificing to the calves that he had made, and he placed in Bethel the priests of the high places that he had made. 33He went up to the altar which he had made in Bethel on the fifteenth day in the eighth month, even in the month which he had devised of his own heart; and he ordained a feast for the children of Israel, and went up to the altar to burn incense.

Solomon's kingdom has just torn in two. The northern ten tribes have made Jeroboam their king, while Rehoboam keeps Judah and the temple in Jerusalem. Jeroboam has a throne, but the problem in these verses is that the holiest place in the land sits in his rival's territory.

He reasons it out in his own heart, and the text lets us hear the reasoning. If my people keep going up to Jerusalem to sacrifice, their loyalty will follow, and they will kill me and go back to the house of David. So he builds an alternative. He makes two golden calves and sets one at Bethel and one at Dan, at the two ends of his kingdom, and tells the people these are the gods who brought them up from Egypt, the same words Aaron used at the foot of Sinai. He appoints priests who are not Levites, and he invents a festival in the eighth month to rival Judah's feast in the seventh, a date, the writer says twice, that he devised out of his own heart.

Nothing here is a crisis of belief. It is worship redesigned to keep a king safe, religion bent to serve a political need, and the writer of Kings will measure every northern ruler after him against this sin. Where have I quietly reshaped what I claim to worship, to protect something I was afraid of losing?

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