If this people go up to do sacrifice in the house of Jehovah at Jerusalem, the heart of this people will turn again to their lord, to Rehoboam king of Judah, and they will kill me, and return to Rehoboam king of Judah.
God has just given Jeroboam the kingdom of Israel, and his first act as king is to count the odds against himself. He traces a chain of danger — worship at Jerusalem, loyalty to Rehoboam, his own death — and one question follows: why does a man who already holds a promise from God feel he must protect himself?
Before any of this reasoning, God had already set His terms with Jeroboam. He was not left to guess at his future.
Jeroboam had received a conditional pledge from the Lord: "And if you will listen to all that I command you, and will walk in my ways, and do what is right in my eyes by keeping my statutes and my commandments, as David my servant did, I will be with you and will build you a sure house, as I built for David, and I will give Israel to you" (1 Kings 11:38). He had only to let God act in his favour, to obey Him, and he could be sure of reigning over all that his soul desired.
The verse is a piece of political arithmetic, Each step follows from the one before. The problem is where the first step came from.
Events unfold without his having to interfere, but he is mistrustful, and says in his heart: "Now the kingdom will turn back to the house of David." He has no confidence in God, so he weighs up the probabilities and stops there. Faith never stops at probabilities — I would even go so far as to say that it feeds upon impossibilities and is the better for it. Once he has accepted that the kingdom will probably return to the house of David, Jeroboam carries his reasoning further. He thinks he must stop the people from going up to Jerusalem to offer their sacrifices there, in case they have contact with the royal house of Judah. The king decides that this is a matter of life and death: "the heart of this people will turn again to their lord, to Rehoboam king of Judah, and they will kill me." His decision is made: Israel must have a new religion. Out of his unbelief in God's promise, and out of his indifference to the worship of the Lord, comes a national religion. Jeroboam sets it up himself, and it is different from the worship God had established at Jerusalem.
Jeroboam feared the pilgrimage because of what the people would remember once they arrived there.
He was afraid that if he allowed his subjects to go up to Jerusalem they would think again of their old king — think again of the grand purposes of God connected with Jerusalem. What does he do then? He devises a religion out of his own head.
Jeroboam presented his new religion as a kindness — worship brought closer to home, at less cost. Something else lay underneath.
He put it on the ground of bringing religion to their doors, of helping his people to a religion that would not be too costly or too difficult; in fact, he was only seeking to make religion serve his policy. He did this knowing well that it is impossible for a kingdom — and more particularly Israel, God's people — to be strong on the earth where God is not owned. The owning of God has to be blended with the government, so that the kingdom does not have two rival authorities. In fact, of the two, religion has the stronger hold on the conscience, not civil obedience.
Jeroboam never took his problem to God. A different outcome was open to him.
There is no doubt that if Jeroboam had truly sought the mind of God about his problem, God would have reassured him. Whatever happened, the kingdom was his. And if he had set his people an example by going regularly to Jerusalem to worship, the two kingdoms could perhaps have lived together in peace and godliness for many years.
The question behind the verse outlives Jeroboam: who chooses the place of worship?
God had said, you shall worship in the place that I will choose. Dan and Bethel were Jeroboam's choice. Today many seek to serve God and "worship" Him in the manner and the place that suits them. But the New Testament teaches us that the place must be of God's choosing — the place where Christ is in the midst, and where the Holy Spirit is free to lead in true worship.
- Promise. Jeroboam already held God's pledge of a sure house; he needed only to obey and let God act for him.
- Probability. Instead he weighed the odds and stopped there — faith does not stop at probabilities, it feeds on impossibilities.
- Substitute. Fearing Jerusalem's pull on the people's hearts, he devised a religion out of his own head and made it serve his policy.
- Convenience. He sold the new worship as nearer and cheaper; that is still how a substitute for God's place wins a crowd.
- Counsel. He never took his problem to God — had he asked, God would have reassured him, and the two kingdoms might have lived in peace.
And 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 behold thy gods, Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt!
Jeroboam is Israel's new king, and his first act is to give the people a new place and a new object of worship. The two golden calves raise a question that runs through the rest of Israel's history: what happens when a man designs worship instead of receiving it from God?
The decision starts with a calculation. One writer traces it back to its root:
Events unfold without him having to interfere, but he does not trust God. He says in his heart, "Now the kingdom will turn back to the house of David." Having no confidence in God, he weighs the probabilities and stops there. Faith never stops at probabilities. I would even say that it feeds on impossibilities and is the better for it... He has made his decision: Israel must have a new religion.
The design of Israel's worship now came from the king himself, and the name it earned him stayed on him:
Now, the moral fall of the new king — of Jeroboam — was not long delayed. Judging by human wisdom and forgetting the fear of the LORD, he made two golden calves. He wanted to break the strong links of a shared worship, so that his subjects would no longer be tied to Judah and Jerusalem. He had to set up a new priesthood. Everything to do with worship he made up out of his own heart. Israel's sin became a fixed rule, and the phrase "Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin" became the sad title of their first king.
Notice how he sells it. The pitch is convenience:
He presented it as bringing religion to their doors, as helping his people to a religion that would not cost too much or be too hard — in fact, he was only trying to make religion serve his policy.
The verse opens with the king taking counsel. One writer points out who he consulted, and how his words went past what Israel and Aaron said at Sinai:
To abandon the worship of the true God is to fall into idolatry, whatever form it takes. In religion there is no middle ground. No doubt Jeroboam thought he had found such a middle ground: he did not adopt the false gods of the nations around him; he only wanted to set up a common religion for Israel. Having no heart-knowledge of the God who had spoken to him, he took counsel with himself and made two golden calves... He brings back into honour that Jewish idolatry which the people had practised at the foot of Sinai, and which had brought God's judgment down on them. Only he goes further than Israel went in the wilderness. His abandoning of God is more complete. "Behold your gods," he says, while the people had said, "This is your god" (Ex. 32:4-5, J. N. Darby translation). He does not add, as Aaron had done, "Tomorrow is a feast to the LORD!" The LORD is completely set aside.
(Note: this contrast comes from an older translation. The ESV reads "These are your gods" in Exodus 32:4.)
The sharpest part comes at the end. Jeroboam credits the calves with the rescue from Egypt.
He "made two calves of gold, and said … Behold your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt." In short, this was a complete denial of the sovereign mercy of God, who had delivered His people by the power of His own hand. The antidote to self-importance is a deep sense of sovereign mercy kept in our souls.
The calves were only the start. What he built next was a careful copy, placed at the two ends of his land:
Jeroboam is a cunning politician. He sets up one calf at Bethel, on the boundary with Judah, and the other at Dan, the northern frontier of his territory. He patterns his worship after the form of the worship prescribed by the law of Moses. "A house of high places" replaces the temple. In place of the Levitical priesthood come "priests from all classes of the people, who were not of the sons of Levi."... All this "he had devised of his own heart"!
One writer draws a short, direct warning:
Beware of changing, even of modifying, the instructions God has given us in His Word!
- Fear starts it. Jeroboam weighs the odds instead of trusting God. Unbelief invents the calves.
- Convenience sells it. He offers religion nearer home, cheaper and easier — worship reshaped to serve his policy.
- Imitation hides it. He copies temple and priesthood, so the new system looks like the real one — yet he devised it all out of his own heart.
- Robbery completes it. Crediting the calves with the rescue from Egypt denies the mercy of the God whose own hand delivered them.
- A name records it. This one act names him ever after: the man "who made Israel to sin." Design your own worship, and you lead others into it.