And he set the one in Bethel, and the other he put in Dan.
Two verses earlier Jeroboam made two golden calves. Here he chooses their two homes: one in the south of his new kingdom, one in the far north.
Jeroboam's first move came out of fear. He reasoned like a politician about how to keep his people from going to Jerusalem.
However, Jeroboam was worried. If the Israelites went to Jerusalem, God's centre, to offer sacrifices, they might want to return and accept the rule of Rehoboam. Jeroboam had no real faith in the living God. So he took the advice of his officials and followed human expediency. He set up not one centre for Israel's worship but two, and both of them stood in opposition to God's one centre. To carry out this plan he had two golden calves made, one set in Bethel (in the south of the land) and the other in Dan (in the north).
Jeroboam sold the two sites to his people as a kindness. Worship would now be near, cheap and easy.
He presented it as bringing religion to their doors. He was 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 a kingdom cannot be strong on the earth where God is not acknowledged. That is even more true of Israel, God's people. The government must acknowledge God too, so that the kingdom does not have two contrary authorities. For in fact the stronger of the two for the conscience is religion, not civil obedience.
Bethel was not a random town. Its name and its history made a calf there a direct insult.
Instead of asking God, we read that Jeroboam "took counsel," evidently from men. The result was the setting up of the two golden calves. One stood at Dan, in the far north. The other stood at Bethel, as a challenge to the God of Jacob. It is striking that he repeated the sin of Aaron and the people of Israel at the foot of Sinai… Jeroboam even repeated the words of Aaron: "Behold your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt." … Some argue that Jeroboam was really worshipping the Lord, only with the help of visible images. People urge this today to excuse blatant idolatry. The Bible does not support it. It says plainly: "This thing became a sin."
Later God spoke of the town under a different name.
Bethel means "House of God." It was sacred as the spot where God showed Himself to Jacob and graciously pledged Himself to His servant (Genesis 28:10-22). Now one of Jeroboam's calves stood there, and the Lord spoke of the place with contempt as Bethaven — "house of folly" (Hosea 4:15).
Dan already had a history of idols. Generations earlier a grandson of Moses set up idol worship there, and his line of priests kept it alive.
Jonathan turned away from the God of his grandfather, the leader and lawgiver of Israel, and encouraged the worship of idols… He started and established that line of idolatrous priesthood. It continued in the tribe of Dan through many centuries, "until the day of the captivity of the land" (Judges 18:30)… The first sign of this harmful influence in Israel's history is the setting up of Micah's carved image in the city of Dan (Judges 18:29-31).
A later king, Jehu, had his own reason to keep the calves standing.
Jehu cared for himself and not for God. The golden calves were a political religion, and it suited the policy of the ten tribes to keep them up. If the ten tribes had had no calves of gold, they would have returned to their allegiance to the Lord in Jerusalem. The calves were the great means of having another centre. Suppose Jerusalem had stayed the one centre for all twelve tribes. Then they would have united in the worship of God, and under the same king.
Commentators read the two sites as a warning about choosing our own ground for worship.
God had said, you shall worship in the place that I shall choose. Dan and Bethel were Jeroboam's choice. Today many seek to serve God and "worship" Him in the way and the place that suits them. But the New Testament teaches us that the place must be of God's choosing. It must be the place where Christ is in the midst, and where the Holy Spirit is free to lead in true worship.
- Fear — the calves started in a heart with no real faith in God. Jeroboam solved his problem on a human level instead.
- Convenience — Jeroboam sold both sites as religion made near, cheap and easy. In truth they served his own policy.
- Substitution — Bethel, the house of God, became the house of folly. Claiming to picture the true God with an image is still idolatry.
- Inheritance — Dan had housed idols since Judges 18. The north was ready ground for what Jeroboam set there.
- Permanence — a religion kept because it is useful outlives the man who invented it. The place of worship must be God's choice, not ours.
And this thing became a sin; and the people went [to worship] before the one, as far as Dan.
Jeroboam's two golden calves are now in place — one at Bethel, one at Dan — and the people come and worship. This verse records the outcome the king wanted and the verdict God gave on it: sin.
People still defend images in worship with the same reasoning. One writer answers it from this verse:
Some have argued that Jeroboam was really worshipping the LORD, but with the help of visible images. People use that argument today to excuse open idolatry. The Bible does not support it. It says plainly: "This thing became a sin." God does not need an image to enable people to worship Him. In fact, Scripture condemns the very idea throughout.
The sin was not new. The same writer traces it back to the golden calf Israel made at Mount Sinai:
It is remarkable that Jeroboam repeated the sin of Aaron and the people of Israel at the foot of Mount Sinai. There God had already spoken the solemn words: "You shall have no other gods before me." He even repeated the words of Aaron: "Behold your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt."
The verse moves from what the king made to what the nation did — the people went. A leader's device became a people's religion:
The solemn result was that the people became worshippers of these false gods, "sacrificing to the calves," and were in this way led into apostasy. At Bethel Jacob had set up a pillar. It was a witness to God's unconditional promise of blessing to Jacob's descendants, and to God's unchanging faithfulness to His own word. Now Bethel becomes the witness instead to man's sin and apostasy. Through their leaders the enemy had undermined the people's confidence in God, and so had separated them from Him.
Jeroboam set up two calves, yet the verse follows the people to only one of them — as far as Dan. One writer explains why:
The reason Dan was the one chiefly used was this: it was at the greatest distance from Jerusalem. Bethel was rather too near. As he would have thought, a dozen miles or so might have exposed them to the pull of Jerusalem. So Dan was the one. Although there were two, Dan was the one chiefly favoured.
The new worship looked like the real thing. That resemblance was the danger:
Despite its misleading outward forms, this religion was a complete forsaking of the worship of the LORD. It was an instrument of policy in the hands of the government. False appearances lulled souls and kept them far from the true God, and the king of David's line became a stranger to them.
Behind it lay a refusal to trust the word Jeroboam already had:
Jeroboam had received a definite word from God through the prophet Ahijah. If he would listen to God's commands, walk in God's ways, and keep the statutes and commandments of the LORD, God would be with him and establish his house. Yet when Jeroboam came to the throne, instead of depending on God and His word, he sought to establish his kingdom by his own devices.
A single decision hardened into a national habit, and then into a name attached to a man for ever:
Judging by human wisdom and forgetting the fear of the LORD, he made two golden calves. His aim was to break the strong bonds of a shared worship, so that they would no longer tie his subjects to Judah and Jerusalem. He had to set up a new priesthood. He devised everything to do with worship out of his own heart. Israel's sin was an established rule. The phrase "Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin," became the sad description of their first king.
The story ends centuries later, when Assyria carried Israel away:
The idolatry of Jeroboam stayed with Israel until they were led into captivity, and it was a leading cause of that captivity. As it is written: "Jeroboam drove Israel from following the LORD and made them commit great sin… They did not depart from them, until the LORD removed Israel out of His sight, as He had spoken by all His servants the prophets. So Israel was exiled from their own land to Assyria until this day" (2 Kings 17:21–23).
- Forgetting starts it. Jeroboam forgot the fear of the LORD and judged by human wisdom. He devised a worship out of his own heart to keep his subjects from Jerusalem.
- Distance spreads it. Jeroboam favoured Dan because it sat farthest from Jerusalem; the nearer the true centre, the weaker a substitute's hold.
- People adopt it. The verse turns from the king's act to the nation's practice. Through their leaders the enemy undermined the people's confidence in God, and they became worshippers of calves.
- Appearance hides it. A new priesthood and religious forms made the system look genuine, but those forms only kept souls far from the true God and from David's king.
- Captivity ends it. What began as one man's policy stayed until the LORD removed Israel out of His sight. It left Jeroboam known as the man who made Israel sin.
And he made a house of high places, and made priests from all classes of the people, who were not of the sons of Levi.
Jeroboam had just set two golden calves in Dan and Bethel to stop his people travelling south to Jerusalem. Verse 31 adds his own shrines and his own priests, which raises one question: is a copy of God's pattern still worship?
The new religion was not crude paganism. It was a careful imitation, item for item, of what God had set up in Jerusalem.
Jeroboam is a cunning politician. He sets up one calf at Bethel, on the boundary with Judah, and the other at Dan, the northern edge of his territory. He shapes his worship to match the worship the law of Moses laid down. "A house of high places" takes the place of the temple. In place of the Levitical priesthood he puts "priests from all classes of the people, who were not of the sons of Levi." Israel had its Feast of Tabernacles, so Jeroboam set up a feast of his own, one month later. He sets up an altar at Bethel to match the bronze altar, places it before the idol, and burns incense on it instead of burnt offerings (vv. 31-33). All this "he had devised of his own heart"!
God had limited the priesthood to one family, and Jeroboam knew it. The older wording these writers quote reads "priests of the lowest of the people"; the ESV reads "priests from among all the people."
"And he made a house of high places, and made priests of the lowest of the people, which were not of the sons of Levi." This broke God's law about the priesthood outright. See Num. 18:1-7. And he did not stop there. He clearly held the rightful priests and the Levites under suspicion, and he refused their service. "For Jeroboam and his sons," we read, "had cast them out from serving as priests to the Lord, and he appointed his own priests for the high places, for the demons, and for the calves which he had made" (2 Chron. 11:14-15).
His decision forced a decision on the true priests.
God had appointed the family of Aaron as priests, and the Levites to serve them. But Jeroboam refused this claim and appointed priests of his own choosing for worship of idols in high places (v. 15). Therefore the priests and Levites moved to Judah, leaving the lands that had been given them among the ten tribes (vv. 13-14). What else could they do? Jeroboam's idolatry had left no room for priests of the Lord.
The copy looked close enough to fool people. That was exactly the danger.
Thus, despite its misleading external forms, this religion was a complete forsaking of the worship of the Lord, an instrument of polity in the hands of the government. Lulled by false appearances, souls were kept far from the true God, and the king of the line of David became a stranger to them.
A name borrowed from Scripture does not bring God's authority with it.
No doubt people, acting in self-will, can set up an organisation of their own. They can elect or appoint officers and give them the names Scripture uses. But these so-called elders and deacons of the various sects are no more elders or deacons by God's order than Jeroboam's "house of high places" was the temple of the Lord. They are no more so than the priests he appointed, "not of the sons of Levi," were the priests of the Lord, or than the feast he set up in the eighth month, "the month which he had devised of his own heart," was the feast of the Lord (1 Kings 12:31-33).
The verse holds two choices: Jeroboam's place, and Jeroboam's priests. Both are still made today.
God had said, You shall worship in the place that I shall choose. Dan and Bethel were Jeroboam's choice. Today many seek to serve God and "worship" Him in the way and the place that suits them. But the New Testament teaches us that the place must be of God's choosing. It is the place where Christ is in the midst, and where the Holy Spirit is free to lead in true worship. God had also chosen Aaron and his sons to serve Him as priests. Jeroboam had no access to God's priests, so he "made priests of the lowest of the people, which were not of the sons of Levi." Christendom has its counterpart: it sets up a "priestly class," often made up of unconverted men (or women!), and sets aside the divine principle that all believers are priests.
- Motive. Jeroboam built this worship to protect his throne. It served the government, not God.
- Method. He copied God's pattern item by item: a house of high places for the temple, his own feast, his own altar.
- Men. God's law gave the priesthood to Levi alone. Jeroboam appointed others, and the true priests left for Judah.
- Measure. A scriptural name on a human appointment creates nothing. The copy stays a copy.
- Modern. We still make the same two choices: our own place, and our own priestly class. Scripture gives the priesthood to every believer.
And Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, like the feast that was in Judah, and he offered upon the altar. So did he 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.
Jeroboam had just pulled ten tribes away from Jerusalem. To keep them from going back there, he fixed his own festival date, built an altar, and installed his own priests. It all looked like the worship God had commanded in Judah. So what makes worship acceptable to God?
Every part of Jeroboam's system had a match in the law God gave through Moses. One writer lists them side by side.
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 he puts "priests from all classes of the people, who were not of the sons of Levi." As Israel had its Feast of Tabernacles, Jeroboam also set up a feast, but a month later. He sets up an altar at Bethel to match the bronze altar. He places it before the idol, and burns incense on it instead of burnt offerings.
The date is the point. God had fixed His festival in the seventh month. Jeroboam moved his one month later.
Jeroboam's feast copied the Feast of Tabernacles. God had commanded Israel to keep that feast in the seventh month. The eighth was the month Jeroboam "devised of his own heart" — a heart always "deceitful" and "desperately wicked." And how many practices and customs in Christendom have been "devised" out of men's own hearts with no foundation in Scripture! Many seem to think that in spiritual things every man may do what is right in his own eyes, instead of "Thus says the Lord."
This new religion served the government. It also cost the people who trusted it.
So despite its misleading outward forms, this religion completely abandoned the worship of the Lord. It was an instrument of policy in the hands of the government. False appearances lulled the people and kept souls far from the true God, and the king of the line of David became a stranger to them.
Jeroboam used all the right words — feast, altar, priests, house. One writer applies that test to church arrangements people set up for themselves.
No doubt people acting in self-will can set up an organisation of their own, and elect or appoint officers to whom they give the scriptural names. But these so-called elders and deacons of the various sects are no more elders or deacons in God's order than Jeroboam's "house of high places" was the temple of Jehovah. The priests he instituted, "not of the sons of Levi," were not the priests of Jehovah. The feast he ordained in "the eighth month, the month which he had devised of his own heart," was not the feast of Jehovah.
God answered Solomon when he dedicated the temple. He answered Jeroboam's new feast too, in a very different way.
With everything ready, Jeroboam followed Solomon's example at the dedication of the temple and stood to burn incense on the altar. At that dedication God showed His presence. He made plain to all that He took notice of what was going on: the fire came down and consumed the sacrifice, and the glory of the Lord filled the house. At the opening of the feast Jeroboam devised, God also showed that He saw what Israel were doing. A prophet appeared and cried out against the altar that had only just been built for a new worship. He announced that it would be destroyed. He also foretold that Jeroboam's sin had already ruined the thing Jeroboam wanted most: to keep Israel permanently separated from Judah. No fire came down to consume the sacrifice. Instead the altar under it was torn open. God rejected the imitation. He accepted Solomon and answered his prayer; He paid no regard to Jeroboam.
The warning is not only about inventing something new. It is also about what the invention crowds out, and where it ends.
He made his own feast, perhaps on his birthday, or the anniversary of his coming to the throne. We may see a parallel to this in the "Saints' Days" and "Church Festivals" recognised in Christendom, while the regular coming together for prayer, building up one another, and remembrance of the Lord's death is often sadly missing. We know the result of Jeroboam's sad beginning. Of the 19 kings who sat on the throne of the northern kingdom, it does not seem that one sought after God.
- Heart — The whole system traces back to one source: a month Jeroboam devised of his own heart, not a month God named.
- Copy — Feast, altar, priests, sanctuary: every piece had a real counterpart in the law, but moved off God's date and God's place.
- Motive — Behind the copy was policy, not faith. A religion run by the government kept souls far from the true God and made David's king a stranger.
- Names — Calling something a feast, an altar, or a priesthood does not make it God's. The house of high places was still not the temple.
- Answer — Solomon's altar drew fire and glory. Jeroboam's drew a prophet crying against it. God saw both, and He rejected the imitation.
And he offered upon the altar that he had made in Bethel, on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, in the month which he had devised of his own heart; and he made a feast for the children of Israel, and he offered upon the altar, burning incense.
Jeroboam had already set up golden calves at Bethel and Dan. Now he fixes a date for a national feast, one month after the feast God had appointed. Then he stands at his own altar to burn incense. The question is not whether he worships. It is whose mind decided the shape of it.
Every part of his new system had a match in the worship God gave Israel. One writer sets them side by side:
Jeroboam is a cunning politician. He sets up one calf at Bethel, on the border with Judah, and the other at Dan, the northern edge of his territory. He shapes his worship to match the worship the law of Moses commanded. "A house of high places" takes the place of the temple. In place of the Levitical priesthood he puts "priests from all classes of the people, who were not of the sons of Levi." Israel had its Feast of Tabernacles, so Jeroboam set up a feast too — but a month later than that one. He sets up an altar at Bethel to match the bronze altar. He places it before the idol, and burns incense on it instead of burnt offerings. All this "he had devised from his own heart"!
Calling something by God's name does not make it His. One writer applies Jeroboam's copies to religious bodies today:
The "house of high places" that Jeroboam made was not the temple of Jehovah. The priests he appointed, "not of the sons of Levi," were not the priests of Jehovah. The feast he ordained in the eighth month — "the month that he had devised from his own heart" — was not the feast of Jehovah. In the same way, the so-called elders and deacons of the various sects are not elders or deacons according to God's order.
The verse says where the date came from: Jeroboam's own heart. One writer links this to what God says elsewhere about worship He never asked for:
This "feast" of Jeroboam's copied the Feast of Tabernacles. God had commanded Israel to keep that feast in the seventh month. The eighth was the month Jeroboam "had devised from his own heart" — a heart always "deceitful" and "desperately wicked." And how many practices and customs in the Christian world have been "devised" from men's own hearts with no foundation in Scripture! God condemned Israel for doing what, He says, "I did not command, nor did it come into My mind" (Jer. 7:31). It is the thoughts of God's heart, not mine, that I am to heed and put into practice.
Another writer puts the difference in one line:
Willingness in worship is right; wilfulness destroys it all.
At the end of the verse the king himself goes up to burn incense — a priest's work. Look at how he had built that priesthood:
He had made his own priesthood, and he had ordained anyone who wished to be a priest. So he could not hold that priesthood in very high esteem. Placed under royal authority, it had become a political tool in his hands. It is no surprise that the king claimed the right to carry out its rites as he pleased.
The altar was where a worshipper met God. So a rival altar was more than a change of arrangements:
The true altar was the means of approach to God. Believers now "have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat." This altar — our altar — is clearly "Jesus." To sanctify the people through His own blood, He suffered outside the gate. We are called to go to Him "outside the camp and bear the reproach He endured" (Heb. 13:10-16). Jeroboam had established a false altar. In other words, he had set up not the true Christ but a false one.
Jeroboam copied Solomon's dedication of the temple. God answered both events, but not in the same way:
All being ready, following Solomon's example at the dedication of the temple, he stood to burn incense on the altar. At the dedication of the temple God showed His presence. He made clear to all that He took notice of what went on. The fire came down and consumed the sacrifice, and the glory of the Lord filled the house. At the opening of the feast Jeroboam devised, God again showed that He saw what Israel were doing. A prophet appeared and cried out against the altar they had just built for this new worship. God rejected the sacrifice. No fire came down from above to consume it. Instead the altar it lay on split open underneath it.
- Heart — the month came from Jeroboam's own heart, and Scripture says so deliberately; God has condemned worship He "did not command."
- Copy — temple, priesthood, altar and feast were all imitated, one month off God's calendar. The likeness was the danger.
- Label — God's titles on a human arrangement leave it human. Jeroboam's feast was never the feast of the Lord.
- Cost — the priesthood became a political tool, so the king handled its rites as he pleased. A false altar took the place of the true one.
- Call — willingness in worship is right; wilfulness ruins it. God saw the ceremony and sent a prophet to cry against the altar.