So the king took counsel and made two calves of gold. And he said to the people, “You have gone up to Jerusalem long enough. Behold your gods, O Israel, who brought you 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?
Fear Instead of Faith
The decision starts with a calculation. One writer traces it back to its root:
H. L. RossierEvents 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.
A Worship Devised by a Man
The design of Israel's worship now came from the king himself, and the name it earned him stayed on him:
J. N. DarbyNow, 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.
"Gone Up to Jerusalem Long Enough"
Notice how he sells it. The pitch is convenience:
William KellyHe 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.
An Old Sin Repeated, and Worsened
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:
H. L. RossierTo 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.)
Credit Taken from God
The sharpest part comes at the end. Jeroboam credits the calves with the rescue from Egypt.
F. A. HughesHe "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.
A Copy of the Real Thing
The calves were only the start. What he built next was a careful copy, placed at the two ends of his land:
H. L. RossierJeroboam 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:
Eugene P. Vedder Jr.Beware of changing, even of modifying, the instructions God has given us in His Word!
Summary
- 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.