King Jeroboam…said to himself, “As things are now, if my people go to Jerusalem and offer sacrifices to the Lord in the Temple there, they will transfer their allegiance to King Rehoboam of Judah and will kill me.”
After thinking it over, he made two bull-calves of gold and said to his people, “You have been going long enough to Jerusalem to worship. People of Israel, here are your gods who brought you out of Egypt!”
“Look! Here is the man!” (John 19:5). Jeroboam is all about SELF.
He placed one of the gold bull-calves in Bethel and the other in Dan. And so the people sinned, going to worship in Bethel and in Dan. Jeroboam also built places of worship on hilltops, and he chose priests from families who were not of the tribe of Levi.
An easier religion. All of this of course is reminiscent of Exodus 32:1-6. Why a bull-calve? No matter I suppose, given that the motivation is to give free reign to one’s desires. Thank you, Jesus (Hebrews 10:19-23).
Jeroboam also instituted a religious festival on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, like the festival in Judah. On the altar in Bethel he offered sacrifices to the gold bull-calves he had made, and he placed there in Bethel the priests serving at the places of worship he had built. And on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, the day that he himself had set, he went to Bethel and offered a sacrifice on the altar in celebration of the festival he had instituted for the people of Israel.
Jeroboam was rewriting the country’s culture – not too unlike how God created Israel’s culture (Leviticus 23). The reality? Romans 14:5. A paradigm shift was in order (John 4:20-24).
At the Lord’s command a prophet from Judah went to Bethel and arrived there as Jeroboam stood at the altar to offer the sacrifice.
*oops*
Following the Lord’s command, the prophet denounced the altar: “O altar, altar, this is what the Lord says: A child, whose name will be Josiah, will be born to the family of David. He will slaughter on you the priests serving at the pagan altars who offer sacrifices on you, and he will burn human bones on you.”
Most likely written after 2 Kings 23:15-18.