1 Kings 12:26-32; 13:33-34
Chapter 12
Should this person go up to offer sacrifices in the Lord’s house in Jerusalem, their hearts would turn again to their master, Rehoboam, king of Judah. They would kill me and go back to him.”
And so the king sought advice and made two golden calves. Then he told the people: “You have been going up to Jerusalem long enough. Here are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.”
He put one of these in Bethel, the other in Dan.
This caused Israel to sin; the people went to Bethel and Dan to worship the calves.
Jeroboam also built temples in high places, appointing priests who were not from the Levites.
Jeroboam also appointed a feast on the fifteenth day of the eighth month in imitation of the feast in Judah and offered sacrifices on the altar. He did this in Bethel and sacrificed to the calves he had made. There, he placed priests for the high places he had made.
Chapter 13
After this, however, Jeroboam did not abstain from doing evil. Instead, he made priests for the high places from among the people. He consecrated anyone who wanted to be a priest for the high places.
And this became the sin of the family of Jeroboam, for which it was to be cut off and destroyed from the face of the earth.
Commentaries
The Schismatic Cult.
Following the political split, a religious division begins. Jeroboam attempts to diminish the significance of the Jerusalem cult and instead promotes alternative forms of religious expression within the people’s faith. He chooses the shrines at Bethel and Dan, which have a long-standing history and tradition. He represents the divine with the image of a bull, as the Canaanites did, and using images in worship proves more impactful than the image-free practices in Jerusalem. He appointed priests without court privileges and started a major pilgrimage festival in the fall. For the author writing during Josiah’s reform, this marks the original sin of the Northern Kingdom: Jeroboam began it, other kings repeated it, and it continued.
The Prophet of Judah.
The Word of God dominates this chapter: sent by the Lord from Judah through an anonymous prophet, it is stronger than the stone altar and the king’s arm; it serves as both proclamation and command. The prophecy spans from here to its fulfillment in 2 Kings 23:15-19. The narrator continues with another episode that is closely linked to the previous one, yet it remains enigmatic (10). Why is there so much interest in misleading the Prophet, who came from the south? Did the prophet of the North want to test the fidelity of the prophet of the South? Did he seek to verify the validity of his oracle? The latter seems most likely, given the story’s outcome. If the prophet continued on his way, his obedience to God authenticated his mission; if he disobeyed and went unpunished, his mission was doubtful; if he disobeyed and was punished, his mission was authentic. This account also explains the origin of the tomb with two anonymous prophets in Bethel (cf. 2 Kgs 23).