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Appealing, perhaps at the formal consecration of these symbols, to the very words
which Aaron had used (Exodus 32:4), Jeroboam made two golden calves, and located
them at the southern and the northern extremities of the territory of the ten tribes. This
was the more easy, since there were both in the south and north "sacred" localities,
associated in popular opinion with previous worship. Such in the extreme south was
Beth-el - "the house of God and the gate of heaven" - consecrated by the twofold
appearance of God to Jacob; set apart by the patriarch himself (Genesis 28:11-19; 35:1,
7, 9-15); and where of old Samuel had held solemn assemblies (1 Samuel 7:16).
Similarly, in the extreme north Dan was a "consecrated" place, where "strange
worship" may have lingered from the days of Micah (Judges 18:30, 31).
The setting up of the golden calves as the symbol of Jehovah brought with it other
changes. An "house of Bamoth," or Temple for the high-place altars, probably with
priests' dwellings attached, was reared. The Levitical priesthood was extruded, either as
inseparably connected with the old worship, or because it would not conform to the
new order of things, and a new priesthood appointed, not confined to any tribe or
family, but indiscriminately taken from all classes of the people,^202 the king himself
apparently acting, in true heathen fashion, as Chief Pontiff (1 Kings 12:32, 33).^203
Lastly, the great Feast of Tabernacles was transferred from the 7 th to the 8th month,
probably as a more suitable and convenient time for a harvest-festival in the northern
parts of Palestine, the date (the 15 th ) being, however, retained, as that of the full
moon.
That this was virtually, and would in practice almost immediately become idolatry, is
evident. Indeed, it is expressly attested in 2 Chronicles 11:15, where the service of the
"Calves" is not only associated with that of the Bamoth, or high-place altars, but even
with that of "goats"^204 - the ancient Egyptian worship of Pan under the form of a goat
(Leviticus 17:7).
It is true, the text does not imply, as our Authorized Version suggests, that the new
priests were taken "from the lowest of the people." But the emphatic and more detailed
repetition of the mode of their appointment (1 Kings 12:31, comp. 13:33), of which
apparently the only condition was to bring an offering of one young bullock and seven
rams (2 Chronicles 13:9), enables us to judge on what class of people the conduct of
the religious services must soon have devolved.
A more daring attempt against that God-ordained symbolical religion, the maintenance
of which was the ultimate reason for Israel's call and existence - so to speak, Israel's
very raison d'etre - could not be conceived. It was not only an act of gross
disobedience, but, as the sacred text repeatedly notes, a system devised out of
Jeroboam's own heart, when every religious institution in Israel had been God-
(^)