1st Kings Chapter 12 verse 28 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 28. - Whereupon the king took counsel ["With his counsellors, or the heads of the nation who had helped him to the throne" (Keil). Bahr understands, "he reflected about it alone" (et excogitato consilio, Vulgate), alleging that so important a circumstance as the concurrence of the heads of the people in changing the system of worship would not have been passed over in silence. But while the text does not perhaps imply any formal deliberation with the elders, it is reasonable to suppose that Jeroboam, who owed his position to popular election, and who was far too sagacious not to follow the example of Rehoboam (vers. 6, 9), would summon others to advise him as to this critical and momentous step. Wordsworth refers to Isaiah 30:1, and says that "Jeroboam is the image and pattern of Machiavellian politicians." "Next to Ahithophel, I do not find that Israel yielded a craftier head than Jeroboam's" (Hall)], and made two calves [It is generally held that these were in imitation of, or were suggested by, the "golden calf" of Aaron (Exodus 32:2), and the close resemblance of Jeroboam's words (below), in inaugurating this new cultus, to Aaron's have been thought to prove it. But surely it has been overlooked that Jeroboam could hardly be so shortsighted and unwise as deliberately to reintroduce a worship which had provoked the "fierce wrath" (ver. 12) of God, and had nearly resulted in the extermination of the Jewish race. For of course neither Jeroboam nor his people could have forgotten the stern condemnation which Aaron's calf worship had received. The molten image ground to powder, the ashes mixed in the drink of the people, the slaughter of three thousand worshippers, etc., would assuredly have lived in the memories of the nation. A more impolitic step, consequently - one more certain to precipitate his ruin, by driving the whole nation into the arms of Judah - Jeroboam could not have taken, than to attempt any revival or imitation of the forbidden cultus of the desert. And it is as little likely that the worship of the calves was derived from the worship of Apis, as practised at Memphis, or of "Mnevis, the sacred calf of Heliopolis" (Stanley), though with both of these Jeroboam had recently been in contact. It would have been but a sorry recommendation in the eyes of Israel that the first act of the new king should be to introduce the hateful idolatry of Egypt into the land; and every consideration tends to show that the calf worship was not, and was not intended to be, idolatry, such as the worship of Egypt undoubtedly was. It is always carefully distinguished from idol worship by the historians and prophets. And the idea which Jeroboam wished to give his subjects was clearly this that, so far from introducing new gods or new sanctuaries, he was merely accommodating the old worship to the new state of things. He evidently felt that what he and his house had most to fear was, not the armies of Rehoboam but the ritual and religious associations of Jerusalem. His object, if he were wise, must therefore be to provide a substitute, a counterfeit worship. "I will give you," he virtually says, "at Bethel and Dan, old sanctuaries of our race long before Jerusalem usurped their place, those visible emblems of the heavenly powers such as are now found only in the temple. You too shall possess those mysterious forms which symbolize the Invisible, but you shall have them nearer home and easier of access." There can be little doubt, consequently, that the "calves" were imitations of the colossal cherubim of Solomon's temple, in which the ox or calf was probably the forma praecipua (1 Kings 6:23).] of gold [Hardly of solid gold. Possibly cf. wood covered with gold plates, i.e., similar to the cherubim (1 Kings 6:23-28); probably of molten brass (see 1 Kings 14:9, and cf. Psalm 106:19), overlaid with gold; such images, in fact, as are described in Isaiah 40:19], and said unto them, It is too much for you [This translation, pace Keil, cannot be maintained. Nor can it be said that "the exact meaning of the original is doubtful" (Rawlinson), for a study of the passages where this phrase, רַב־לָכֶם occurs (see, e.g., Deuteronomy 1:6; Deuteronomy 2:3; Deuteronomy 3:26; and cf. Genesis 45:28; Exodus 9:28; 2 Samuel 24:16; 1 Kings 19:4) will convince the reader that it must be rendered here, "It is enough" - i.e., "you have gone long enough to a city which only owes its present position to the ambition of the tribe of Judah, and which is a standing testimony to your own inferiority; henceforth, desist." We have an exact parallel in Ezekiel 44:6; where the Authorized Version renders, "Let it suffice you." The LXX. supports this view by rendering ἱκανόυσθω ὑμῖν throughout. Vulgate, nolite ultra ascendere, etc.] to go up to Jerusalem: behold thy gods [rather "god," for Jeroboam had no idea of introducing polytheism. It is true he made two calves because of his two sanctuaries, but each was designed to represent the same object - the one God of Israel. The word is translated, gods" in Exodus 32:1, 4, 8, 23, 31; but as the reference is in every case to the one calf, it should be translated "god" there also. In Nehemiah's citation of the words (Nehemiah 9:18), the word is unmistakably singular. "This is thy god," etc. The words are not "exactly the same as the people used when setting up the golden calf" (Bahr). Jeroboam says, "Behold," etc.], O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. [It is at first sight somewhat difficult to resist the view, which is generally entertained, that Jeroboam, of set purpose, cited the ipsissima verba of the Israelites in the desert (Exodus 32:4). But a little reflection will show that it is much more difficult to believe that a monarch, circumstanced as Jeroboam was, could at the very outset of his career have acted in the teeth of history, and have committed the gross blunder, not to say wanton outrage, of deliberately connecting his new cult with the calf worship of the desert. He can hardly have dared, that is, to say, "This is no new religion, for this very form of worship our fathers used formerly in the desert, under the guidance of Aaron himself" (Seb. Schmidt, followed by Keil, al.) unless both he and his people alike - which is inconceivable - were ignorant of their nation's history recorded in Exodus 32:19-35. It has been argued by some that this action of Jeroboam and the ready compliance of the ten tribes, prove that the Pentateuch cannot then have been written. But, as Hengstenberg (cited by Wordsworth) rejoins, the same argument would lead to the conclusion that the Bible could not have been written in the dark ages, or, we might add, even at the present day. He can hardly have claimed, that is to say, to be reintroducing the calf worship, which God had so emphatically reprobated, unless he designed an open defiance of the Most High, and wished to shock all the religious instincts and convictions of his people. It is much more natural, consequently, to suppose, considering the very frequent recurrence, though sometimes in slightly different shapes, of the formula "the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt" (Exodus 20:2; Exodus 29:45, 46; Leviticus 19:36; Leviticus 23:43; Leviticus 25:38; Leviticus 26:13, 45; Numbers 15:41; Numbers 16:13; Numbers 20:16; Deuteronomy 5:6, 15; Deuteronomy 6:12; Deuteronomy 8:14; Deuteronomy 9:26; Joshua 24:6, 17; Judges 6:8; 1 Samuel 8:8; 1 Samuel 10:18; 1 Kings 8:21, etc.) that the correspondence is accidental, the more so as Jeroboam does not quote the exact words, and that he has used a phrase which was constantly in their ears, insisting thereby that his calves were emblems of the God of their race, the God whose great glory it was that He had taken their nation out of the midst of another nation, etc. (Deuteronomy 4:34), and delivered them from a thraldom with which, perhaps, the tyranny of Rehoboam is indirectly compared. Or it there was any reference to the golden calf, it must have been depreciatory, as if to say," That was rank idolatry, and as such it was punished. That calf was an image of Apis. My calves are cherubic symbols, symbols such as He has Himself appointed, of the Great Deliverer of our race. Behold thy God, which really brought thee up," etc.]

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(28) Calves of gold.--The choice of this symbol of the Divine Nature--turning, as the Psalmist says with indignant scorn, "the glory of God into the similitude of a calf that eateth hay" (Psalm 106:20)--was probably due to a combination of causes. First, the very repetition of Aaron's words (Exodus 32:8) indicates that it was a revival of that ancient idolatry in the wilderness. Probably, like it, it was suggested by the animal worship of Egypt, with which Jeroboam had been recently familiar, and which (as is well known) varied from mere symbolism to gross creature worship. Next, the bull, as the emblem of Ephraim, would naturally become a religious cognisance of the new kingdom. Lastly, there is some reason to believe that the figure of the cherubim was that of winged bulls, and the form of the ox was undoubtedly used in the Temple, as for example, under the brazen sea. It has been thought that the "calves" were reproductions of the sacred cherubim,--made, however, symbols, not of the natural powers obeying the Divine word, but of the Deity itself.It is, of course, to be understood that this idolatry, against which the prohibition of many sanctuaries was meant to guard, was a breach, not of the First Commandment, but of the Second--that making of "a similitude" of the true God, so emphatically forbidden again and again in the Law. (See, for example, Deuteronomy 4:15-18.) Like all such veneration of images, it probably degenerated. From looking on the image as a mere symbol it would come to attach to it a local presence of the Deity and an intrinsic sacredness; and so would lead on, perhaps to a veiled polytheism, certainly to a superstitious and carnal conception of the Godhead.