As we have seen in the previous article (July 2010), Jeroboam fell into false worship — he had been confronted with a paradox and never recovered from it. Since all of Yahweh’s worship was bound up in the city of Jerusalem, the capital of Judah, the king believed that if he decided to follow the Truth, his nation would inevitably begin to cling to Rehoboam once again. In order to keep this from taking place, Jeroboam strayed from the correct way of life and set out to create a form of worship which would still appear to be right, yet kept the people out of Jerusalem. In this article, we will examine the subtleties of his false religion, specifically looking at the cities of Bethel and Dan, the feast of the eighth month, and also the expulsion of the Levites. Though all of these things, the insidiousness and deception of apostasy will become apparent.
The Strategy
All of Jeroboam’s new form of worship was carefully crafted — there was nothing that was an accident. For him, there should be nothing done that would cause a stir among the people, nothing which would allow skeptics to criticize, everything had to seem as though it was still in line with the Truth; but at the same time, it would keep the people away from Judah and Zion. He wanted his brethren to think that they were still worshipping the God of Israel and still following the Hope of Israel. The fallen ruler would succeed in doing so. Jeroboam’s apostasy created a form of worship which looked almost identical to the Truth. It was something that only had slight changes in it, changes that were hardly even noticeable to people, and in fact, went unnoticed by almost everyone in the nation of Israel of those days. It was insidious and slippery, and the deceit only becomes apparent when the worship is put under scrutiny.
The first item of deception is found in the locations that he chose. Jerusalem, the feared city, is nowhere to be found. Instead, it has been replaced with Bethel and Dan.
“Whereupon the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold, and said unto them, It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem: behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. And he set the one in Bethel, and the other put he in Dan” (1Kgs 12:28-29).
Bethel and Dan
Bethel had a rich heritage of being a city of God, of being a special city in relation to God’s people. It was in Bethel that Jacob, Israel’s namesake, had his vision that is now commonly called “Jacob’s Ladder.” It was there that he saw the throne of God, with angels ascending and descending. It was there that he said “surely God is in this place and I didn’t know it.” It was there that he was first given the promises to Abraham.
“And, behold, the LORD stood above it, and said, I am the LORD God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed; and thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed” (Gen 28:13-14).
Shortly after the promises were given, Jacob declared that God was in that place:
“And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the LORD is in this place; and I knew it not…And he called the name of that place Bethel: but the name of that city was called Luz at the first” (Gen 28:16, 19).
Upon waking up from his dream, Jacob declared that God was dwelling in that place, and he had not known it. Soon after, Jacob changed the name of the place to “Bethel,” meaning “house of God.” Keeping this in mind, try to picture what Jeroboam might have said if someone were to have opposed him, saying that Jerusalem is where they were to worship: “I know that you think we should worship in Jerusalem, but there’s nothing wrong with worshipping in Bethel; why, it’s the very place where Jacob, the ‘prince with God’ worshipped. In fact, he, himself, declared that this city was the ‘house of God.’ Why would we not worship here?” Jeroboam had not chosen this city by accident; his false worship was insidious and it was difficult to oppose. The same type of craftiness is seen when the city of Dan is studied. Dan, just like Bethel, was also an ancient center of worship, presided over by the family of Moses:
“And they called the name of the city Dan, after the name of Dan their father, who was born unto Israel: howbeit the name of the city was Laish at the first. And the children of Dan set up the graven image: and Jonathan, the son of Gershom, the son of Manasseh, he and his sons were priests to the tribe of Dan until the day of the captivity of the land” (Jdgs 18:29-30).
Since the time of the judges, Dan had been used as a center of worship in the north. The worship that took place there was idol worship, but nevertheless, notice its high priest — “Jonathan, the son of Gershom, the son of Manassah.” Jonathan, the grandson of Manassah, was their leader; yet this passage probably isn’t referring to the grandson of Manassah, but the grandson of Moses. Here is another translation of the verse:
“And the Danites set up the graven image for themselves; and Jonathan the son of Gershom, the son of Moses, and his sons were priests to the tribe of the Danites until the day of the captivity of the land” (Jdgs 18:30 RSV) see also the ESV and NKJV.
“Moses,” not “Manassah,” is probably the correct translation; not just because of the above versions, but also because we know that Moses did have a son named “Gershom” (Exod 2:21-22), yet we are never told such about Manassah. In addition, Manassah’s grandchild would have died two or three generations previous to the time of the judges; however, the chronology fits perfectly with Moses’ grandson. Thus, the worship that took place at Dan was presided over by the family of Moses.
Again, we can see how well the city of Dan fit Jeroboam’s purpose. It was an ancient site of worship which was “sanctified” by the family of Moses, the one who had originally given them the law, the one who had led the people out of Egypt! Moses was a great hero to the people, and his family ruled over the worship that took place there! Jeroboam could have easily pointed to this fact to show that Dan was an acceptable city for worship. Yet these cities are only the beginning of his “cunningly devised fables.”
The Feast
Not only did Jeroboam change the places where worship would take place, but he also changed a feast:
“And Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, like unto the feast that is in Judah, and he offered upon the altar. So did he in Bethel, sacrificing unto the calves that he had made: and he placed in Bethel the priests of the high places which he had made” (1Kgs 12:32).
Jeroboam took the feast, probably the feast of tabernacles, which took place on the fifteenth day of the seventh month (Lev 23:34), and moved it forward just one month. This wouldn’t have seemed like a very big problem, but it is just one more way that Jeroboam was subtly undermining God’s authority. Yahweh had commanded the people to celebrate the feast in the seventh month! Jeroboam moved it back, creating a precedent for slightly tweaking the Word of God; and then, probably twisted the law of Numbers 9 to cover himself. Once again, we can see his subtlety.
“Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If any man of you or of your posterity shall be unclean by reason of a dead body, or be in a journey afar off, yet he shall keep the passover unto the LORD. The fourteenth day of the second month at even they shall keep it, and eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs” (Num 9:10-11).
The law had a provision for moving the passover feast back one month (it was normally celebrated in the first month; Leviticus 23:5). Jeroboam could have easily pointed to this passage in order to show that his moving of the feast to the eighth month actually did have a Biblical precedent. Yet he had skewed the whole principle, and maligned the Scriptures.
However, Jeroboam’s sin was not fully complete. He also went on to push all of the knowledge of the Truth out of the country, just so that there would be no possibility that anyone would oppose him.
Expulsion of the Levites
“And he made an house of high places, and made priests of the lowest of the people, which were not of the sons of Levi” (1Kgs 12:31)
The Levites were essentially out of a job (see also 1Kgs 13:33); now that anyone who wanted to serve in the temple was able to become a priest, the Levites no longer had any position. For this reason, many of them fled out of Israel and into Judah (2Chron 11:13-14), exactly as Jeroboam had hoped. The Levites were the ones who were the teachers of the people, they were the ones who knew the Word of God and could stand up against his idolatry (see Mal 2:7; Neh 8:7).
He carefully made moves so that little by little, so that he could move the people away from the worship of Yahweh, and keep them hooked into his false religion. He made his teachings look as though they were based upon Scripture, yet in reality they were founded upon dust and lies. The historian Josephus claims that Jeroboam spoke the following words as he was instituting his new religion. As you read this, note the deception dripping from his speech:
“I suppose, my countrymen, that you know this, that every place hath God in it; nor is there any one determinate place in which he is, but he every where hears and sees those that worship him; on which account I do not think it right for you to go so long a journey to Jerusalem, which is an enemy’s city, to worship him. It was a man that built the temple: I have also made two golden heifers, dedicated to the same God; and the one of them I have consecrated in the city Bethel, and the other in Dan, to the end that those of you that dwell nearest those cities may go to them, and worship God there.” (Josephus; Antiquities of the Jews; 8:8:4)
The evil of this speech is almost overwhelming. Jeroboam was filled with lies. He twisted the law of God, and twisted God’s principles. Almost every part of his religion would appear as though it was standing upon the Scripture, yet in reality, God’s word completely condemned it. So often this is the case with apostasy. It looks right, it looks as though it is good, yet our God condemns today’s apostasy it as the “Man of Sin” and a “great whore.”
Christendom Today
In seeing the subtleties of Jeroboam’s apostasy, we can also see the deceit of apostasy today. All around us, Christendom is claiming that their doctrines are based upon Scripture, that they truly know the Lord Jesus Christ, and that they have the key to salvation. Just like Jeroboam’s harlotry, their doctrines can subtly and insidiously creep into our thinking. This is truly the lesson that comes from the apostasy of Israel — apostasy is not easy to recognize. We may feel as though we can easily spot some of the false doctrines of Christendom when they begin speaking about “heaven-going” or the Trinity, but what about when their books begin to talk about the atonement, or the Antichrist? While some of their teachings are easy to point our fingers at and say “I can filter them out,” some of their other ideas are more deceptive and harder to pinpoint. If we are constantly putting their material into our minds, we may find that one of their blasphemous ideas had entered into our thinking, even before we had the chance to realize that it was wrong. This is what happened to many in Israel. Throughout the history of the nation, the people continued in the worship of Jeroboam, never realizing that it was false.
“Though ye offer me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts” (Amos 5:22).
The people still thought that they were offering to Yahweh, yet they were far from it. This is the danger of apostasy. May we take this lesson to heart.
In the next article, we will see how God felt about Jeroboam’s new religion.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One