Greater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 326. Jeroboam's Idolatry

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Greater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 326. Jeroboam's Idolatry


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Jeroboam's Idolatry



1. Regarding Jeroboam's reign of twenty-two years (937-915) we have little trustworthy information. How far he was able to maintain Solomon's authority we can only conjecture. At first, no doubt, he would have had a considerable struggle to maintain himself against his rival. But no decisive victory or success on Jeroboam's side is recorded; he seems even to have retired from Shechem to Penuel beyond the Jordan (1Ki_12:25). When the Pharaoh Shishak made a plundering expedition into Judah, he certainly did not spare the territory of his former protégé, as appears from his triumphal inscription at Karnak; but we are not told that Jeroboam made any attempt at resistance. Perhaps he was more a politician than a warrior. There is one measure, however, which is ever after referred back in the most emphatic way to Jeroboam. Realizing the hypnotizing power which the national worship and festivals of Jerusalem would exercise upon the mind and heart in restoring the tribes to the sovereignty of the house of David, he established national sanctuaries at the ancient shrines of Dan on the north and at Bethel on the south, and in each he set up the golden image of a bull, with imposing rites of dedication, in order to wean the hearts of Israel from the altars of Jerusalem. He then proceeded to ordain his own priests from the ranks of the common people-doubtless a measure of necessity, as in the rending of the kingdom the Levites had flocked to the Temple of Judah. Later on he instituted the great yearly festivals with unusual splendour, and so satisfied the social hunger of the tribes. Thus by a single coup d'état he broke the continuity of the national worship and introduced, perhaps unwillingly, the idolatry of Egypt. As we read the abbreviated record of these acts of the new king and recognize the political ability with which he initiated the new kingdom, we are impressed by a double consciousness-that of the splendid chance which Jehovah put in the way of this man to retrieve the spiritual and civic fortunes of Israel, and also that of the tremendous difficulty of measuring a man's sin.



This king of Israel, who is first in order of time, is also first in guilt, memorable for nothing but making his people sin. From the first he seems to have been an irreligious man. He regarded religion as a kind of restraint on the lower orders, and therefore useful in government. In Egypt he had become accustomed to the ritual of Apis and Mnevis, which was by no means so gross and demoralizing as the idolatry of the Canaanites, and he evidently could not see why the worship of Jehovah could not be carried on by those who believed in Him through the use of emblems, and, if need be, of idols. Therefore he set about the establishment of the cult of Apis, and “made two calves of gold. And he set the one in Beth-el, and the other put he in Dan.” This was the sin for which he was condemned again and again with almost wearisome iteration.



2. But the charge which is brought against Jeroboam is scarcely intelligible if we forget that his kingdom stood, like that which was in Jerusalem, upon the promise and covenant of God. He had a right to believe that the God of Abraham and of Isaac, of David and of Solomon, would be with him, and would establish for him a sure house. He had a right to live and act upon this conviction. His sin was that he did not act upon it. He did not trust the living God. He thought, not that his kingdom stood upon a Divine foundation, but that it was to be upheld by certain Divine props and sanctions. He wanted a God as the support of his authority; what God he cared very little. The question was soon settled. It was on the senses and on the terrors of his subjects that he worked. Something visible and tangible served best for that purpose-visible and tangible, and yet invested with an awe and a mystery which were borrowed from that which was invisible and intangible. This would be enough to explain the calves in Bethel and Dan.



And his crime was all the greater that he, as king of Israel, did not treat the Temple with respect. For political separatist interests he had lightly sacrificed what was a vital interest for Israel as a whole. We may hold what opinion we choose regarding the Deuteronomic redactor of the Book of Kings in his character as historian, but nothing witnesses so strongly to his deep religious insight as the fact that he cannot sufficiently censure Jeroboam's abandonment of the Temple, and his falling away into the worship of Jehovah under the form of an image. For the sake of political security Jeroboam deliberately sacrificed the higher religious interests of Israel; and there can be no doubt that the sacred writer was fully justified in his unsparing verdict upon him as the man “who made Israel to sin.”



Jeroboam's calves remain in the world for ever, until the Last Day; for whatever a man places his confidence and trust in, setting God aside, that is to him like Jeroboam's calves, which he worships and invokes instead of the only true, living, eternal God, who alone can and will give counsel and help in all need.1 [Note: Luther, Table Talk, i. 286.]



3. As Jeroboam's sin was great in the sight of Heaven, so was his punishment. Twice was he warned in a signal manner.



(1) As he and his unconsecrated priests were at the altar in Bethel sacrificing and burning incense, a prophet from Judah (unnamed and unknown), Divinely sent, came into their midst and cried against the altar, i.e. against the whole system of idolatry set up in Israel, saying, “O altar, altar, thus saith the Lord; Behold, a child shall be born unto the house of David, Josiah by name; and upon thee shall he offer the priests of the high places that burn incense upon thee, and men's bones shall be burnt upon thee.” To show his Divine commission, the prophet gave the word, and the altar was miraculously rent in twain, and the ashes of the sacrifice were scattered on the ground. Jeroboam stretched forth his hand to seize the prophet; it was instantly shrivelled up, so that he could not pull it to him again. At the prophet's prayer, it was restored.



This narrative belongs to a much later time, when the names of “the man of God from Judah” and of “the old prophet” were forgotten. Some critics think that it is founded upon 2Ki_23:15-20; others, that the latter passage, apparently foreign to the context where it stands, was added by the same hand which inserted the story here.2 [Note: G. A. Cooke, in Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible, ii. 583.]



(2) Again the Lord spoke to Jeroboam, and tried to reach him on that side of his nature most of all susceptible to influence-through the death of his child. When Abijah fell sick Jeroboam sent his wife in disguise to inquire of the prophet Ahijah what would become of the child. Heavy, said the blind prophet, recognizing the disguised queen-for he had been Divinely forewarned-heavy were the tidings he had for her. The idolatrous apostasy of her husband Jeroboam would not go unpunished. Evil would come upon his house, and every man of it would be ignominiously cut off by a king yet to come, all but her innocent child, who would soon die and be buried in peace. The people would be swept away into exile for the idolatry into which Jeroboam had led them. Then we are told that “Jeroboam's wife arose, and departed, and came to Tirzah: and when she came to the threshold of the door, the child died; and they buried him; and all Israel mourned for him, according to the word of the Lord, which he spake by the hand of his servant Ahijah the prophet.”



We are only on the threshold of knowledge as to the significance of the doctrines of heredity, but we know enough to deepen our sense of debt to the past and of duty to the future. We are what our forefathers made us, plus the action of circumstances on ourselves; and in like manner our children inherit the good and evil both of body and mind that is in us. Upon us, therefore, rests the duty of the cultivation of the best, and of the suppression of the worst, so that the future of the race suffers not at our hands. More imperious is that duty since nothing-not omnipotence itself-can step in between us and the consequences of our acts. The “forgiveness” of which men talk shows the charity of the injured, but the thing “forgiven”-who can undo its effects?1 [Note: Edward Clodd, The Story of Creation.]



4. At the close of his reign, Jeroboam lost even his earthly prosperity. “The Lord struck him, and he died.” Such was his end. Jeroboam's personal career was inglorious; he could lay no claim to distinguished success in war. Nor did he derive any advantage from the invasion of the rival kingdom by Shishak, his former protector. From the first the curse of instability rested upon a throne which had been founded in rebellion. He had successfully managed a revolt, but he did not succeed in establishing a dynasty. If the revolt was part of the Divine plan, Jeroboam proved himself unequal to the greatness of his opportunity; and, so far from advancing the higher interests of his people, did not rise above the popular standards, and bequeathed to posterity the reputation of an apostate and a succession of endless revolutions.



Turnaway, once a townsman of Apostasy, appears but for a moment, and Christian catches only a glimpse of his hanging head as he is hurried past, in the grasp of “seven devils,” and bound with “seven strong cords,” to that awful side-door of the abode of woe. He is identified, beyond much likelihood of mistake; for the placard on his back is legible enough even to an eye that has little of learning-“Wanton professor and damnable apostate.” The inscription is probably judicial, and the characterization is no doubt as accurate as it is emphatic and without appeal. His is a pronounced case of the violation of all the most sacred laws which govern the Pilgrimage. Dark wickedness combined with religious sham, and implacable hatred to religion engendered when the mask could no longer be worn-this is the double indictment under which the man passes, constabled by fiends, to his doom. Great-heart, at “the place where Christian met with one Turnaway,” gives us somewhat more “concerning this man.” “Once falling, persuasion could not stop him,”-as the experience of Evangelist proved. It seems he went no farther than the Cross, where he “gnashed with his teeth, and stamped, and said he was resolved to go back to his own town.” How he comes to be met with, even as a bound culprit, so far on in the heavenward road, we can only guess; but having escaped from Evangelist “over the wall” near the Wicket-gate, he must have found pilgrimage more attractive along the Devil's territory, and have pushed his unholy way even beyond the advanced stage at which we encounter him. In any case he “went back to” apostasy with a will; and there is no healthy-hearted reader who can quarrel with his fate.1 [Note: J. A. Kerr Bain, The People of the Pilgrimage, ii. 308.]