a word · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
sin
לְחַטָּ֑אתle.cha.Tat
H2403
an offence (sometimes habitual sinfulness) · preposition + noun, common feminine singular absolute
people
הָעָ֛םha.'Am
H5971
a people (as a congregated unit) · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
went
יָלַךְyâlak
H3212
to walk (literally or figuratively)
before
לִפְנֵ֥יlif.Nei
H6440
the face (as the part that turns) · preposition + noun, common masculine plural construct
one
הָאֶחָ֖דha.'e.Chad
H259
properly · definite article + noun, common feminine singular absolute
Dan
דָּֽןDan
H1835
Dan · proper noun, a place name
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
2 Kings 17:21 For he rent Israel from the house of David; and they made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king: and Jeroboam drave Israel from following the LORD,…
1 Kings 13:34 And this thing became sin unto the house of Jeroboam, even to cut it off, and to destroy it from off the face of the earth.
2 Kings 10:31 But Jehu took no heed to walk in the law of the LORD God of Israel with all his heart: for he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam, which…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on 1 Kings 12:25–end
We have here the beginning of the reign of Jeroboam. He built Shechem first and then Penuel - beautified and fortified them, and probably had a palace in each of them for himself (Kg1 12:25), the former in Ephraim, the latter in Gad, on the other side Jordan. This might be proper; but he formed another project for the establishing of his kingdom which was fatal to the interests of religion in it.
I. That which he designed was by some effectual means to secure those to himself who had now chosen him for their king, and to prevent their return to the house of David, Kg1 12:26, Kg1 12:27. It seems, 1. He was jealous of the people, afraid that, some time or other, they would kill him and go agai…
Jeroboam said in his heart, Now shall the kingdom return to the house of David--Having received the kingdom from God, he should have relied on the divine protection. But he did not. With a view to withdraw the people from the temple and destroy the sacred associations connected with Jerusalem, he made serious and unwarranted innovations on the religious observances of the country, on pretext of saving the people the trouble and expense of a distant journey. First, he erected two golden calves--the young bulls, Apis and Mnevis, as symbols (in the Egyptian fashion) of the true God, and the nearest, according to his fancy, to the figures of the cherubim. The one was placed at Dan, in the northe…
One in Beth-el, and the other - in Dan - One at the southern and the other at the northern extremity of the land. Solomon's idolatry had prepared the people for Jeroboam's abominations!
John Gill on 1 Kings 12:30
And this thing became a sin,.... The cause and occasion of the sin of idolatry; it led them by degrees to leave off the worship of God, and to worship these calves as gods:
for the people went to worship before the one, even unto Dan; which was the furthest off, such was their great zeal for idolatrous worship; or they went thither before that at Bethel was set up; and even they at Bethel would go as far as Dan to worship, such was their veneration for both the calves. Abarbinel is of opinion that these calves were not made by Jeroboam for idolatrous uses, only the altar later mentioned; and that he never worshipped before them, nor sacrificed to them, nor even built the altar before them;…
The Church Fathers
"The people went before the other [god] as far as Dan." In order to worship the calf, the crowd walks in procession before it. Dan is the city that is now called Panias. When Israel took possession of the promised land, the children of Dan moved to take hold of that town and called it Dan. Two springs originated from there: Yor and Dan.
Now let us talk also about the second kind of scandal, which, we said, arises from human cleverness.… Jeroboam raised up a scandal. He set up as gods for the people, golden calves—pitiful images—to keep them from seeking the living God, the true temple, God's law, the rightly appointed kings and their ancestral rites. Consequently, the whole people thus delivered over to error became a source of scandal like that given, according to the apostle, when a person eats, as harmless to his own conscience, the flesh of animals that were sacrificed to idols. He thinks that through such conduct he may well bring contempt on the inanimate stones and wooden gods that can neither sanctify nor profane anything. But what he thinks is an example of his faith becomes an occasion of error for uninstructed people, for it leads them not to contempt but to worship, and it causes the meal to appear to be a banquet of religious honor to those very inanimate gods that he is intentionally diminishing by this ridicule. Consequently, the apostle wisely concludes and explains, "And through your 'knowledge' the weak one will perish, the brother for whom Christ died."
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Aholah — She has her own tent, a name used by Ezekiel (23:4, 5, 36, 44) as a symbol of the idolatry of the kingdom of Israel. This kingdom is described as a lewdwoman, an adulteress, given up to the…
Bethel — House of God. (1.) A place in Central Palestine, about 10 miles north of Jerusalem, at the head of the pass of Michmash and Ai. It was originally the royal Canaanite city of Luz (Gen. 28:19). The…
Ephraim, The tribe of — Took precedence over that of Manasseh by virtue of Jacob’s blessing (Gen. 41:52; 48:1). The descendants of Joseph formed two of the tribes of Israel, whereas each of the other sons of Jacob was the…
Idolatry — Image-worship or divine honour paid to any created object. Paul describes the origin of idolatry in Rom. 1:21-25: men forsook God, and sank into ignorance and moral corruption (1:28). The forms of…
Jeroboam — Increase of the people. (1.) The son of Nebat (1 Kings 11:26-39), “an Ephrathite,” the first king of the ten tribes, over whom he reigned twenty-two years (B.C. 976-945). He was the son of a widow of…
Beth-El · . — .
Calves Of Jeroboam · Worship of: Became the sin of Israel — Worship of: Became the sin of Israel
Church And State · . — .
Idolatry · Example of the kings encouraged Israel in — Example of the kings encouraged Israel in
Jeroboam · .Subverts the religion of Moses — .Subverts the religion of Moses
Founding of the Kingdom of Israel. - Kg1 12:25. When Jeroboam had become king, it was his first care to give a firmer basis to his sovereignty by the fortification of Sichem and Pnuel. בּנח, to build, is used here in the sense of fortifying, because both cities had stood for a long time, and nothing is known of their having been destroyed under either Solomon or David, although the tower of Sichem had been burnt down by Abimelech (Jdg 9:49), and the tower of Pnuel had been destroyed by Gideon (Jdg 8:17). Sichem, a place well known from the time of Abraham downwards (Gen 12:6), was situated upon the mountains of Ephraim, between Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal, and still exists under the name of…
By placing the calf idols in Bethel (the southern part of Israel) and in Dan (the far northern section) Jeroboam gave his people two choice sites with long religious traditions (see Gen 12:8; 28:11-19; Judg 18:30-31). Archaeological excavations confirm the existence of a high place—an altar for pagan worship—in Dan. Bethel was where Jacob had his dream (Gen 28:10-22), and it was the resting place of the Ark of the Covenant in the days of the judges (Judg 20:18-28) and a sanctuary in Samuel’s time (1 Sam 7:16; 10:3).
Rashi on 1 Kings 12:30
Even as far as Dan. At the end of the boundary of the land.6They were so attached to idol worship that they made the long pilgrimage from one end of the land all the way to the altar in Dan in the northernmost part of Yisroel.
Sins, National · Often caused and encouraged by rulers — Often caused and encouraged by rulers
Statecraft · . — .
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
