We can also understand the motives that led to tno selection of Bethel and Dan as the chief seats of the rival worship. The former recommended itself as having been, from time immemorial (Gn
• Thia sutfpestion holds good whether we translate D'rSti in the above passages by * Ood ' or by ' gods.' On the constnic- tion of **K with a plur. vh., see Driver, DfHt. p RS ; .Stmck's exriirnus in his GenfiiU, pp. 67-68 ; Baudlssin, Stiid. z. $finit. Ht'titiwiitgrnchichte, note pp. 5.S-57. If we must ri^ndor ' cods,' thrn cicartv the use of the phmse in 1 K is the older, for (as Kitul has pointed out, Uiit. of the Heb., Eng. tr. II. 212) It is only in the cose of Jeroboam, and not in the caa« of Aatod, thai the' plural ' gods ' boa *ay meaning.
342
CALF, GOLDEN CALF
CALF, GOLDEN CALF
28" 35', Hos 12*. •), one of the cl>ief sanctuaries of the laud, and it was hesides coni'eniently situated for intercepting tlie pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem. During the wiole period of the exist- ence of the Northern Kingdom, the sanctuary of Bethel continued to be its religious centre (see esp. Am 7"), and even survivedits downfall for a century, until finally destroyed during th<3 reformation of Josiah (2 K 23">-'»). The city of Dan had also from the generation succeeding the conquest been a noted sanctuary, and its situation commended it as the religious centre of the tribes to the east and west of the sea of Galilee. The new sanctu- ary, however, did not survive ' the captiWty of the land' (Jg IS"), at the hand of Tiglath- pileser, B.C. 734 (2 K 15-®), although Josephus speaks of ' the temple of the golden cow ' (riis XP"<'V' ^aiO> as if its ruins, at least, were stiil standing in his day {Wars, IV. i. 1).
With regard to the size and construction of Jeroboam's bulls we have no precise information. As in the case of the image fashioned by Aaron, we may best think of them as consisting of a wooden core overlaid with gold. This view would be considerably strengthened could we be sure that the obscure word c--^-^ (Hos 8*) has th» meaning here which it bears in the Talmud, viz., splinters or shavings of wood (see Wellhausen, Die kleinen Propheten, in loc.).* They were probably of con- siderable size, and represented a young "but full- grown bull. There is no authority for supposing that they were winged, like the bulls of Assyria, or were copies of any ' cherubic emblem,' whether in Solomon's temple (so Farrar, Expositor, viii. [1893]: 'Was there a Golden Calf in Dan?') or elsewhere. We are further expressly informed that Jeroboam ' set the one in Bethel, and the other put he in Dan ' (1 K 12^). The view recently j,ut forward by Klostermann in his Komm. in loc. (1887), and repeated in his Gesch. d. Volkes Isr. (1896), and supported by Farrar (ut sup.), that both images were set up at Bethel, requires un- warrantable liberties with the text, and is contrary to all the available evidence (cf. Am 8", To 1' t^ Pi6<rx,<fi . . . if Ady («)). On the other hand, it is thought by many recent scholars that the bull symbolism was not confined to the two great sanctuaries already mentioned. Stade, indeed,
foes so far as to say that there is evidence in [osea for the presence of bull-images at all the more iinjiortant sanctuaries (ZATW, 1883, p. 10). The strongest claim is perhaps for the capital, Samaria (Am 8" ' they that swear by the sin of S.'), although it is doubtful whether the city or the country is here intended. If the latter, tlie refer- ence would be to the image at the chief sanctuary at Bethel. The same form of worsliip was also, in the opinion of many, practised at Beersheba and Gilgait (4m 4* 5» 8'*, Hos 4" 9" 12" [Heb. >-]).*
The ritual of these northern sanctuaries does not seem to have differed much from that of the great sanctuary of the South (see an exliaustive presenta- tion of the evidence of Amos and Hosea on this point by Oettii in Greifsioalder Studien, ' Der Kultus oei Amos u. Hosea,' 1895). The priests, however — derisively named d-icj ('black-coats'?) by Hosea (W) — were recruited from all the trilies, not, as in the South, from the tribe of Levi exchisively, which thing was an otFence to the historian, writing from the standpoint of the Deuteronomic law (1 K 12", 2 K 23', and cf. 2 Ch 11" 13'). Mention is made of various kinds of
* The Targ. Jonathan renders C'12ef by |'ni^ 131 'shavings ot (wooden) boards." Of. Skabbath (ed. Strack) 4' D'EJin miDJ carpt-nters' shavings.
f For reff. to the opinion of certain Fathers that there wms a calf at Oilgal, see Q. A. Smith, The Twflvt PropheU, I. 37.
t Jerome, however, is too explicit with his botmt immolantet, Id the last passage cited.
sacrifice, although not of human sacrifice (as some would interpret Hos 13^ oix 'nai, see the Com- mentaries). This passage further refers to ths practice of kissing the bulls as an act of worship, either by throwing kisses to them (as in Job SI'') or by actually kissing the images, as the Moslems do the ' black stone' at Mecca (cf. 1 K 19'*).