The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Kings — Section 270

were less conveniently situated. A sanctuary at first, the people resorted o.lmost exclusively at Dan would save the northern tribes to the Danite sanctuary, Having been for many tedious journeys. It should be re- long years a seat of worship, o.nd having marked that Bethel properly belonged to probably its "house of high places," or Benjamin (Josh. xviii. 13, 22), though it temple (see below), already built, it would was also on the border of Ephraim ; and it naturally be in o. position to receive wor- has been suggested that it was Jeroboam's shippers some time before Bethel was pre- selection of this place as a seat of the calf- pared for that purpose. Jeroboam's offer- worship decided the tribe of Benjamin to ing in person o.t Bethel (ver. 32) which follow the lead of Judah. But the narrative marks the inauguro.tion of his new ritual seems to imply that their choice had been there, may have been partly designed to made at an earlier period (ver. 21), and the attract worshippers to o. shrine, which, as city would seem to have been long in the being nearer Jerusalem, or for some other possession of the house of Joseph (Judg. i. reason, was neglected. But the verse is 22). It is now known as Beitin, and is one patient of another interpretation. It may of the most naked and dreary spots in intend to convey that the rebellious tribes, Palestine. " The place seems, as it were, in their defiant disregard of the old order of turned to stone ; and we can well imagine things, the order now represented by a that the patriarch found nothing softer than hostile kingdom, went en masse to the a stone for his pillow." Conder, p. 252, opposite point of the compass, even to the who suggests that from the time of Abraham unh.allowed and hitherto despised sanctuary Bethel was a Cip9, a sacred place merely of the Danites. The LXX. (Vat.) addition (Gen. xxviii. 11), and distinct from the here is noticeable, " And they forsook the adjoining city of Luz (ver. 19).J house of the Lord.''] Ver. 30.-And this thing became a. Bill. places Ver. 31.-And he made an house of high [It was in itself sinful, for it both set at 29. It [See on eh. iii. 2, and cf. 2 Kings xvii. nought the express prohibition of the De- al. afterisJosephus) often assumed (Keil, Rawlinson, that Jeroboam built two calogue (Exod. XL 4), and also disregarded temples for his cherubim, the one sanctuary of God's choice (Dent. of the text, that he built and the statement one, is ex.plained xii. 5). And it led to other sins, e.g., the on the ground that the historian intrusion of a schismatic and irregular the" house of high places" with thecontrasts "house priesthood, and the performance of un- of authorized rites, and to "an ever-deepening xvii.the Lord." Ewald, too, after 2 Kings understands the words as plural. corruption of the national faith" (Ewald). Bat is29,it32, not more probable that a chapel or Cf. Hosea viii. 5; xiii. 2. But the meaning is, sanctuary already existed at Dan, where an it became an occasion of sin to the people irregular priesthood had ministered for (" Quodfuitpostea causa gravissimipeccati" more than four hundred years? Th.is verse -Vatab.) Jeroboam" made Israel to sin" would then refer exclusively to Jeroboam's (eh. xiv. 16; xv. 26, &c.) It is difficult to procedure at Bethel (see next verse). There conceive, in the face of these and similar he built o. temple and ordained a number of words, how any one can seriously maintain priests, but Dan had both already. We that " the church of Israel was the national know that the Danite priests carried on the church" (Stanley, ii. 264)]: for the people calf-worship to the time of the captivity went to worship before the one even unto (Judg. x.viii. 30). Th.is "house of h.igla Dan. [The people frequented both sanctu- aries; why, then, is that at Dan especially places " has grown in Ewald 's pages into "• splendid temple in Canaanite style"], and mentioned? Some (Rawlinson, e.g.) have ma.de priests of the lowest of the people suggested ihat the text is here corrupt, and [Heh. r,i~j?t.;) "from the ends," i.e., from that we should read, " before the one to Bethel, and before the other to Dan." Ac- all classes, ex universo populo (Gesen.), and cording to others, "the one'' (11Jl::5y) refers not, as the writer ex.plains presently, from the tribe of Levi alone. Gen. x.ix.. 4, Jndg. to the double 11Jl5y ("the one," "the xviii. 2, Ezek. xx.x.iii. 2, prove this to be the other"); cf. ver. 29. They would interpret, correct interpretation of the word, Rawlin- that is, " the people went to both, even to the son, who remarks that "Jeroboam could distant Dan" (Bahr, Thenius). Keil would have no motive for specially selecting per- force tho text and ll.Ili lerstand, ' ' the people, sons of low condition," does not thereby even unto Dan," i.e., the people throughout dispose of the A. V. rendering, for the the whole kingdom. Similarly, Wordsworth. historian might mean that sMne of Jero. Ewald understands " before the one" to boam's priests were of the lowest stamp, mean intot:ai i.e., "as one," sc. man. On the because he could find no others, or because whole it is' better to take the words as they he was so little scrupulous as to take them. stand, literally. It is quite conceivable that, "Leaden pries" are well fitted to goldeu OB, XII, 2/i-88.] THE FIRST BOOK OF KINGS. 273