The division of the kingdom being an accomplished fact, we enter upon the history of the kings of Israel. That of the kings of Judah does not enter into our account except to explain certain events or to give the context, except that at the end of 2 Kings the independent history of the kings of Judah is traced to its end. In contrast, the 2 Chronicles gives us the history of the kings of Judah from the special point of view that characterizes this book.
What is now to become of this new kingdom? Jeroboam had received a conditional pledge from the Lord: “And it shall be, if thou wilt hearken unto all that I command thee, and wilt walk in My ways, and do that which is right in My sight, in keeping My statutes and My commandments, as David My servant did, that I will be with thee, and build thee a lasting house, as I built for David, and will give Israel unto thee” (1 Kings 11:3838And it shall be, if thou wilt hearken unto all that I command thee, and wilt walk in my ways, and do that is right in my sight, to keep my statutes and my commandments, as David my servant did; that I will be with thee, and build thee a sure house, as I built for David, and will give Israel unto thee. (1 Kings 11:38)). He had only to let God act in his favor, to obey Him, and he was assured of reigning over all that his soul desired (1 Kings 11:3737And I will take thee, and thou shalt reign according to all that thy soul desireth, and shalt be king over Israel. (1 Kings 11:37)).
Events unfold without his having to interfere, but he is mistrusting and says in his heart: “Now shall the kingdom return to the house of David.” Not having confidence in God, he weighs over the probabilities and stops there. Faith never stops at probabilities — I would even go so far as to say that it feeds upon impossibilities and is the better for it. Having once admitted the probability that the kingdom would return to the house of David, Jeroboam carries his reasoning even further. It is necessary, he thinks, to prevent the people from going up to Jerusalem and offering their sacrifices there, lest they have contact with the royal house of Judah. The king concludes that this is a matter of life and death: “The heart of this people will turn again to their lord, to Rehoboam king of Judah, and they will kill me.” His decision is made: Israel must have a new religion. Out of his unbelief in God’s promise, out of his indifference to the worship of Jehovah, comes the establishment by Jeroboam of a national religion, distinct from that worship which God had instituted at Jerusalem. From that moment on that this worship was not a worship of the Lord, what could it be? Idol worship.
To forsake the worship of the true God is to fall into idolatry, whatever form this may take. In religion there is no middle ground. No doubt Jeroboam thought he had found such a middle ground: he did not adopt the false gods of the nations round about; he wanted only to establish a common religion for Israel. Having no heart-knowledge of the God who had spoken to him, he took counsel with himself and made two golden calves. “Behold thy gods, Israel,” he says, “which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.” He restores to honor that Jewish idolatry which had been practiced by the people at the foot of Sinai and which had brought down upon them the judgment of God. Only he goes further than Israel had in the wilderness: his forsaking of God is more complete. “Behold thy gods,” he says, whereas the people had said, “This is thy god” (Ex. 32:4, 54And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. 5And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said, To morrow is a feast to the Lord. (Exodus 32:4‑5), J. N. Darby translation). He does not add as Aaron had done, “Tomorrow is a feast to Jehovah!” The Lord is completely set aside.
Jeroboam is a cunning politician. He sets up one calf at Bethel, on the boundary with Judah, and the other at Dan, the northern frontier of his territory. He patterns his worship after the form of the worship prescribed by the law of Moses. “A house of high places” replaces the temple; the Levitical priesthood is replaced by “priests from all classes of the people, who were not of the sons of Levi.” As Israel had its Feast of Tabernacles, Jeroboam also established a feast, but a month later than this. He sets up an altar at Bethel corresponding to the brazen altar, setting it up before the idol, and burns incense upon it instead of burnt offerings (1 Kings 12:31-3331And he made an house of high places, and made priests of the lowest of the people, which were not of the sons of Levi. 32And 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 Beth-el, sacrificing unto the calves that he had made: and he placed in Beth-el the priests of the high places which he had made. 33So he offered upon the altar which he had made in Beth-el the fifteenth day of the eighth month, even in the month which he had devised of his own heart; and ordained a feast unto the children of Israel: and he offered upon the altar, and burnt incense. (1 Kings 12:31‑33)). All this “he had devised of his own heart”!
Thus, despite its misleading external forms, this religion was a complete forsaking of the worship of the Lord, an instrument of polity in the hands of the government. Lulled by false appearances, souls were kept far from the true God, and the king of the line of David became a stranger to them.
Can we not find similar principles in the religions of our day? Are they based upon faith in the word of God or upon practices that only vaguely resemble the worship of God—an arbitrary religion, a voluntary worship, a forsaking of the house of God, the Assembly of the Living God, a denial of worship in the Spirit, priestly functions accorded to such who are not true worshippers, the efficacy of the sacrifice replaced by perfume, so that one worships and pretends to approach God without having been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb! Doubtless it is not idolatry, properly speaking, as in Jeroboam’s false worship, but we know from the Word that before long it will all be part of the lifeless religion characterizing professing Christendom today, and that this latter, left to itself, without ties to Christ, making religion a matter of the intelligence, not of the conscience and of faith, will end up by returning to idols and by bowing down before the works of its own hands.