chapter 62
JEROBOAM’S CONTINUED PLAN OF CORRUPTION
1st King’s 12:31 Jeroboam “ made an House of the high places and made priests of the lowest of the people which were not the sons of Levi “ . The Hebrew word for House here means palace or temple . Jeroboam didn’t want his people looking to the real temple in Jerusalem so he built a counterfeit temple in Samaria and then he filled it with, not people of the Levitical priesthood , who knew the LAW , but lowly people that he could dictate his own religious observances and practices to .
In this temple he installed a number of pagan idol statues from his homeland of Egypt and he also changed the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday , the day of Sun worship , as Egypt is home to Heliopolis , the city of the Sun ! This is documented in Hosea 2:11 . Jeroboam reigned for 22 years , during which time he deeply entrenched his religious political system in Israel . We know Jeroboam’s religious system survived.
Because biblical passages such as 2nd Kings 17 vs 22 show this religion was still in practice 200 years after his death . “for the children of Israel walked in all the sins of Jeroboam which he did ,they departed not from them ” . This was in the end of the 8th century BC .
Scripture gives some details of the religion at this time ; verse 10 reads “ they set them up images and groves in every high hill and under every green tree “. The Hebrew term for images means a column or memorial stone , or as the Gesenius’ Hebrew- Chaldee Lexicon says , “ something set upright ,specially a pillar or sometimes a statue of Baal “ . The term groves refers to a place marked by trees . Vs 16 – 7 provides further documentation , “ and they left all the commandments of the Lord our Almighty God and made them molten images even two calves and made a grove and worshipped all the host of heaven and served Baal and they caused their sons and their daughters to pass through fire and Used divination and enchantments , and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord to provoke him to anger “ .
They had even sunk as low as seeking counsel of evil spirits , casting of spells and even human sacrifice !
They had truly lost their way , incurring Almighty God’s wrath and as a consequence were becoming lost , as 2nd Kings 17:18 states , “ Therefore the LORD was very angry with Israel , and removed them out of his sight: there was none left but the tribe of Judah only . “