Later text
And Jeroboam appointed his own priests for the high places and for the goat demons and calf idols he had made.
Intertextuality Pair
2 Chronicles 11:15 → 1 Kings 12:28-33
Allusion
Earlier text
After seeking advice, the king made two golden calves and said to the people, "Going up to Jerusalem is too much for you. Here, O Israel, are your gods, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt." One calf he set up in Bethel, and the other in Dan. And this thing became a sin; the people walked as far as Dan to worship before one of the calves. Jeroboam also built shrines on the high places and appointed from every class of people priests who were not Levites. And Jeroboam ordained a feast on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, like the feast that was in Judah, and he offered sacrifices on the altar; he made this offering in Bethel to sacrifice to the calves he had set up, and he installed priests in Bethel for the high places he had set up. On the fifteenth day of the eighth month, a month of his own choosing, Jeroboam offered sacrifices on the altar he had set up in Bethel. So he ordained a feast for the Israelites, offered sacrifices on the altar, and burned incense.
Significance
The Chronicler reports that Jeroboam appointed priests "for the high places and for the goat demons and calf idols he had made" (lasse'irim vela'agalim, 2 Chr 11:15). This connects directly to 1 Kings 12:28-33, which narrates Jeroboam's construction of golden calves at Bethel and Dan with the idolatrous declaration "Here, O Israel, are your gods, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt." The Chronicler's reference to "goat-demons" (se'irim) adds a detail absent from Kings, intensifying the portrait of Jeroboam's apostasy and providing theological justification for the Levites' migration south to legitimate worship in Jerusalem. The Kings account fills out the rival system Jeroboam built—non-Levitical priests drawn "from every class of people" (מִקְצוֹת הָעָם, miqtsot ha'am) and a counterfeit feast in the eighth month (1 Kgs 12:31-33).
- Found via
- Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
- Reference Type
- Allusion
- Connection Method(s)
- Redemptive-Historical Progression + Longitudinal Theme — 2 Chronicles 11:15's one-verse indictment (priests "for the high places and for the goat demons and calf idols he had made") condenses and builds on the full narrative of 1 Kings 12:28-33 (the calves at Bethel and Dan, priests "from every class of people," the self-devised eighth-month feast), advancing the canonical history of the schism; and both texts develop the running theme of counterfeit priesthood and worship against the legitimate cult God appointed — the thread that finds its resolution in the true Priest and true worship in Christ.