Text: 2 Chronicles 11:15
OT Text Referred to: Leviticus 17:7
Subject: unauthorized worship
Source: Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Reference Type: Allusion
Connection Method(s): Longitudinal Theme
Significance: Leviticus 17:7 prohibits Israel from sacrificing to שְׂעִירִם (se'irim, "goat demons"), the very practice that centralized worship was designed to prevent. 2 Chronicles 11:15 records that Jeroboam "appointed his own priests for the high places, for the goat demons (שְׂעִירִים), and for the calves he had made" — a direct violation of this prohibition. The Chronicler uses the identical Hebrew term to establish that Jeroboam's northern cult constituted exactly the idolatrous regression that Leviticus 17 warned against. The faithful Levites who abandoned the northern kingdom and came to Judah (2 Chr 11:13-14) are thus presented as upholding the Levitical prohibition while Jeroboam deliberately contravened it.