Later text
Hosea 4:15BSB
Though you prostitute yourself, O Israel, may Judah avoid such guilt! Do not journey to Gilgal, do not go up to Beth-aven, and do not swear on oath, 'As surely as the LORD lives!'
Intertextuality Pair
Hosea 4:15 → 1 Kings 12:28-33
Echo
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
Hosea 4:15 warns Judah, "do not go up to Beth-aven," using the pejorative name בֵּית אָוֶן (beth-aven, "house of wickedness") for Bethel — a deliberate corruption of בֵּית אֵל (beth-el, "house of God"). This renaming directly responds to 1 Kings 12:28-33's account of Jeroboam's establishment of calf worship at Bethel, where he placed golden calves and declared, "Here, O Israel, are your gods, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt." Hosea's refusal to use the name "Bethel" signals that Jeroboam's apostasy has so thoroughly corrupted the site that it no longer deserves its sacred name. The connection between the texts shows the lasting consequences of Jeroboam's sin — what began as a political strategy to prevent northerners from worshiping in Jerusalem became entrenched idolatry that Hosea still combats two centuries later.
- Found via
- Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
- Reference Type
- Echo
- Connection Method(s)
- Contrast — Hosea's renaming of Bethel ("house of God") as Beth-aven ("house of wickedness") inverts the site's own name against the calf cult Jeroboam founded there; the wordplay measures the distance between what the shrine claimed to be and what it became
Linked Mentions 2