suitable and convenient time for a harvest-festival in the northern parts of Palestine, the date (the 15 th )

being, however, retained, as that of the full moon.

That this was virtually, and would in practice almost immediately become idolatry, is evident. Indeed, it is

expressly attested in 2 Chronicles 11:15, where the service of the "Calves" is not only associated with that of

the Bamoth, or high-place altars, but even with that of "goats"204 - the ancient Egyptian worship of Pan

under the form of a goat (Leviticus 17:7).

It is true, the text does not imply, as our Authorized Version suggests, that the new priests were taken "from

the lowest of the people." But the emphatic and more detailed repetition of the mode of their appointment (1

Kings 12:31, comp. 13:33), of which apparently the only condition was to bring an offering of one young

bullock and seven rams (2 Chronicles 13:9), enables us to judge on what class of people the conduct of the

religious services must soon have devolved.

A more daring attempt against that God-ordained symbolical religion, the maintenance o f which was the

ultimate reason for Israel's call and existence - so to speak, Israel's very raison d'etre - could not be

conceived. It was not only an act of gross disobedience, but, as the sacred text repeatedly notes, a system

devised out of Jeroboam's own heart, when every religious institution in Israel had been God-appointed,

symbolical, and forming a unity of which no part could be touched without impairing the whole. It was a

movement which, if we may venture so to say, called for immediate and unmi stakable interposition from on

high. Here, then, if anywhere, we may look for the miraculous, and that in its most startling manifestation.

Nor was it long deferred.

It was, as we take it, the first occasion on which this new Feast of Tabernacles was celebrated, perhaps at

the same time also the dedication of the new Temple and the inauguration of its services. Bethel was in

festive array, and thronged by pilgrims - for no less a personage than the king himself was to officiate as

Chief Pontiff on that occasion. Connecting, as we undoubtedly should do, the last verse of 1 Kings 12: with

the first of chapter 13, and rendering it literally, we read that on this feast which he "made" (i.e. of his own

devising) "to the children of Israel," the king "went up on the altar," that is, up the sloping ascent which led

to the circuit around the altar on which the officiating priest stood. The sacrifices had already been offered,

and their smoldering embers and fat had mingled with the ashes (1 Kings 13:3).205 And now t he most solemn

and central part of the service was reached. The king went up the inclined plane to the middle of the altar206

to burn the incense, when he was suddenly arrested, and the worshippers startled by a voice from among

the crowd (comp. here the similar event in John 7:37). It was a stranger who spoke, and, as we know him, a

Judaean, "a man of Elohim." He had come "in 207 the word of Jehovah" (1 Kings 13:1) - not merely in charge

of it, nor only in its constraining power, but as if the Word of Jehovah itself had come, and this "man of

God" been carried in it to deliver the message which he "cried to the altar in the word of Jehovah" (ver. 2). It

was to the spurious and rival altar that he spake, and not to the king - for it was a controversy with spurious

worship, and King Jeroboam was as nothing before Jehovah.

That altar, and the policy which had reared it, would be shivered, the altar desecrated,208 and that by a son of

David 209 whereof he gave them immediate symbolic evidence that Jehovah had spoken by his mouth that

day,210 by this "wondrous sight," 211 that the altar would be rent, and the ashes laden with the fat of the

sacrifices poured out.

Arrested by this uncompromising announcement from one whom he regarded as a daring fanatical intruder,

the king turned quickly round, and stretching out his hand towards him, commanded, "Seize him!" But

already a mightier Hand than King Jeroboam's was stretched out. Now, if ever, would Jehovah vindicate His

authority, prove His Word, and show before all the people that He, Whose authority they had cast off, was

the Living God. Then and there must it be shown, in the idol-temple, at the first consecration of that

spurious altar, at the first false feast, and upon King Jeroboam, in the pomp of his splendor and the

boastfulness of his supposed power (comp. here Acts 12:22, 23). The king had put forth his hand, but he