12:28 behold thy gods. Earlier in his career, Jeroboam had been a man of great promise (I Kings 11:28), and God had chosen him to lead the ten northern tribes. He became overly ambitious and presumptuous, however, thinking he could best retain the loyalty of his subjects by establishing for them a more convenient religion. Jeroboam led the people to still profess to worship the God of their fathers, but not worship at Jerusalem. This led to the blurring of the true religion’s distinctiveness in relation to the pagan religions. He even established a new priesthood and new religious festivals (I Kings 12:31-33), with new altars and new sacrifices. Already conditioned to such changes by the apostasies of Solomon, the people largely went along with this accommodationist religion, but God rebuked and repudiated Jeroboam because of it (I Kings 13).

12:29 put he in Dan. This “high place” (I Kings 12:31) has actually been excavated and identified archaeologically. Dan’s name is even mentioned in an inscription referring to this worship center. What is believed to be the large stone platform on which the golden calf was set has been discovered at Tel Dan in northern Israel, along with various cult objects associated with this pagan worship.

12:32 sacrificing unto the calves. There had been a precedent in Israel for using golden calves to represent Jehovah, for their first high priest, Aaron, had long before done the same (Exodus 32:4), persuading the people that this Egyptian cult with which they had been familiar was just an alternate way of worshipping God. Jeroboam had recently spent time in Egypt (I Kings 11:40), and was again impressed with this cult as a means of luring the already doubting Israelites (doubting because of the many pagan religions promoted by Solomon for his wives) away from having to go to Jerusalem to worship. This device would appeal also to their pagan neighbors.