Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
The people demand from Rehoboam a relaxation of the heavy tributes of Solomon: he refuses and threatens harsher measures; wherefore the ten tribes, abandoning him, create Jeroboam as their king. Rehoboam prepares war against them, verse 21; but God recalls him through the prophet Shemaiah. Then, verse 27, Jeroboam fearing lest the people, coming to the temple, might likewise return to Rehoboam, erects golden calves as idols in Dan and Bethel.
Vulgate Text: 3 Kings 12:1-33
1. And Rehoboam came to Shechem: for all Israel had gathered there to make him king. 2. But Jeroboam the son of Nebat, while he was still in Egypt as a fugitive from the face of King Solomon, having heard of his death, returned from Egypt. 3. And they sent and called him: therefore Jeroboam came, and the whole multitude of Israel, and they spoke to Rehoboam, saying: 4. Your father imposed upon us a most harsh yoke; therefore now lighten somewhat the most harsh rule of your father, and the most heavy yoke which he imposed upon us, and we will serve you. 5. He said to them: Go away until the third day, and return to me. And when the people had gone, 6. King Rehoboam took counsel with the elders who had stood before Solomon his father while he was still alive, and said: What counsel do you give me, that I may answer this people? 7. They said to him: If today you will obey this people and serve them, and yield to their petition, and speak gentle words to them, they will be your servants for all time. 8. But he abandoned the counsel of the elders which they had given him, and took counsel with the young men who had been raised with him and attended him. 9. And he said to them: What counsel do you give me, that I may answer this people who said to me: Lighten the yoke that your father imposed upon us? 10. And the young men who had been raised with him said: Thus you shall speak to this people who have spoken to you saying: Your father made our yoke heavy, lighten it for us. Thus you shall speak to them: My little finger is thicker than my father's back. 11. And now my father placed upon you a heavy yoke, but I will add to your yoke: my father beat you with whips, but I will beat you with scorpions. 12. So Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam on the third day, as the king had spoken, saying: Return to me on the third day. 13. And the king answered the people harshly, having abandoned the counsel of the elders which they had given him. 14. And he spoke to them according to the counsel of the young men, saying: My father made your yoke heavy, but I will add to your yoke; my father beat you with whips, but I will beat you with scorpions. 15. And the king did not yield to the people; because the Lord had turned away from him, in order to fulfill His word which He had spoken through Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam the son of Nebat. 16. Therefore the people, seeing that the king would not hear them, answered him, saying: What share have we in David? Or what inheritance in the son of Jesse? Go to your tents, O Israel; now see to your own house, David. And Israel departed to their tents. 17. But over the children of Israel who dwelt in the cities of Judah, Rehoboam reigned. 18. Then King Rehoboam sent Adoram, who was over the tributes: and all Israel stoned him, and he died. But King Rehoboam hastily mounted his chariot and fled to Jerusalem. 19. And Israel departed from the house of David, to this present day. 20. And it came to pass, when all Israel heard that Jeroboam had returned, they sent and called him to the assembled congregation, and made him king over all Israel, nor did anyone follow the house of David except the tribe of Judah alone. 21. And Rehoboam came to Jerusalem, and gathered the whole house of Judah, and the tribe of Benjamin, one hundred and eighty thousand chosen warriors, to fight against the house of Israel and to bring back the kingdom to Rehoboam the son of Solomon. 22. But the word of the Lord came to Shemaiah the man of God, saying: 23. Speak to Rehoboam the son of Solomon, king of Judah, and to all the house of Judah and Benjamin, and to the rest of the people, saying: 24. Thus says the Lord: You shall not go up, nor fight against your brothers the children of Israel; let every man return to his house, for this thing has been done by Me. They heard the word of the Lord, and returned from the journey, as the Lord had commanded them. 25. And Jeroboam built Shechem in Mount Ephraim, and dwelt there; and going out from there he built Penuel. 26. And Jeroboam said in his heart: Now the kingdom will return to the house of David. 27. If this people go up to offer sacrifices in the house of the Lord in Jerusalem, the heart of this people will turn back to their lord Rehoboam king of Judah, and they will kill me, and return to him. 28. And having devised a plan, he made two golden calves, and said to them: Do not go up anymore to Jerusalem; behold your gods, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt. 29. And he set one in Bethel, and the other in Dan. 30. And this thing became a sin: for the people went to worship the calf even to Dan. 31. And he made shrines on the high places, and priests from the lowest of the people, who were not of the sons of Levi. 32. And he appointed a solemn feast day in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, in imitation of the solemnity which was celebrated in Judah. And going up to the altar, he did likewise in Bethel, to sacrifice to the calves which he had made: and he appointed in Bethel priests of the high places which he had made. 33. And he went up to the altar which he had built in Bethel, on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, which he had devised of his own heart; and he made a feast for the children of Israel, and went up to the altar to burn incense.
Verse 1: Rehoboam Came to Shechem
1. AND REHOBOAM CAME TO SHECHEM — for Shechem was a place famous for the residence and burial of the Patriarchs, and as it were sacred; hence Joshua held an assembly there, last chapter, verse 1; Abimelech, Judges chapter 9, verse 1. Therefore here the Israelites hold a royal assembly in Shechem, to make Rehoboam their king in that place.
Verse 4: Your Father Imposed upon Us a Most Harsh Yoke
4. YOUR FATHER IMPOSED UPON US A MOST HARSH YOKE. — For Solomon, in order to sustain his own magnificence and that of his thousand wives in clothing, table, servants, horses, and chariots, had imposed enormous tributes upon the people, from which the people here justly demand to be at least partly freed.
Verse 7: If Today You Obey This People
7. IF TODAY YOU OBEY THIS PEOPLE, etc., AND SPEAK GENTLE WORDS TO THEM, THEY WILL BE YOUR SERVANTS FOR ALL TIME. — This was the most prudent counsel of the elders, because it was most useful, both for removing the people's exasperation against Solomon and Rehoboam, and for relieving their oppression. For excessive tributes drain the resources of subjects, their spirit and blood, and consequently their life: wherefore the king deprives himself of them and of their tributes and services when he oppresses them with those same things. For the benefit of subjects is the good and benefit of princes; wherefore gentleness and clemency is the highest gift of princes, by which they win subjects to themselves, so that they allow themselves to be governed and show themselves ready to carry out all commands of their prince. Political prudence therefore dictates that you begin your reign with gentleness, and by gentleness bind your subjects to yourself; afterwards easily imposing necessary burdens on those already bound to you. That saying of Lucan is well known:
Nothing shames those accustomed to scepters; the mildest lot of Kingdoms is under a new king.
For a long rule has acquired for itself strength and authority, as well as boldness to command anything: but a new one must gradually acquire these three things for itself through gentleness.
Hear Saint Jerome, epistle 62, celebrating the clemency of a certain bishop toward his subjects: "A parent and a bishop," he says, "ought to be loved, not feared. It is an ancient maxim: Whom one fears, one hates; whom one hates, one wishes dead. Whence also in our Scriptures, while the beginnings of little ones consist in fear, perfect love casts out fear. You do not seek to have monks subject to you, and therefore you have them all the more subject. You offer a kiss, they bow their necks; you show yourself a soldier, and you obtain a general; you are as one among many, so that you may be one of many. Liberty quickly grows indignant if it is oppressed. No one commands more from a free man than he who does not compel him to serve. We know the ecclesiastical canons, we are not ignorant of the ranks of individuals, and through reading and daily examples we have learned much, we have experienced much up to this age. He who beats with scorpions and thinks he has fingers thicker than his father's loins quickly dissipates the kingdom of the gentle David. Certainly the Roman people did not tolerate pride even in a king. That leader of the Israelite army, who had afflicted Egypt with ten plagues, and at whose command heaven and earth and seas served, is proclaimed the meekest among all men whom the earth then brought forth; and therefore for forty years he held the leadership: because he tempered the pride of power with gentleness and meekness. He was stoned by the people, and he prayed for those who stoned him, because he preferred to be blotted out himself from the book of God rather than that the flock committed to him should perish; for he desired to imitate that Shepherd whom he knew would carry even the straying sheep on His shoulders: The good Shepherd, he says, lays down His life for His sheep."
Verse 8: He Abandoned the Counsel of the Elders
8. BUT HE ABANDONED THE COUNSEL OF THE ELDERS AND TOOK COUNSEL WITH THE YOUNG MEN WHO HAD BEEN RAISED WITH HIM. — See here the folly and arrogance of Rehoboam, who, having spurned the mature counsel of the elders, follows the youthful and foolish opinion of the young men, and thereby offends his subjects, alienates them, and drives them to make Jeroboam their king. See therefore here the vanity predicted by Solomon, fulfilled in himself: which is described by him in Ecclesiastes, chapter 2, verse 18: "Again I detested all my industry, with which I had most diligently labored under the sun, about to have an heir after me, whom I do not know whether he will be wise or foolish, and he will have dominion over my labors, in which I have sweated and been anxious: and is there anything so vain!"
There is a maxim of the Hebrews: Just as four things are good, namely riches, knowledge, the counsel of elders, and a humble spirit, so conversely four things are evil and contrary to them, namely poverty, ignorance, youthful counsel, and a proud spirit, which overturn the state as well as each private person; just as the Roman Empire was overturned by imprudent and arrogant youths. Hence in the portico of the tavern where veterans and retired soldiers were once maintained, these verses were once inscribed in golden letters:
Ancient Rome, while ancient Romans ruled you, Neither was any good man exempt, nor any bad man free. When the fathers died, a petty youth succeeded, By whose counsel you rush headlong to ruin.
See Cicero, book On Old Age, Plutarch in his Life of Nicias, and Thucydides, book 6. For this reason Augustus Caesar, as Suetonius attests, had as counselors grave and elderly men, Agrippa and Maecenas, by whose counsels he accomplished such great and illustrious things: hence when they died, having fallen into infamy because of his daughter's debauchery, he groaned, repeatedly saying that this misfortune would not have befallen him if Agrippa and Maecenas had lived.
Croesus, king of the Lydians, drunk with excessive good fortune, neglecting the warnings of the most wise old man Solon, and lending his ears to young men flattering his power, while trying to destroy the empire of Cyrus, lost his own. And so, raised upon the pyre to be burned alive there, having called out the name of Solon, and the whole matter being revealed, he experienced the remarkable clemency of the victor Cyrus, as Herodotus relates, book 1.
If Xerxes had preferred to hear the prudent counsels of his elderly uncle Artabanus rather than the youthful flatteries of Mardonius, he certainly would not have provoked the Greeks with a war of so many hundreds of thousands, nor would he have been forced to flee from Greece with the greatest disgrace, as Herodotus attests, book 7.
Dionysius, the tyrant of Sicily, if he had obeyed the counsels of the most wise old man Plato, would have left to his children a more secure rule than that which he received from his father; but because he preferred the flatteries of young men, he was cast down from his throne and compelled to become a schoolmaster.
Nero would have ruled happily if he had perpetually obeyed the counsels of the elderly Seneca and Burrhus, as he had begun. But when, having first rejected and then killed them, the young man follows the voices of flattering young men, he hastened his own destruction and begot for himself perpetual infamy among posterity for so many crimes and disgraces. So Suetonius in his Life.
Wherefore Cornelius Tacitus wisely says: "Flattery," he says, "is the perpetual evil of princes, whose resources are more often overturned by adulation than by the enemy." And kings abound in all things at court except truth. What made Nero, most chastely educated, cruel? Flattery. What made Caesar rebel against his fatherland? Flattery. What made Rehoboam a tyrant? Flattery. At court, therefore, one Clitus is to be preferred to six hundred Aristippuses. Ovid truly says:
The troop of flatterers marches through the midst of the court.
Verse 10: My Smallest Finger
10. MY SMALLEST (in Hebrew, katanni, that is, small or smallest, namely) FINGER IS THICKER THAN MY FATHER'S BACK — this is a proverb, as if to say: I am much stronger and more excellent than my father: I have greater majesty and magnificence than what my father had: therefore I will impose upon you greater tributes and burdens than my father Solomon imposed. Hence the Chaldean translates: my weakness is stronger than the strength of my father; the Septuagint: my smallness is thicker than the back of my father; Vatablus: my small part will be thicker than the loins of my father. See how the arrogance of Rehoboam makes him stupid and foolish.
Verse 14: I Will Beat You with Scorpions
14. I WILL BEAT YOU WITH SCORPIONS — that is, with barbed whips, as Vatablus translates. This utterance is more worthy of an executioner than of a king.
Verse 16: What Share Have We in David
16. WHAT SHARE HAVE WE IN DAVID, OR WHAT INHERITANCE IN THE SON OF JESSE? — As if to say: What fellowship, what partnership, what hope and advantage do we have in the stock of David, namely in Rehoboam, that we should make him our king? As if to say: None. Therefore let us not make him our king. Contemptuously they call David "the son of Jesse," as if to say: David was a common and poor man, being the son of Jesse, our fellow citizen: we raised him to be king, so that he might protect us: but now Rehoboam, his grandson, growing insolent because of David's name, does not protect us but tears us apart and plunders us. Why then should we make him our king, because he is from the family of David, when that family was recently promoted to the kingship by us? Let us therefore bring him down with his family, reduce them to their proper rank, and return them to their former state of common life, and from another family let us choose a more modest and benign king for ourselves.
NOW SEE TO YOUR OWN HOUSE, DAVID. — The Chaldean: now reign over the men of your own house, David; the Septuagint: now feed (that is, rule) your own house, David, as if to say: You, O Rehoboam son of David, rule your own tribesmen, namely the tribe of Judah; we ten tribes will provide ourselves with another more merciful ruler.
Verse 19: Israel Departed from the House of David
19. AND ISRAEL DEPARTED FROM THE HOUSE OF DAVID — making Jeroboam their king in place of Rehoboam.
One may ask whether the ten tribes lawfully made the schism and separated themselves from Rehoboam, who was the legitimate heir of the kingdom and successor of Solomon. Abulensis answers that they did so lawfully: for they, he says, were free men, while Rehoboam wanted to reduce them to servitude; therefore they could withdraw from him: for a people or republic, in creating a king, gives him authority and the right to govern. Therefore it can take away or diminish that same authority, if he abuses it to the destruction of the people: for the people does not hand itself over to the prince to be governed absolutely, but under certain conditions, which if the prince does not observe, they can depose him. So Abulensis, about which more must be said elsewhere. More truly you would say that this was done by the will and decree of God, as is clear from verse 24.
Cornelius Tacitus admirably admonishes the prince, book 4 of the Annals: "Let them not impose," he says, "harsh taxes upon the people: for excessive severity in exacting tribute, and the excessive tribute itself that is imposed, frequently moves subjects to sedition."
Verse 20: Except the Tribe of Judah Alone
20. EXCEPT THE TRIBE OF JUDAH ALONE. — Add also Benjamin: for this tribe, united with Judah, constituted one kingdom with it.
Verse 26: Jeroboam Said in His Heart
26. AND JEROBOAM SAID IN HIS HEART: NOW THE KINGDOM WILL RETURN TO THE HOUSE OF DAVID.
Verse 27: If This People Go Up to Offer Sacrifices
27. IF THIS PEOPLE GO UP TO OFFER SACRIFICES IN THE HOUSE OF THE LORD IN JERUSALEM. — Jeroboam feared that the people, going to Jerusalem to the temple, would likewise return to King Rehoboam who reigned in Jerusalem, and would say: We wish to adhere to Jerusalem and the temple; therefore also to its king Rehoboam. Hence he commanded that no one should go to Jerusalem and the temple, but that all should sacrifice to the calves erected by him in Dan and Bethel. This counsel of his seemed politically prudent and salutary for defending his kingdom and political state: but in reality it was imprudent and ruinous, and utterly undermined and overthrew his state and kingdom. For God had threatened this to him, God "in whose hand are the rights of all kingdoms," and so it happened: for because Jeroboam, in order to defend the schism of his kingdom, made a schism likewise in religion and faith, therefore his entire "house" and family was "destroyed from the face of the earth," as is said in chapter 13. For he himself reigned only 22 years with many sorrows and troubles. His son Nadab succeeded him, who reigned scarcely two years and was deprived of kingdom and life by his servant Baasa, who promptly extinguished the entire family of Jeroboam so completely that not a single one of them survived, just as God had already threatened him through the prophet Ahijah: all of which is clear from 3 Kings, chapter 15, verses 25 and following. He was therefore as stupid as he was impious, in that he did not believe God who promised stability of the kingdom to his descendants if he served Him alone. For even if his people had gone to Jerusalem to worship God in the temple, God would have kept the people subject and obedient to him, would have made them obedient, and would have prevented them from returning to Rehoboam: for He had expressly promised this to him, and had a thousand ways of accomplishing it in His mind and hand. Such are more or less the counsels of politicians and Machiavellians (of whom this Jeroboam is the most illustrious example), who make religion serve politics, and embrace whatever faith and religion they think more suited to obtaining, retaining, or augmenting their kingdom and other goals they have set for themselves. For even though their counsels at first may seem attractive and useful, yet for the most part in the course of time they involve princes in the greatest difficulties and bring ruin upon them, the divine Providence so disposing, which dominates over all the counsels of men. Let them hear Nazianzen in his praise of Saint Athanasius, oration 21: "The Emperor Constantius," he says, "grieved over three things at his death: first, that he had brought death upon his relatives; second, that he had nominated Julian the Apostate as emperor; third, that he had devoted himself to new dogmas of the faith; and with these words he departed from life. For a prince, by strengthening religion, is also himself strengthened by it."
The Donatists followed Jeroboam in schism, about whom Saint Augustine, epistle 171: "The Donatists," he says, "ordained bishop against bishop, erected altar against altar," and this in the city of Carthage, in the capital of Africa, just as Jeroboam erected altar against altar.
Finally, that true religion and the worship and piety of God is the foundation of kingdom and republic, Saint Augustine teaches, book 1 of The City of God and following, Saint Ambrose in On Faith addressed to Gratian, Saint Cyril in his Address to Queens, and even the Philosophers. Hear Plato, book 4 of the Laws: "Before all things let us invoke God that we may establish our city, and let us beseech Him to hear us and to be gracious and benign to us, to come to us and Himself teach us laws and adorn our city." And Hermes Trismegistus in Rhodiginus, book 9, chapter 19: "The measure of man before all else is religion, which goodness follows: it then seems at last to be perfect, if it also holds in contempt the desire for all foreign things, fortified by virtue. Each person becomes distinguished through piety, religion, prudence, worship, and veneration of God, as if perceiving with the eyes of true reason, and excelling among men in the confidence of his faith to the degree that the sun is recognized to surpass the other stars in the majesty of its light." It is the opinion of Pythagoras that by drawing near to God each person becomes the best. Xenophon, in book 8 of the Education of Cyrus, makes Cambyses speak thus to his son Cyrus when he was setting out to his grandfather Astyages: "This one thing I especially recommend, and I desire it to be perpetually stored in your memory as a precious treasure given by your father: Be a friend of God, be pious toward Him, and undertake nothing without having invoked the divine power, for the nature of mortals is weak and dull, nothing escapes the wisdom of God; all things turn out according to the wishes of those to whom that wisdom is at hand." This paternal admonition sank so deeply into the son's mind that not without amazement Xenophon everywhere impresses upon readers with what piety Cyrus worshipped the gods, and with what zeal and diligence he labored to appease them with vows, prayers, and sacrifices. Cicero, in the oration On the Response of the Haruspices: "However much," he says, "we may love ourselves, Conscript Fathers, nevertheless neither in numbers did we surpass the Spaniards, nor in strength the Gauls, nor in cunning the Carthaginians, nor in arts the Greeks, nor indeed in that very domestic and native sense of this nation and land the Italians and Latins themselves, but in piety and religion and in this wisdom, that we perceived all things to be ruled and governed by the divine power of the immortal gods, we have surpassed all peoples and nations." Valerius Maximus, book 1, chapter 1: "Our city," he says, "always considered everything to be placed after religion, even in those matters in which it wished the splendor of supreme majesty to be seen; wherefore they did not hesitate to make their rule serve sacred rites: thus considering itself to be the future governor of human affairs, if it had well and constantly served the divine power." And in the same place: "It is therefore not surprising if the persistent indulgence of the gods was always on watch for the augmenting and guarding of its empire, because it seems to examine even the smallest moments of religion with such scrupulous care, since our city must be reckoned never to have had its eyes removed from the most exact observance of ceremonies."
Moreover, all precepts to be given to kings may be summed up in these two: Remember that you are a man; remember that there is a God, Judge and Avenger. The former pertains to restraining their power, the latter to their will.
Verse 28: He Made Two Golden Calves
28. HE MADE TWO GOLDEN CALVES. — Jeroboam made calves rather than rams or horses, because the fathers of the Jews had cast and worshipped a golden calf in the desert, and this in the likeness of Apis, which they had worshipped in the form of a calf or ox in Egypt, Exodus 32:4. See what is said there. Hence Hosea and the other Prophets thunder against these calves. For Jeroboam here uses the very same words that his ancestors had used, Exodus 32, saying: "These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt." On these matters I have said much in Hosea and the Prophets.
Furthermore, Jeroboam fleeing from Solomon went to Egypt to King Shishak, and there saw Apis worshipped (and perhaps he himself worshipped it to gain the favor of Shishak) in the form of a calf: hence, when Solomon died and he returned to Judea and made a schism from Judah and Jerusalem, he erected the golden calves he had seen worshipped in Egypt, so that relying on the help of the Egyptians he might resist Rehoboam and the Jews.
Verse 29: He Set One in Bethel
29. AND HE SET ONE IN BETHEL, AND THE OTHER IN DAN — as if at the two borders of his kingdom: for Bethel was the boundary of Israel to the south, and Dan to the north. Furthermore, Bethel was a famous place, and sacred because of the vision of God in the ladder shown to the patriarch Jacob, Genesis 32, and from that it was called "Bethel," that is "House of God;" but Jeroboam made Bethel, that is "House of God," into Bethaven, that is "house of iniquity" and of an idol, as Hosea says. Bethel now is placed in the tribe of Benjamin, now in the tribe of Ephraim, whence many think there were two Bethels, and that the one understood here is that which is in Ephraim: for Jeroboam was the king of this tribe. Others, however, with Adrichomius, consider there to have been one and the same Bethel, which is attributed now to Benjamin, now to Ephraim, because it was situated on the border of both tribes, or because this one area of Benjamin adhered to Jeroboam and permitted this idol of the calf to be placed in its territory.
Verse 30: This Thing Became a Sin
30. AND THIS THING BECAME (that is, this matter; it is a metonymy) A SIN — as if to say: On the occasion of these calves of Jeroboam, all Israel fell into idolatry and worshipped them as their gods. Therefore Jeroboam sinned most gravely with a sin not only of idolatry but also of scandal, because he was the cause why all Israel thenceforth until its destruction worshipped these calves as idols and as their gods for 256 years, during which nineteen kings following Jeroboam worshipped his calves.
Verse 31: And he made shrines
31. And he made shrines (temples of calves and idols, not sacred but profane and sacrilegious) on the high places — mountains and hills, on which idolaters were accustomed to place and worship their idols.
And priests from the lowest of the people — as if to say: Not from the tribe of Levi, as God had established, but from any other tribe he appointed the basest men as priests of his calves and idols. Thus those who profane religion profane all other things as well. But it was fitting that the basest calves should have the basest priests. This was therefore a just judgment of God. So also heretics in this age appointed as ministers of their heresy ignorant cobblers, shoemakers, apostates, and the dregs of men. A worthy lid for such a pot.
Indeed Aristotle, from the mere light of nature and philosophy, book 7 of the Politics, chapter 9, prescribes that base men should not be appointed priests, on account of the honor due to religion and the divine majesty.
See therefore the one and same spirit of the devil on both sides, who, because he is a contemner of sacred things, degrades them all to baseness, so as to mock them and propose them to all for mockery, and so as to lead men from the faith to atheism, that they may believe nothing and deny the immortality of the soul, hell, and all divinity, as we see in this age many heretics becoming atheists, as Cardinal Hosius has wisely observed and noted.
Hear Tertullian, book On Prescription against Heretics, chapter 41: "Their ordinations are rash, light, inconstant: now they appoint neophytes, now those bound to the world, now our apostates, in order to bind them by glory since they cannot by truth. Nowhere is advancement easier than in the camp of rebels, where the very being there is to be promoted. And so one is a bishop today, another tomorrow: today a deacon, tomorrow a lector: today a priest, who yesterday was a layman: for they impose priestly functions even on laypeople."
Verse 32: He Appointed a Solemn Feast in the Eighth Month
32. AND HE APPOINTED A SOLEMN FEAST DAY IN THE EIGHTH MONTH, ON THE FIFTEENTH DAY OF THE MONTH, IN IMITATION OF THE SOLEMNITY WHICH WAS CELEBRATED IN JUDAH — namely the Feast of Tabernacles, which the Jews by God's decree celebrated on the fifteenth day of the seventh month; but Jeroboam from his own brain transferred it to the fifteenth day of the eighth month, lest he should seem to follow the Jews, but that he himself should appear as the author of a new feast as well as of a new religion and new gods — but ridiculous ones, namely calves. For what is more stupid than a calf? Certainly nothing else, nor anyone other than he who treats irrational calves as rational, and attributes reason, providence, and divinity to them.
Verse 33: He Went Up to the Altar to Burn Incense
33. AND HE WENT UP TO THE ALTAR TO BURN INCENSE. — See here how Jeroboam from one sin of schism falls into the depths of crimes. For here he arrogates to himself not only the kingship but also the pontificate, and makes himself pontiff and head of the Church. For as pontiff he burns incense, institutes feasts, consecrates priests, and builds shrines. So Josephus. Wherefore in Jeroboam you may rightly apply that saying of Bishop Synesius, epistle 101 to Pylamenes: "By no other means can one truly grow rich in the forum unless you confuse all divine and human laws, and instead of a man of honor become a crafty villain."