The northern shrine
A rival king builds a golden calf at the top of the land so his people will not go to Jerusalem. The platform is still there. So is the stone that names the House of David.
Stop 34 of 84. 168 km from Jerusalem. Next stop, Carmel and the Kishon, is 85 km away.
26Jeroboam said in his heart, “Now the kingdom will return to David’s house. 27If this people goes up to offer sacrifices in Yahweh’s house at Jerusalem, then the heart of this people will turn again to their lord, even to Rehoboam king of Judah; and they will kill me, and return to Rehoboam king of Judah.” 28So the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold; and he said to them, “It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Look and behold your gods, Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” 29He set the one in Bethel, and the other put he in Dan. 30This thing became a sin; for the people went even as far as Dan to worship before the one there. 31He made houses of high places, and made priests from among all the people, who were not of the sons of Levi. 32Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, like the feast that is in Judah, and he went up to the altar. He did so in Bethel, sacrificing to the calves that he had made, and he placed in Bethel the priests of the high places that he had made. 33He went up to the altar which he had made in Bethel on the fifteenth day in the eighth month, even in the month which he had devised of his own heart; and he ordained a feast for the children of Israel, and went up to the altar, to burn incense.
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This stop is being written. The reading above is complete and the map is right; the walk itself, in my own words from the ground, comes in order as the book is finished. Stop 1, Shechem, is written in full if you want to see the shape of a chapter.
Supporting passages and the contested points for this stop are already fixed in the spine of the book and will be printed here.