Then Jeroboam built Shechem in the hill-country of Ephraim, and dwelt therein; and he went out from thence, and built Penuel.  And Jeroboam said in his heart: 'Now will the kingdom return to the house of David.  If this people go up to offer sacrifices in the house of the LORD at Jerusalem, then will the heart of this people turn back unto their lord, even unto Rehoboam king of Judah; and they will kill me, and return to Rehoboam king of Judah.'  Whereupon the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold; and he said unto them: 'Ye have gone up long enough to Jerusalem; behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.'  And he set the one in Beth-el, and the other put he in Dan.  And this thing became a sin; for the people went to worship before the one, even unto Dan.  And he made houses of high places, and made priests from among all the people, that were not of the sons of Levi.  And Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, like unto the feast that is in Judah, and he went up unto the altar; so did he in Beth-el, to sacrifice unto the calves that he had made; and he placed in Beth-el the priests of the high places that he had made.  And he went up unto the altar which he had made in Beth-el 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 unto the altar, to offer.

Now I’m asking, Jeroboam, what in the world were you thinking? What happened to Jeroboam between when the prophet Ahijah met him and prophesied to him about his ascension to king over the ten tribes of Israel and this? What happened? Well, he did spend a lot of time in Egypt and we’re familiar with the fact that Egypt was a great calf worshiper. In fact, Egypt worshiped just about any and all animals and bugs, but the calf was one of their favorites. After all the time that Israel had spent in Egypt, this was one of the first notions that had to be dealt with. Remember the golden calf incident at Mt. Sinai? Of course you do. Let’s just itemize the list of the things that Jeroboam does which are highly displeasing to God and eventually would earn Jeroboam the reputation of the man who had led Israel into great sin.

1. ) He introduced Israel back into idolatry. He even declared that these two calves were the gods what rescued
       Israel from Egypt. How totally absurd!

2. ) He set up places of worship in two places which were not Jerusalem. God had already stipulated that there
       was one place ONLY for offering of sacrifices.

3.) He set up priesthood and a place to worship that was not in Jerusalem and the priests were not of the tribe of
      Levi.

4. ) He then changed the feast of the Lord to a different date.

5.) He then replaced the priest to offer at the altar and burn incense also.

So we see that Jeroboam was in direct contradiction to five of the commandments that God had given Moses and Israel at and around the time of Sinai. I could liken the mentality of Jeroboam to that of a person who insists on putting his foot down on the tines of a rake and is slammed in the face with the handle—repeatedly. But what he did reaped far worse consequences than a beating on his face. Jeroboam became infamous in the history of Israel and the phrase following is totally associated with Jeroboam: "Jeroboam caused my people Israel to sin, vexing Me with their sins…"

Now about now you might ask so how is Jeroboam and Samaria connected, to cause the schism between Jew and Samaritan?

The definition of Samaritans is tripartite and overlaps each other. Geographically, they were natives of a region called Samaria…and so, could possibly be called "Samarians". Ethnically, they were descent of Israel—mostly of the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, who had intermarried and intermixed with Assyrians in the Northern Kingdom. By the first century CE, Samaria was a melting pot of many different peoples: Babylonian, Jewish, other Semitic peoples, Persians, Syrians, and descendants of the Greek conquerors.

In terms of religion, the Samaritans:

• Worshiped YHWH,

• Revered Mt. Gerizim in Samaria instead of Mt. Zion in Jerusalem as the one valid place to build an altar or temple for the public worship of Yahweh. (According to Michael Rood the Samaritan’s version of the Torah has 276 portions that do not line up with the Jewish Torah. Mt. Gerizim being designated the place to worship is one of the 276 and has been added to the original Ten Commandments. Rome was to do the same thing after 325 AD. They just conveniently dropped the commandment concerning the making of idols or images from the Commandments. In order to keep it ten commandments, they then took the last commandment "thou shalt not covet thy neighbors wife and thou shalt not covet thy neighbors goods" and made commandments nine and ten out of it: Not to mention they moved the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday and dropped all Feasts and substituted what we have today. Emperor Constantine and Jeroboam seem to me like the same person living twice. GJ) Could it be they were led by the same spirit?

• Maintained that their line of Levitical priests functioning on Mt. Gerizim were the legitimate priests of the Mosaic dispensation, instead of the priests functioning in the Jerusalem temple

• Accepted only the five books of Moses (the Pentateuch) as authoritative Scripture, as in mainstream Judaism but excluded the rest of the Tanakh (Old Testament)

This whole mess started with Solomon and when Jeroboam returned from Egypt more Egyptian than Hebrew and perverted the worship of the Israelite God, it started a division that would increase over the centuries until it got to the point of mutual hatred between two peoples who had once been kin. The northern kingdom would be in absolute apostasy, thanks to Jeroboam. Really, Israel didn’t need any help from Jeroboam in that department---he just made the idolatry much worse by making it their national religion. But God allowed it for a purpose. He allows a lot that in the end His name and being will be glorified. So the next time our lives explode in our faces and we wonder if God has lost control of the situation, we can rest assured that He is definitely in control. Think of the way God allowed Israel to be scattered and is right now while we read Torah Bites, gathering all the scattered ones from all over the world, and bringing them back to where they belong. He is repairing the breach! More tomorrow.

And the adventure continues…