It does not appear that the people of Israel as yet ignored Jehovah as God; but they worshipped him in the form of the same Egyptian symbol that Aaron had set up in the wilderness,—­a grave offence, although not an utter apostasy.  Moreover, this was the act of the king rather than of the priests or his own subjects.

Stanley makes a significant comment on this act of the new king, which the sacred narrative refers to as “the sin of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin.”  He says:  “The Golden Image was doubtless intended as a likeness of the One True God.  But the mere fact of setting up such a likeness broke down the sacred awe which had hitherto marked the Divine Presence, and accustomed the minds of the Israelites to the very sin against which the new form was intended to be a safeguard.  From worshipping God under a false and unauthorized form they gradually learned to worship other gods altogether....  ’The sin of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat,’ is the sin again and again repeated in the policy—­half-worldly, half-religious—­which has prevailed through large tracts of ecclesiastical history....  For the sake of supporting the faith of the multitude, lest they should fall away to rival sects, ... false arguments have been used in support of religious truths, false miracles promulgated or tolerated, false readings in the sacred text defended.  And so the faith of mankind has been undermined by the very means intended to preserve it.”

For priests, Jeroboam selected the lowest of the people,—­whoever could be induced to offer idolatrous sacrifices in the high places,—­since the old priests and Levites remained with the tribe of Judah at Jerusalem.

These abominations and political rivalries caused incessant war between the two kingdoms for several reigns.  The northern kingdom, including the great tribe of Ephraim or Joseph, was the richest, most fertile, and most powerful; but the southern kingdom was the most strongly fortified.  And yet even in the fifth year of the reign of Rehoboam, the king of Egypt, probably incited by Jeroboam, invaded Judah with an immense army, including sixty thousand cavalry and twelve hundred chariots, and invested Jerusalem.  The city escaped capture only by submitting to the most humiliating conditions.  The vast wealth which was stored in the Temple,—­the famous gold shields which David had taken from the Syrians, and those also made by Solomon for his body-guard, together with the treasures of the royal palace,—­became spoil for the Egyptians.  This disaster happened when Solomon had been dead but five years.  The solitary tribe left to his son, despoiled by Egypt and overrun by other enemies, became of but little account politically for several generations, although it still possessed the Temple and was proud of its traditions.  After this great humiliation, the proud king of Judah, it seems, became a better man; and his descendants for a hundred years were, on the whole, worthy sovereigns, and did good in the sight of the Lord.