1 Kings 12, Sanhedrin or sacrifice?

Status
Not open for further replies.

NaphtaliPress

Administrator
Staff member
Gillespie makes the comment below. The passage says the reason iwas so that the people would not go sacrifice. Do other sources say so that they would not go up to have the Sanhedrin judge their hard cases?
"It was the love of a crown that made Jeroboam set up his calves, and make another altar, and other priests, and erect that independent church of his, which should not go up with their hard cases to the Sanhedrim at Jerusalem" [1 Kings 12:26–33.]
 
I find it difficult to think that Gillespie would have had any knowledge of this, and it doesn't even quite fit the context, but there appears to have been a Jewish "legend" that Jeroboam wanted to have members of the Sanhedrin killed or removed from authority to protect his actions. see note 9

Sorry, that's all I could come up with...
 
This is a new idea to me. As you note, in the passage (and elsehwere in the OT) the issue in 1 Kings 12 is clearly false worship - setting up the calves, appointing non-Levite priests and (apparently) offering his own sacrifices. There were likely other reasons as well: political, economic and so on. Temples were economic hubs as well as visible symbols the king's power. It's understandable that Jeroboam would be nervous about people from the newly independent north going down to a temple whose very existence proclaimed the centrality of the Davidic covenant and the election of the Davidic king. But it's not so obvious why the judicial aspect is prominent in Gillespie's mind. The judicial role of the king is not prominent in Kings after the time of Solomon. The only thought I had was 2 Sam 15, where Absalom seeks to build his power base against his father David through suggesting that he would be a better judge (i.e. give every claimant what they wanted).

Reference to a "Sanhedrin" in Jerusalem at this time seems almost certainly anachronistic: the term is Greek, and so likely belongs to the Hellenistic period. But it does suggest a connection with a Jewish source for Gillespie. It's not the kind of anachronism Gillespie would think up by himself, but (as Phil's footnote shows) it's precisely the kind of anachronism a Jewish source might have presumed.
 
I find it difficult to think that Gillespie would have had any knowledge of this, and it doesn't even quite fit the context, but there appears to have been a Jewish "legend" that Jeroboam wanted to have members of the Sanhedrin killed or removed from authority to protect his actions. see note 9

Sorry, that's all I could come up with...
Josephus says this too I think; my thought was he might have gotten it from Josephus but it is not clearly said what Gillespie is saying to have come from there I don't think. Puzzled. And that's not the only problem in this particular passage I'm having. I'll be posting another one shortly!
 
Dr. Duguid used a good word, "anachronism," and Gillespie's comment strikes me as more of an observation that extrapolates from the text cited, based on the ordinary workings of political power and interest. The king in Samaria did not want the people going to Jerusalem for religious purposes, thus diluting his authoritative control over the population (two masters: one religious, one political, a division avoided under the Davidic union-government).

It stands to reason, that the pull toward Jerusalem's altar might easily lead toward more overtly political and judicial diversion of the population away from the supremacy of the new Samaria throne-center for those functions in the northern kingdom. The convenience, and the historic claim of Davidic justice, is easily conceived as a challenge to be avoided by the new monarchy. Even if the monarchical Bronze Age system of justice was not easily comparable to the Sanhedrin of the later age, or Moses' system of the wilderness, there must have been some functioning system.

I'm not a Gillespie scholar by any means, but it isn't hard for me to infer he's applying what he assumes to be standard function of government overlay on the historic situation.
 
Gillespie makes the comment below. The passage says the reason iwas so that the people would not go sacrifice. Do other sources say so that they would not go up to have the Sanhedrin judge their hard cases?
"It was the love of a crown that made Jeroboam set up his calves, and make another altar, and other priests, and erect that independent church of his, which should not go up with their hard cases to the Sanhedrim at Jerusalem" [1

The people made him king:

1Ki 12:20 KJV And it came to pass, when all Israel heard that Jeroboam was come again, that they sent and called him unto the congregation, and made him king over all Israel: there was none that followed the house of David, but the tribe of Judah only.

Now, God had freely promised him a throne:

1Ki 11:29-31 KJV 29 And it came to pass at that time when Jeroboam went out of Jerusalem, that the prophet Ahijah the Shilonite found him in the way; and he had clad himself with a new garment; and they two were alone in the field: 30 And Ahijah caught the new garment that was on him, and rent it in twelve pieces: 31 And he said to Jeroboam, Take thee ten pieces: for thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel, Behold, I will rend the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon, and will give ten tribes to thee:

And a condition upon the continuation of it:

1Ki 11:37-38 KJV 37 And I will take thee, and thou shalt reign according to all that thy soul desireth, and shalt be king over Israel. 38 And it shall be, if thou wilt hearken unto all that I command thee, and wilt walk in my ways, and do that is right in my sight, to keep my statutes and my commandments, as David my servant did; that I will be with thee, and build thee a sure house, as I built for David, and will give Israel unto thee.
he had no reason to assume the worst but of his own unbelief:

1Ki 12:26-27 KJV 26 And Jeroboam said in his heart, Now shall the kingdom return to the house of David: 27 If this people go up to do sacrifice in the house of the LORD at Jerusalem, then shall the heart of this people turn again unto their lord, even unto Rehoboam king of Judah, and they shall kill me, and go again to Rehoboam king of Judah.

His fear (which was most irrational!) was that he would lose his life upon the people returning to Rehoboam, which the king himself sabotaged by not listening to his father's servants excellent wisdom and causing them to revolt!

Not sure where Gillespie is getting the idea that a sandehrim is in the picture. The whole point of having a king was to do justice in the land for its people.

2Sa 8:15 KJV And David reigned over all Israel; and David executed judgment and justice unto all his people.

1Ki 10:9 KJV Blessed be the LORD thy God, which delighted in thee, to set thee [Solomon] on the throne of Israel: because the LORD loved Israel for ever, therefore made he thee king, to do judgment and justice.
 
Not sure where Gillespie is getting the idea that a sandehrim is in the picture. The whole point of having a king was to do justice in the land for its people.
Because what was too much for Moses alone, was also too much for David or any other man alone, Ex.18:18. A kingdom of any size needs a system of justice, grades of courts, ala Ex.18:21. The term "Sanhedrin" is an anachronism, language that referred to the highest Jewish governing/judging body in the 1C A.D. I think Gillespie is using the term generically to refer to whatever high-court existed in Jerusalem, which if the people of the Northern Tribes resorted thither would (like the religious attraction) naturally tend to undermine Jeroboam's throne. (Supernaturally, might have been a different story.)

For the children of Israel--if possible even more than in other nations--the functions of religion and justice were intertwined. Jehovah God was the real King, with justice for his throne. I suppose Gillespie's comment reflects awareness of this perspective, embedded for centuries by this time in Israel's custom, strengthened through David and Solomon's reigns, so even in the North the mental habit of the people was ingrained. Regardless of whether Jeroboam might have been blessed of God through obedience, his move to break Israel away from Jerusalem religiously exposed his faithless pragmatism. His administration was rival to Judah's, and he was not about to share a judicial and legislative system with the Davidic king any more than a Temple and an altar.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top