*** it-1 88 Amaziah ***
3. A priest of the calf worship at Bethel who complained to Jeroboam II that the prophet Amos was a seditionist. He personally tried to frighten Amos into going back to Judah. The prophet, however, stood his ground, telling Amaziah that his wife would become a prostitute, his children would fall by the sword, and Amaziah himself would die on unclean ground.-Am 7:10-17.
*** it-1 288 Benjamin ***
Among the prominent cities listed as originally assigned to Benjamin are Jericho, Bethel, Gibeon, Gibeah, and Jerusalem. The conquest of Bethel, however, was effected by the house of Joseph. At a later time Bethel became a prominent city of neighboring Ephraim and a center of idolatrous calf worship. (Jg 1:22; 1Ki 12:28, 29; see BETHEL No. 1.)
*** it-1 297 Bethel ***
Bethel continued as an idolatrous sanctuary till the fall of the northern kingdom to Assyria in 740 B.C.E. Thus Jeremiah, over a century later, could refer to it as a warning example to those trusting in false gods to their eventual shame. (Jer 48:13) Even thereafter Bethel continued as a religious center, for the king of Assyria sent one of the exiled priests back to Israel to teach the lion-plagued people "the religion of the God of the land," and this priest settled in Bethel, teaching the people "as to how they ought to fear Jehovah." The results clearly indicate that he was a priest of the golden calf, since "it was of Jehovah that they became fearers, but it was of their own gods that they proved to be worshipers," and things continued on the same false and idolatrous basis initiated by Jeroboam.-2Ki 17:25, 27-33.
*** it-1 297 Bethel ***
In fulfillment of Hosea's prophecy the golden calf of Bethel had been carried off to the king of Assyria (Ho 10:5, 6), but the original altar of Jeroboam was still there in the time of King Josiah of Judah. During or following Josiah's 18th year of rule (642 B.C.E.), he extended his purge of false religion up into Bethel and also to the cities of Samaria. Josiah destroyed the site of idolatrous worship in Bethel, first burning the bones from nearby tombs on the altar, thereby desecrating it in fulfillment of the prophecy given by "the man of the true God" over three centuries earlier. The only grave spared was that of "the man of the true God," in that way sparing also the bones of the old prophet occupying the same grave.-2Ki 22:3; 23:15-18; 1Ki 13:2, 29-32.
*** it-1 374 Bull ***
Later, the first king of the ten-tribe kingdom, Jeroboam, set up calf worship at Dan and Bethel. (1Ki 12:28, 29)
*** it-1 394 Calf ***
Since the priests of the tribe of Levi stayed loyal to Jehovah's worship at Jerusalem, Jeroboam appointed his own priests to lead the false worship before the idol calves at Dan and Bethel. (2Ch 11:13-15)
*** it-1 394 Calf ***
The golden calf of Bethel was to be carried away to the king of Assyria, giving cause for the people as well as the foreign-god priests to mourn. The high places would be annihilated, and thorns and thistles would grow upon the altars that had been used in false worship. (Ho 10:5-8; 13:2; Am 3:14; 4:4; 5:5, 6) Calamity did come when the ten-tribe kingdom fell to Assyria in 740 B.C.E. About a century later, Jeremiah prophesied that the Moabites would be just as ashamed of their god Chemosh as the Israelites had become of their center of idolatrous calf worship, Bethel.-Jer 48:13; see BETHEL No. 1; BULL
*** it-1 574 Dan ***
Following the division of the kingdom, Jeroboam set up golden calves at Dan and at Bethel in his effort to divert his subjects from the temple in Jerusalem.-1Ki 12:28-30; 2Ki 10:29
*** it-1 856 Foreknowledge, Foreordination ***
Jehovah's prophecy concerning Josiah called for some descendant of David to be so named, and it foretold his acting against false worship in the city of Bethel. (1Ki 13:1, 2)
*** it-1 1143 Horn ***
Jehovah said that the sins of Judah were engraved "on the horns of their altars" (Jer 17:1), making the altars unclean and their sacrifices unacceptable; and in Amos 3:14 Jehovah states his purpose to desecrate the altars for calf worship at Bethel by the cutting off of their horns.
*** it-1 1233 Israel ***
Jeroboam recognized that unified worship holds a people together, and so to keep the breakaway tribes from going to Jerusalem's temple to worship, he set up two golden calves, not at the capital, but at the two extremities of Israel's territory, one at Bethel in the south and the other at Dan in the north. He also installed a non-Levitical priesthood to lead and instruct Israel in worship of both the golden calves and the goat-shaped demons.-1Ki 12:28-33; 2Ch 11:13-15.
*** it-2 24 Jehu ***
Likely to keep the ten-tribe kingdom of Israel distinct from the kingdom of Judah with its temple of Jehovah at Jerusalem, King Jehu let the calf worship remain in Israel with its centers at Dan and Bethel.
*** it-2 37 Jeroboam ***
Seeing his subjects streaming up to the temple in Jerusalem to worship, Jeroboam envisioned that in time they might switch their allegiance to Rehoboam and then they would kill him. So he decided to put a stop to this by establishing a religion centered around two golden calves, which he set up, one at Bethel in the south, the other at Dan in the north.
*** it-2 118 Josiah ***
down the altar built by Israel's King Jeroboam at Bethel. The high places were removed not only at Bethel but also in the other cities of Samaria, and the idolatrous priests were sacrificed on the altars where they had officiated.-1Ki 13:1, 2; 2Ki 23:4-20; 2Ch 34:33.
*** it-2 171 Kings, Books of ***
A man of God announces Jehovah's judgment against the altar for calf worship at Bethel (13:1-3)
*** Rbi8 1 Kings 12:28-30 ***
28 Consequently the king took counsel and made two golden calves and said to the people: "It is too much for YOU to go up to Jerusalem. Here is your God, O Israel, that brought you up out of the land of Egypt." 29 Then he placed the one in Beth'el, and the other he put in Dan. 30 And this thing came to be a cause for sin, and the people began to go before the one as far as Dan.
*** Rbi8 1 Kings 12:31 - 13:1 ***
32 And Jer·o·bo'am went on to make a festival in the eighth month on the fifteenth day of the month, like the festival that was in Judah, that he might make offerings upon the altar that he had made in Beth'el, to sacrifice to the calves that he had made; and he put in attendance at Beth'el the priests of the high places that he had made. 33 And he began to make offerings upon the altar that he had made in Beth'el on the fifteenth day in the eighth month, in the month that he had invented by himself; and he proceeded to make a festival for the sons of Israel and to make offerings upon the altar to make sacrificial smoke.
*** Rbi8 1 Kings 13:4 ***
4 And it came about that, as soon as the king heard the word of the man of the [true] God that he had called out against the altar in Beth'el, Jer·o·bo'am at once thrust out his hand from off the altar, saying: "YOU men, grab hold of him!" Immediately his hand that he had thrust out against him became dried up, and he was not able to draw it back to himself.
*** Rbi8 2 Kings 10:28-29 ***
28 Thus Je'hu annihilated Ba'al out of Israel. 29 It was only the sins of Jer·o·bo'am the son of Ne'bat, with which he caused Israel to sin, that Je'hu did not turn aside from following them, [that is,] the golden calves of which one was in Beth'el and one in Dan
*** Rbi8 2 Kings 23:14-15 ***
15 And also the altar that was in Beth'el, the high place that Jer·o·bo'am the son of Ne'bat, who caused Israel to sin, had made, even that altar and the high place he pulled down. Then he burned the high place; he ground [it] to dust and burned the sacred pole.
*** Rbi8 2 Kings 23:17 ***
17 Then he said: "What is the gravestone over there that I am seeing?" At this the men of the city said to him: "It is the burial place of the man of the [true] God that came from Judah and proceeded to proclaim these things that you have done against the altar of Beth'el."