on and many of his people would be going up to Jerusalem.

He therefore, as a part of his scheme, very shrewdly appointed a counter
feast, putting it on the same day of the month, the fifteenth, because
that was the time of the full moon, but he changed the month.

The right time was the seventh month, corresponding with our October and
November, and it was the most joyous of all the festivals celebrating
the gathering of the harvest.

He could plead a good reason for putting his feast a month later,
because the harvest was slower ripening in the northern part of the
kingdom than in the southern, and the change of time would be an
accommodation. The law fixing the seventh month is given (Lev. 23:
34, 39, 41).

At this feast Jeroboam himself approached the altar and served as a
priest. He did this doubtless for two reasons--1, To give the royal
sanction to the new religion; and 2, To show that he considered himself
the religious as well as the civil head of the nation.


LESSONS.

1. Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. Jeroboam
forgot this rule and put the improvement and fortifying of his kingdom
first--his secular affairs--and as a result made a fatal mistake.

2. How long and far a sin reaches! Solomon's idolatry bears fruit in the
breaking up of the nation and the lapse of half of it into heathenism.