One of our favourite places to visit in Israel is Tel Dan in the far north of Israel, right on the border with Lebanon. It’s both lush and beautiful because of the melting snow from the Hermon mountains that feed the Jordan River. It’s strategic for political and security reasons of course but it’s also incredibly significant to the Biblical record.
After king Solomon died and his son Rehoboam took the throne, the nation of Israel separated into Israel the Northern Kingdom and Judah the Southern Kingdom. Israel in the north was home to 10 Jewish tribes and the first king to rule the north was Jeroboam and he was a bad king. He was worried that the people might seek reunification with their southern cousins because the Temple was situated in Judah and they needed to travel to the Temple several times a year to keep certain feasts and festivals. In order to prevent this happening he established a counterfeit religious system complete with altars, feasts, festivals and religious practices that for the most part mimicked Judaism but were really nothing more than paganism.
We cannot ‘Christianise’ paganism & slap-on Biblical terms to make it acceptable to God – even if it’s popular or politically correct!
He established two sites of golden calf worship; one at Bethel in the south and one at Dan in the north and it’s to this site that we visit and talk about the dangers of counterfeit religions. The truth is that we cannot ‘Christianise’ paganism, we cannot embrace false religion and simply slap-on Biblical terms to make it acceptable to God even if it’s popular or politically correct. This is what Israel did under the rule of Jeroboam and it corrupted the nation completely. Tel Dan has a metal frame of the ancient pagan altar that was established by Jeroboam that gives a pretty decent indication of the size of the altar and the ruins of Tel Dan are quite extensive.
However, one of the most exciting discoveries at Tel Dan is that of Abraham’s arch (see image below), the oldest ancient arch in Israel, and it’s named after Abraham because it’s incredibly likely that Abraham and Sarah travelled through it when making their way from Haran to the Promised Land.
Geographically, Tel Dan is very important for Israel’s security in the region, archeologically Tel Dan is important because it verifies Israel’s connection to the land and proves Jewish history. Biblically, Tel Dan is important because it confirms and legitimises God’s Word proving yet again that every Word is God breathed and trustworthy.
You can read about king Jeroboam 1 Kings 11-14, 2 Chron 10-13, he’s mentioned in the book of Amos and throughout 2 Kings in conjunction with other kings who did evil in the sight of the Lord.
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