Tonight while taking my evening walk I was listening to I Kings. One of the passages caught my ear as it played.

And Jeroboam said in his heart, “Now the kingdom will turn back to the house of David. If this people go up to offer sacrifices in the temple of the Lord at Jerusalem, then the heart of this people will turn again to their lord, to Rehoboam king of Judah, and they will kill me and return to Rehoboam king of Judah.” So the king took counsel and made two calves of gold. And he said to the people, “You have gone up to Jerusalem long enough. Behold your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.” And he set one in Bethel, and the other he put in Dan. Then this thing became a sin, for the people went as far as Dan to be before one.

I Kings 19:26-30 ESV

Of course, this passage made me think of visiting Dan and seeing where the Golden Calf would have stood. In the picture above it would have stood on the platform at the right. The altar where sacrifices were made is on the left.

Here is a view from in front of the altar. When you arrive at the site you are usually coming from this direction.

Here you can see the fine workmanship of the blocks that were used in the construction of the worship area.

Not far from where the Golden Calf stood is the Spring of Dan which is one of the sources of the Jordan River. This picture is a bit downstream of the spring, but you can tell that it is really flowing well at this point.

I am also thinking of a couple other posts that I wrote about Dan. One of them is about the capture of the city by the Israelites. See: The Wayward Levite

The other is a post the I wrote about Dan to Beersheba. In the picture above Dan is in the green circle and the red circle shows where Beersheba is. The phrase “Dan to Beersheba” is used quite a few times in the Bible.

Do you know how far it is from Dan to Beersheba?

Steven