1 Kings 12:28

Two calves of gold] The calves were not intended as substitutes for the Lord (Jehovah) but as symbols of Him, as appears from the king's words to the people. It has been thought by some that such symbols were derived from Egypt where the living bull Apis was worshipped, and where Jeroboam had lived in exile. But the calves which he set up were probably imitations of the calf made in the wilderness by Aaron; and it is scarcely likely that the Israelites, when escaping from Egypt, would, to represent their own God, borrow an emblem from their task-masters. It is more probable that a calf or young bull was chosen as a religious symbol because to an agricultural people the bull was a natural emblem of force and vigour. But though Jeroboam, in setting up the calves, did not break the first commandment of the Decalogue, he yet violated the second, and from motives of state policy (1 Kings 12:26) corrupted the religious worship of his people, not only by making it sensuous instead of spiritual, but by employing symbols which represented merely Jehovah's power (whether displayed in creation or destruction) and altogether failed to suggest His highest attributes—those of righteousness, holiness, and love. That these coarse symbols long continued to be worshipped appears from Hosea 8:5; Hosea 10:5. Thy gods] The plural is used because there was more than one image, but the same God was represented by both.