So one of the priests whom they had exiled from Samaria came and lived in Bethel, and taught them how they should worship the LORD — a priest returns to Bethel (the cultic center of the northern kingdom, site of Jeroboam's golden calf) to teach the replacement populations Yahwistic worship. The phrase "taught them how they should worship the LORD" suggests cultic instruction focused on maintaining proper relationship with the land's deity. Bethel, once a center of schismatic worship (Jeroboam's calf), becomes the pedagogical center for Yahwistic instruction of the foreign populations.

COMMUNITY REFLECTIONS

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