Who was Jeroboam I, and what evil thing did he begin in Israel?
Now there was another king of the same name. He worshiped the idols which the first Jeroboam had set up, but in the forty years of his reign, the Lord gave him victories and he enlarged the borders of Israel. The country that he gained seems to have been mostly on the east of Jordan, reaching on the south to the Dead Sea and on the north beyond Damascus up to the valley between the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon mountains, to the pass at the north of the Lebanon mountains, from the sea. It was called the entering of Hamath,” the way which leads to the city of that name on the Orontes river. This was spoken of as recovering what belonged to Judah, remembering the days when the kingdom of David and Solomon included Damascus and all this country. This success for Israel was foretold by Jonah the son of Amittai, the prophet, which was of Gathhepher. This is the same prophet that we read of in the Book of Jonah who was sent to prophesy against Nineveh. He came in the days after Elijah and Elisha,
