1 Kings 12:29 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

Bethel and Dan, chosen as the frontier towns of the kingdom, had, however, associations of their own, which lent themselves naturally to Jeroboam’s design. Bethel — preserving in its name the memory of Jacob’s vision, and of his consecration of the place as a sanctuary (Genesis 28:19; Genesis 35:14-15) — had been (see Judges 20:18; Judges 20:26; Judges 20:31; Judges 21:2; 1 Samuel 7:16) a place of religious assembly, and, possibly, of occasional sojourn of the Ark. At Dan, it is not unlikely that the use of the local sanctuary, set up at the conquest of the city by the Danites, still lingered; and from the notice in Judges 18:30, that the posterity of Jonathan, the grandson of Moses, were priests till “the day of the captivity of the land,” it seems as if these priests of this old worship became naturally the appointed ministers of the new.