What is the significance of high places in the Bible?

The word commonly used for the high place is bamah, signifying what is high or elevated (cf. Ezek. 20:29), and then the hills on which altars were erected. There were such places in Canaan before the Israelites entered it, which they were told to destroy. Num. 33:52. If the Israelites had such, God would destroy them and cut down their images. Lev. 26:80.

In the above passages the high places are connected with idolatry; but it would appear that before the temple was built, altars for the worship of God had been erected elsewhere than at the tabernacle. With Samuel at Zuph, there was 'a sacrifice of the people' in the 'high place' (God having forsaken the tabernacle at Shiloh, this disorder resulted). It was evidently on elevated ground, for they went up to it and came down. 1 Sam. 9:12-25. At the beginning of the reign of Solomon the people sacrificed in high places because the temple was not yet built. This was failure, for we read that "Solomon loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of David his father: only he sacrificed and burnt incense in high places." 1 Kings 3:2-4. The tabernacle was there (Gibeon), 1 Chr. 16:39; 2 Chr. 1:3, so that it appeared to be the right place to go to, and it was where God appeared to Solomon in the night; yet it was 'the great high place.' The reason of this implied disapproval is doubtless because the ark was not there, the symbol of God's presence, which was the true place of worship. At the close of Solomon's life he sinned greatly in building a high place for the gods of all his strange wives. 1 Kings 11:7-8. On the division of the kingdom, Jeroboam set up his idols and "ordained him priests for the high places, and for the devils, and for the calves which he had made." 2 Ch. 11:15. With these two examples it is not surprising that in the whole land there were many high places. Hezekiah and Josiah zealously destroyed the high places, which included the buildings thereon and the idols connected therewith. The word bamah is used apparently for any idolatrous erection, for we once read of high places in a valley. Jer. 7:31.

The term 'high places' has another application under the Hebrew word ramah, which also signifies 'exalted;' for Israel is charged with making a high place in every street, and at every head of the way, which doubtless refers to some shrine or symbol of idolatry connected with abominable practices. Ezek. 16:24-25, 31, 39. They courted the favour of the heathen by adopting their idolatrous worship and customs.

Before the temple was built the people sacrificed at the high places. These were idolatrous shrines which people thought would be sanctified by introducing the worship of God there, but this is a mixture that cannot have God's approval (v.2).

Yet Solomon was a believer. He loved the Lord and sought to walk in the ways of David, except for his worship in high places. He evidently thought, because he wanted to worship the Lord, that he should do it in the most prominent places, so because Gibeon had a great high place, he went there to offer 1000 burnt offerings (v.4), just as people today often think that the most beautiful church is where they ought to worship. In Solomon's case, the Lord bore with this though. He did not approve it, for God did appreciate the desire of Solomon's heart to be a worshiper.

In passing, it is well to notice that the disordered state of the nation is manifest here. There is a "high place" where the sacrificial feast is spread. This was in direct contradiction to the will of God as expressed in the book of Deuteronomy, which provides that it was to be only in the place where Jehovah put His name that sacrifices were to be offered and feasts celebrated. But the glory of the God of Israel had departed from Shiloh, where He had placed His name at the beginning, and the ark was abiding in "the field of the woods." There was no recognized centre. Israel might be mourning after the Lord, but the time was not yet ripe for the pointing out of the true centre of gathering for His people; nor was Shiloh to be thought of, because that, once forsaken, was never again to be recognized as the central abode of the glory of Jehovah.

Thus the high place was, we might say, a sort of necessity brought in by the failure and disordered condition of the people at large. We will find, also, that it was frequently used in this way. There was one at Gibeon, where King Solomon, later on, had a revelation from God. Thus they were not necessarily connected with idolatry. As a matter of fact, they were at the beginning devoted to the true worship of God, and to a certain extent were places where He Himself in grace recognized the need and met with His people, though not according to the due order which He Himself had provided. Later on, however, when He had established His centre, placed His name at Jerusalem, and the temple of His glory was there, the worship of the high places was in direct disobedience to His will, and necessarily, therefore, became more and more connected with the idolatry to which the people were ever prone.

Thus, in the history of the faithful kings, we find that these high places were destroyed in some cases, and their idolatrous worship abolished; in others that in spite of all the manifold efforts to do away with them, they still remained, apparently not for idolatry, but for independent worship of God.

There is food for suggestive thought here. There can be no question that God meets individual faith wherever it truly turns to Him; but He has provided in His Word and by His Spirit for a true Centre of gathering for His people, a corporate recognition of Christ Himself and His name as all-sufficient, of the word of God as the absolute guide, and the ever-present Spirit as the competent One to control, order and direct in worship, testimony, ministry, discipline, and whatever other functions there may be, of His people. To ignore this divinely provided Centre, and to turn to human thoughts, to select places and modes of worship which are not provided for in the word of God, is really to worship in the high places. There is no question that very much of this is done in all sincerity, and God, as we were saying, meets His people in grace according to the measure of their faith. But can we wonder that when the truth of the unity of the Church of Christ, the sufficiency of His name and Word, are known, to go on in independency and self-will is but to prepare the way for wide declension from God, and eventually to lead to that dishonor to God which in Christianity corresponds with the material idolatry of which we have been speaking in the history of Israel?

In his great work for God, Josiah dealt with what some might regard as a small evil compared with the worship of Baal and Ashtoreth. We refer to the high places for religious purposes which seemed to abound in Jehovah's land. It was apparently the custom of the Canaanitish nations to establish places of worship for their false gods on various heights which they selected according to their own Satan-controlled desires. Deut. 12 should be carefully examined by the readers of these pages. Jehovah told His people of the ways of the heathen, and forbad them to imitate them. The Word must alone govern them in all matters relative to divine worship, as indeed in everything else. Jehovah would choose His own centre, and thither His people must come with their burnt-offerings and sacrifices. The Israelites were to destroy all the high places of the heathen, and thus express their abhorrence of their wicked ways. But flesh is no better in those who are near to God than in those who are far from Him. The time soon came, alas, when Israel chose high places for themselves. Some of these were for idolatrous worship, and some for the worship of Jehovah. But all the high places, whatever might be the motives of those who established them, were offensive in His sight, for they were the expression of creative self-will, of hearts not subject to His commandments. Some of Judah's choicest kings tolerated high places, not those which were dedicated to idols, we may be sure, but those at which Jehovah was professedly worshipped. This weakness is specially recorded of Jothan (2 Kings 15:35), Asa (2 Chron. 15:17), and Jehoshaphat (2 Chron. 20:33). Asa's doings were strange indeed in their inconsistency. He deposed the queen-mother from her exalted station because of her idolatrous practises, and he utterly destroyed her works, yet the high places of the people were allowed to remain (2 Chron, 15:16-17). When shall we learn that God expects obedience in all things from the souls that He has redeemed?

It is particularly noted that Josiah began to purge Judah and Jerusalem from the high places. These were very offensive to Jehovah, because they were the expression of the people's neglect and even contempt for His chosen centre. He definitely commanded the people to destroy all the images of the Canaanites and to devastate their high places (Num. 33:52). At this point the reader would do well to lay down this book and read Deut 12. In that chapter Moses told the people before he died that they would find the land full of idols, with places of worship "upon the high mountains, and upon the hills, and under every green tree." All this was the expression of self-will of people who knew nothing of God and who were under the blinding influence of Satan. But the people of God must not be like them. They must listen to His voice, and obey Him in all things, especially in matters relating to divine worship. He would choose His own centre, and thither the tribes of Israel were told bring their sacrifices and offerings. Shiloh, in Ephraim, was Jehovah's first dwelling-place (Jer. 7:12), later, he chose Zion (Ps. 78:60-68). The sin of the people, which caused the ark of the covenant to fall into the hands of the Philistines, threw the relationships of the people with Jehovah into confusion, for the ark never returned to the Tabernacle. David brought it up to Zion out of the house of Obed-Edom to a tent that he had prepared for it (1 Chron. 15), but the Tabernacle was at Gibeon (1 Chron. 16:39). During the years of confusion, even pious people worshipped at "high places." Samuel did this (1 Sam. 9:12-25). But such irregularities became sin after the Temple was built, and filled with the cloud of Jehovah's presence. The very builder of the Temple led the way in this great sin. Solomon built high places for Chemosh and for all the gods of his pagan wives (1 Kings 11:1-8). From Solomon's day onward, worship at high places became intermittent. Some kings sanctioned (or, at least tolerated) it; and others suppressed it. Sennacherib in his heathen ignorance, thought that Hezekiah had displeased his God by destroying the high places which the people had dedicated to His worship (2 Chron. 32:12).

The maidens told Saul and his companion that they would presently meet Samuel going to offer sacrifice in the high place. These words arrest us, remembering as we do the instructions given in Deuteronomy 12 and elsewhere, that Israel when come into the land were not to offer sacrifices wherever they pleased, but instead were to bring all their offerings to the place which Jehovah their God should choose to cause His name to dwell there. Shiloh was the divinely appointed centre at the first (Jer. 7:12). But everything was now in disorder, through the people's sin. The Tabernacle indeed stood where Joshua established it, but Jehovah had forsaken it. The ark was elsewhere, so that whatever priestly functions the family of Aaron might be performing on behalf of the people, there was certainly no carrying in of the blood of the sin-offering for sprinkling on the mercy-seat, yet this was the very foundation of all God's dealings with the nation. The new centre had not yet been named. Zion came into view when David became King. It formed part of the new order of things which God then established in sovereign grace. When the temple was built in the days of Solomon, Jehovah deigned once more to dwell amongst His people, filling the sanctuary with the glory of His presence. But for the time being, the pious must walk with God somewhat Abrahamically, and this is what Samuel did. In all simplicity he lived, enjoying personal communion with his God, and serving His failing people as opportunity offered. It was, of course, a very different thing to worship at high places at a later date when the Temple was in being and owned by God. Yet this transgression became common, and even some of the best of the kings tolerated it (2 Kings 12:3; 2 Kings 14:4; 2 Kings 15:4, etc.). It was really serious neglect of the written word of God.

To return to our history: if the ark is on Mount Zion, there are two ways of approaching God — before the ark, and at the altar which in fact is confounded with the high places. Until the temple is built, the people are on the high places, earthly and carnal even when approaching the true God. God bears with it. Solomon himself goes thither, and God hears him there. The temple is not built. If it had been, it ought to have been the only centre of service and worship. That God bears with a thing, until power shall act, is quite another thing from sanctioning it after power has acted. We must remember that, if Solomon went to Gibeon, it is because the tabernacle and the brazen altar were there; and it was there that, according to the law, the priests performed their functions (1 Chron. 16:36-40). The ark of the covenant was not there. David had placed it in a tent in the city of David. These latter points are more developed in the Chronicles (and I refer the reader to that which will be said in the examination of that book); but the passage we are considering would hardly have been understood without some anticipation of what is found there.

As to the responsibility of the moment, the state of the people in this respect appears to me to be set before us as a sorrowful state; and Solomon himself is but on a level with the existing state of things — a state borne with indeed by God in grace, but not after His heart. The king thought neither of the ark nor of the hidden blessing of the covenant, as that from which all his thoughts and actions should spring, and as the only means of his connection with Jehovah. He loved Jehovah. It was given him to accomplish all that was requisite for the manifestation of His glory; but his heart rose not to the height of that faith which reckoned upon the secret of God's love, when the glory was not manifested, and which discerned it through all the existing things, even while God still bore with them. It was this which formed the strength of David personally. The ark of the covenant in the city of David was the symbol of this and for the time its expression.

In 1 Kings 3 we have another scene. Solomon made affinity with Pharaoh king of Egypt. Alas! one cannot say that the righteousness in this is maintained; but how wonderful that God should make a thing that was wrong in itself to be a type of what is perfectly good in Him, for, as we know, there is no way in which the Lord has manifested His grace so much as in His dealings with the Gentiles. However, we cannot say that this was according to the mind of God for a king of Israel. "He took Pharaoh's daughter, and brought her into the city of David, until he had made an end of building his own house, and the house of Jehovah." And I do not think, beloved friends, that that order is without its teaching. It was not until he had built Jehovah's house and his own. He was thinking of his own first. No wonder, therefore, that he was not so particular about Pharaoh's daughter. We are never right when the Lord's house is not before our own. "Only the people sacrificed" — for this, alas! accompanied it too. "Like king like people." "Only the people sacrificed in high places, because there was no house built to the name of Jehovah, until those days."

Now, I do not mean to say that that had the same flagrant character that it had afterwards. We must always remember that it was where Jehovah had placed His name that they were there, and there only, to sacrifice to the Lord. But that was not yet fully, or, at any rate, publicly established; it was about to be. There was to be the house of Jehovah. This would be the public witness of that great truth before all Israel; but that house was not yet built. Therefore, although it might have been a failure, still it was a failure for which the Lord showed His tender mercy and compassion to His people until His own power had established the visible memorials of His worship; and then to depart to the high places became a matter that at once drew down the judgment of the Lord. Now here is an important thing to consider, because it looks plausible in an after day to say, "Well, here you observe people sacrificing in the high places without any condemnation; and, therefore, evidently the Lord had pity for His people at this time, and did not treat it at all in the same way as afterwards." Thus the wicked heart turns the mercy of God — His forbearance in a day of difficulty and of trial — into an excuse for sin, when there is no excuse possible. So it is that men habitually divorce the word of God from God's object. The king, it is said, "loved Jehovah, walking in the statutes of David his father: only he sacrificed and burnt incense in high places." His father had not done so. "And the king went to Gibeon to sacrifice there; for that was the great high place: a thousand burnt offerings did Solomon offer upon that altar."

It was not a positive sin against the Lord, as was the case later on with certain pious kings of Judah, when the building of the temple had removed every plea for such practices. If they still continued then, it was to the Lord's great displeasure, for they must needs lead to idolatrous practices. In these days of blessing and power under young King Solomon it was not at all so, but "he sacrificed and burnt incense in high places," and not only at Gibeon, "for that was the great high place" (vv. 34) where the brazen altar was still found, the tabernacle and all its furniture. At any rate, this practice served to disperse worship in Israel. And so the unity of worship was lost, for the altar was, among its other attributes, the expression of this unity, just as the Lord's Table is today for Christians. In former days under Joshua with regard to the altar Ed (Joshua 22), Israel had understood this and had risen up in zealous energy against sacrifices offered on an altar other than that of the tabernacle.

Here more of Gibeon is mentioned than in Kings. "Gibeon was a great city, as one of the royal cities" (Joshua 10:2). Later Gibeon became the possession of the tribe of Benjamin and was made a priest-city. It was about two hours from Jerusalem. When Saul had destroyed Nob, the tabernacle was removed to Gibeon, where it remained till Solomon built the house of the LORD (1 Chron. 16:39, 21:29; 1 Kings 3:4; 2 Chron. 1:3). The ark had been brought from Kirjath-jearim, not far from Gibeon, to the tent which David had pitched for it in Jerusalem (2 Sam. 6:2; 1 Chron. 13:5-6), but the tabernacle and the brazen altar, that Bezaleel, the son of Uri, the son of Hur, had made remained at Gibeon. The high place at Gibeon means the elevation upon which the tabernacle and the altar stood. Originally there was at the same spot a Canaanitish place for the worship of idols. As long as the temple, that central place for worship chosen by God (Deut. 12:11), was not standing, the worship of Jehovah in the Gibeon high place was not sinful. After the temple was built the high places became centers of idolatrous practices. Solomon and all the congregation with him gathered at Gibeon and sought the brazen altar and offered a thousand burnt offerings upon it. He began with this act of worship and it was the same night that God appeared unto Solomon. The Lord drew graciously near to him as the result of the sacrifices upon the brazen altar. The burnt-offering is the type of the perfect devotion and sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ, and it is this which makes us nigh. On the meaning of the great vision, God's offer to Solomon, the King's answer, see 1 Kings 3.