Why did Solomon worship at a high place?

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.

Therefore He could appear to Solomon in a dream to give him the privilege of asking what he desired God to give him (v.5). We may well ask ourselves how we would respond to an opportunity like this. What do we desire more than anything else? This is a matter that should deeply exercise our hearts.

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.

Solomon began his reign strengthened by God and given great exaltation (v. 1). At Solomon's word all the chief men of Israel went up to the high place at Gibeon, where the tabernacle was at the time. There is no scriptural objection to this high place at the time, for it rather speaks of the place of exaltation given to the tabernacle. However, when Solomon had built the temple there was no more reason for the tabernacle: rather, the ark and all the tabernacle furniture was brought to the temple, signifying that all the truths of the tabernacle were incorporated into the temple, the place of God's choosing (ch. 5:5). After this, worship in the high places was disobedience to God, yet Solomon built high places for foreign gods (1 Ki. 11:7- 8). But 2 Chronicles passes over the failures of Solomon, since the focus of the book is on God's sovereign grace sustaining the king who was a picture of Christ.

At this time, however, the ark was not in the tabernacle, but in a tent that David had pitched for it at Jerusalem (v. 4). The bronze (or copper) altar that was made by Bezaleel (Ex. 27:1-2) was in its proper place in front of the tabernacle (v. 5), and Solomon and Israel met the Lord there. The altar symbolized his meeting the Lord in grace because of the value of the sacrifice placed on the altar, but there was inconsistency in the ark not being present, for the ark speaks of Christ as the Sustainer of the throne of God, therefore of absolute authority. Grace and authority should always be together, but God bore with this inconsistency until the temple was built, then all was in proper order again.

Young as Solomon was, he showed true devotion to the Lord in offering 1000 burnt offerings on the altar (v. 6). Thus, his reign began well. The same night God appeared to him to give him the opportunity of asking what God should give him (v. 7). His response was good, for he first showed a humble attitude of thankfulness for the great mercy God had shown to David his father and toward Solomon also in making him king. He asked that the Lord's promise to David might be established, that is, the promise of David's seed reigning over Israel (v. 9). This desire for the fulfillment of God's word shows a heart dependent on God, which was especially true in Solomon's years.

Being impressed with the size of Israel's population, Solomon felt his own insufficiency for the responsibility of ruling over them, that he asked for wisdom and knowledge, so that he might go out and come in before the people (v. 10). This prayer was good, and God commended Solomon for asking for wisdom and knowledge, rather than for riches or honor or for the destruction of his enemies (v. 11). Therefore, God told him his prayer was answered favorably, so that he was given wisdom and knowledge. But God added to this that He would give him riches, wealth and honor also, greater than any other king before or after him (v. 12).

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.

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.

In verses 2 to 6, we have the scene at Gibeon, but without the imperfections which spoil its beauty in 1 Kings 3: 1-4. In our passage the "only" which denotes a fault has disappeared: "Only the people sacrificed in high places"; "Only he sacrificed and burned incense on the high places." Here the scene is legitimate, if I may so express myself, and Gibeon is no longer "the great high place" (1 Kings 3: 4); on the contrary, it is the place where "was God's tent of meeting which Moses the servant of Jehovah had made in the wilderness...and the brazen altar that Bezaleel the son of Uri, the son of Hur, had made, was there before the tabernacle of Jehovah" (2 Chron. 1: 3-5). Not a shadow of anything that would discredit! Solomon sacrifices on the altar, the token of atonement, where the people could meet their God. Was there anything that could be reproached in that? Not at all. No, doubtless the place was only provisional while awaiting the construction of the temple; doubtless also, God's throne, the ark, was not to be found there, for from this time on it was established in the city of David; but in Chronicles Solomon comes to Gibeon with his people to inaugurate the reign of peace which God could introduce on the basis of sacrifice. Indeed, Second Chronicles, as we have already seen, speaks to us much more of the reign of peace than of the reign of righteousness.

Solomon does not appear to have thought of this unity at the beginning of his reign. Doubtless God bears him a lovely testimony: "And Solomon loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of David his father" (v. 3), but this testimony is qualified: "only he sacrificed and burnt incense in high places." In so doing he accommodated himself to the religious practices of his people, of whom it is said in verse 2: "Only the people sacrificed in high places."

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.

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.

In verses 2 and 3 we see clearly that the order of things was not the ultimate at the beginning of Solomon's reign. The ark of the Lord abode under curtains; it remained to David's son to build the house of the Lord. At that time the tabernacle and the altar were at the high place at Gibeon and the ark, which David had brought back, was at Jerusalem. How David had this ark of the covenant, the throne of the Lord, the sign of His personal presence in the midst of His people, in his affections (Ps. 132)! From the moment he brought it back to Zion we do not see in his history that he personally ever sought another place of worship, though he was not unmindful of Gibeon. When the ark was being carried to Jerusalem he took care to link worship before the ark with the sacrifices upon the altar at Gibeon (1 Chr. 16:37-43), maintaining in this way the unity of worship. Each day service was performed before the ark and before the altar at Gibeon, so that at the same moment and "continually" these two parts of worship were carried on together, though separated geographically.

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."

We have noticed elsewhere, I am sure, most of us, how remarkably David showed his sense of what was due to God, because he is found before the ark. The ark was what attracted. This was the more remarkable, because the ark is not at all the public link with God like the great altar. The great altar was in the court; the great altar was before every eye; the great altar was the place where offerings were. The ark was, comparatively, a little thing, and it was unseen. It was purposely behind the curtain veils. It was a matter, simply and purely, for faith, as far as that could be for an Israelite. It was his confidence that there was where Jehovah's glory was most of all concerned. That was what drew king David. Not so much king Solomon — not so characteristically. We are told this particularly in contrast with his father. This you observe in the chapter where the tendencies to departure first begin to be perceived. Affinity with Pharaoh's daughter is one; sacrifice at the high places is another.

With his father it was not so. In Gibeon, however, Jehovah appeared. And how great the grace of God — that although it is here put in contrast with his father's deeper and higher faith — in Gibeon Jehovah appears! What a God was He! He appeared to Solomon in a dream by night and asked what He was to give him — nay, told him to ask — and Solomon answers with great beauty to the call of the Lord, for he asks what would enable him to govern His people rightly. He asks neither length of days, nor wealth, nor honour; but wisdom, and wisdom that he might govern Israel; and the God that gave him this wisdom, more than to any man that ever reigned, failed not in any other thing, for, as we know, there was none outwardly so blest as the king, none outwardly so renowned as this very king Solomon. I do not say that there was not a very deep and painful departure, as indeed the spirit that overlooked the ark and that went to the high places, must have its fruit in the latter end. For, beloved friends, the failure that is found at the beginning of our Christian career — to apply it now to our circumstances — does not fail to show itself still more as time passes over, unless it be thoroughly judged and departed from. A little seed of evil bears no small crop. I speak now of the seed as buried. The seed that is sown, not merely that exists, but what is allowed and covered up will another day rise up and bear bitter fruit.