When we wish to see a wider view, we look for a high place. Each year, about 1,000 people try to climb Mount Everest. In 2016, about 600 reached the summit and 6 climbers died.
Of course, the world’s highest mountain is a far cry from a local hill, but it seems that high places have always been attractive to
people, and the Bible talks about “high places” about one hundred times.
Sometimes the term simply refers to an elevated location[1] or an important position in society[2], but most of the time it is used to describe a place where people worshipped.
Have you ever wondered what they were and whether there is anything for us to learn from them today?
High places in
Canaan
When God was about to lead the people of Israel into the land of Canaan (the land now called Israel), he spoke to them about where they should worship. The nations living in the land worshipped in many “high places”, and often they were on hills or mountains. God said:
You shall surely destroy all the places where the nations whom you shall dispossess served their gods, on the high
mountains and on the hills and under every green tree. You shall tear down their altars and dash in pieces their pillars and burn their Asherim with fire. You shall chop down the carved images of their gods and destroy their name out of that place. You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way.
Deuteronomy 12:2-4
All of the old ways of worship in the land were to be destroyed because God did not want Israel to
worship him in the same ways as the nations had worshipped their idols. When you read elsewhere about how they worshipped these idols, this prohibition clearly shows a loving God – but we’ll get to that later.
Instead, God wanted one central place of worship:
But you shall seek the place that the Lord your God will choose out of all your tribes to put his name and make his habitation there. There you shall go, and there you
shall bring your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the contribution that you present, your vow offerings, your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herd and of your flock. And there you shall eat before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice, you and your households, in all that you undertake, in which the Lord your God has blessed you.
Deuteronomy 12:5-7
Shiloh
Once Israel had taken over Canaan, it appears that God first chose a place called Shiloh (Joshua 18:1, 8; Judges 18:31) and the tabernacle stayed there for about 300-350 years during the time of the judges until some time during the life of the last judge, Samuel (1 Samuel 1:3, 24). However, the worship of God was corrupted in that place and so God destroyed it (Psalm 78:60; Jeremiah 7:12), probably through the
work of the Philistines.
We do not read of the destruction of Shiloh when it happened, but it may well have occurred when Israel was defeated by the Philistines who captured the ark of God and killed the sons of Eli, who was high priest at the time. Eli also died at that time, and it seems that by the time Samuel was old enough to become a priest, there was no longer any established house of God in Israel although the tabernacle had not been
destroyed.
Gibeon
Later in the time of Samuel, we read of God being worshipped at high places[3]. At some time during the life of Samuel, the tabernacle moved to a high place at Gibeon where it probably stayed for about a century[4], but the ark of the Lord was not with it[5]. Later in the reign of King David, the priests were also in Gibeon with the tabernacle, and the daily
sacrifices took place there[6]. David subsequently wanted to build a temple for God, but God told him he could not – Solomon his son would do so – and the confused situation where the tabernacle was in one place and the ark in another[7] continued. The worship of God was genuine, but it was spread across different places, which was not God’s intention.
By the time of David’s son, Solomon, the high place at Gibeon was called the “great high place” (1 Kings 3:2-4),
and the tabernacle was still there while the ark was in Jerusalem.
Solomon built a temple in Jerusalem and God chose it as the place to put his name. When that happened, worship at all other high places should have stopped, but it didn’t. Instead, it increased.
Part 2 in two weeks…
In two weeks (DV), we will look at high places in the later times of the kingdom of
Israel. It is in this time period that God repeatedly denounces high places and the worship they hosted.
[1] Deuteronomy 32:13; 2 Samuel 1:19, 25; Isaiah 57:15 (heaven); Micah 1:3 and Habakkuk 3:19.
[2] Ecclesiastes 10:6
[3] 1 Samuel 9:7-14; 10:5
[4] From before the time of King Saul (1 Samuel 10:5) through the time of King David (1 Chronicles 21:29) and into the time of King Solomon.
[5] 1 Samuel 7:1-2; 14:18; 2 Samuel 6:3, 11-12, 17
[6] 1
Chronicles 16:39-40; 21:29
[7] 1 Kings 3:15
