John Kitto Morning Bible Devotions: October 30

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John Kitto Morning Bible Devotions: October 30

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High Places

1Ki_14:22-24

It seems that king Rehoboam, in Judah, profiting by the chastisement he had received, conducted himself reasonably well for three years, during which he employed himself vigorously in strengthening his kingdom, by collecting arms, and depositing them in a large number of cities which he fortified. “When Rehoboam had established his kingdom and strengthened himself, he forsook the law of the Lord, and all Israel with him.” The iniquity into which the Judahites fell, is described as greater than had been in former times committed—perhaps not greater than individuals in authority had committed, Solomon, for instance, but greater than any part of the nation had before concurred in. Indeed, from all that appears, the sin was for the time greater than that of Jeroboam; but there was this essential difference, that Jeroboam’s sin was not repented of, and that of Rehoboam was. The form of this great offence is thus described—“They built them high places, and images, and groves, on every high hill and under every green tree.” We remember the time when we used to be perplexed about these high places and groves. What is the harm in worshipping upon a high place or in a grove? Are they not, on the contrary, very proper places of worship? And, what is more to the purpose, did not the patriarchs worship upon high places and in groves? And the fact of their doing so is mentioned, certainly without blame, if not with approbation; while in later ages we find these practices severely condemned, and calling down divine punishments. The way to get at the cause of this is to consider, that things indifferent, or even good, in themselves, may become evil in the lapse of time, from the considerations that come to be associated with them. If a British consul or governor upon the African coast sets up the union jack over his house on Sundays, there may be no harm in that; but if the barbarous people around come to the conclusion that, since he does this on the day set apart to his worship, this flag is the white man’s god, and begin to treat it with superstitious reverence, or assemble to render it worship, the practice of setting it up becomes a sin. But we need not travel out of Scripture for an illustration. What could be more proper and seemly than the feeling which led Moses to preserve in the tabernacle the brazen serpent, which had been lifted up in the wilderness for the healing of the nation? But when the people came to regard it with superstitious reverence, and manifested a disposition to render idolatrous honors thereto, it became an abomination, and as such was most properly destroyed by king Hezekiah.

Now we read in the book of Genesis, that Abraham, on entering the promised land, built an altar upon a mountain between Bethel and Hai. At Beersheba he planted a grove, and called there upon the name of the everlasting God. It was to a mountain (Moriah) that he was directed to go, there to offer up his son Isaac; and it was upon another mountain (in Gilead) that Jacob and Laban offered sacrifices before they parted in peace. Note: Gen_12:7-8; Gen_21:33; Gen_22:2; Gen_22:4; Gen_31:54. So far, therefore, as appears from the book of Genesis, there was no harm in worshipping in high places and in groves. But in a later age, when the Israelites had departed from Egypt, and approached the same land to take possession of it, we find something had arisen to cause high places and groves to be regarded with disfavor. The people are strictly enjoined to cast down and destroy all those belonging to the Canaanites they might find in the land. Note: Exo_34:13. Deu_7:5; Deu_12:2-3. It might be supposed, that this was because these had been consecrated to the worship of idols; but did not involve any prohibition of high places and groves to the Israelites. But, first, the Israelites by the law of Moses could worship by sacrifice only at one place, that is, at the tabernacle altar; and therefore, because not anywhere else certainly not in high places; and, further, it was expressly enjoined, that near this sole altar no trees should be planted. Note: Deu_16:21. This last restriction is very remarkable. Apart from that, the limitation of the Israelites to one place of ritual worship, would suggest a perfectly sufficient reason for the destruction of the Canaanitish [altars upon the] high places, and the demolition of the consecrated groves; for there would be a danger that the Israelites, in taking possession of the localities in which they were found, would retain their use as local places of worship. But the intimation, that even at the one altar any approximation to a grove was to be carefully avoided, compels us to look a little further.

One great object of the Mosaical dispensation was to maintain, in the persons of the Israelites, a living testimony against the polytheism which had overspread the nations; and whatever might directly or indirectly tend to worship many gods, or to associate other gods of man’s devising with the only real God, Jehovah, the Creator of heaven and earth, was carefully guarded against and discouraged. When, in the process of time, the high places and groves of primitive worship became consecrated to divers idols, the danger was, that, in adopting the use of them, the Israelites should retain some lingering recollection of the god to whom they had been set apart; and this, gathering strength, would insensibly lead them into idolatry, and to the association of other gods with Jehovah.

Before the erection of temples, or before temples became general, groves and high places were the usual places of worship. Hence we do not find any order to the Israelites to destroy the temples of the Canaanites, for there were none to destroy. The order to demolish their groves and high places was, therefore, an order to destroy their places of worship, as well as their objects of worship, if any such materials existed. This was important in an age when the entire tendency of the human mind was towards polytheism—the multiplication of gods; so that the demolition of a place of worship was equivalent to the demolition of an idol, and the setting up one, in its ultimate results, almost equivalent to the setting up of an idol. The result dreaded and guarded against in these directions was the multiplication of gods; and how wisely this was ordered, and how imminent the danger was, is shown by the fact, that the very evil which the law sought by its interdiction to prevent, did arise from the neglect of that interdiction by Rehoboam and subsequent kings of Judah—so that, at the time the nation was ripe for the overthrow which it sustained, Jeremiah could exclaim, “According to the number of thy cities are thy gods, O Judah!” Jer_2:28.

But it may be asked, Was not the danger equally imminent at the times when the patriarchs worshipped in groves, and set up their altars upon high places? Perhaps not. There is no indication throughout the book of Genesis that the Canaanites had yet gone far, if at all, into the corruptions of polytheism, and it is expressly stated that their iniquity was “not yet full.” Moral iniquity abounded; but that they had as yet gone into gross idolatry, is more than we know. The only hint we have respecting the religion of the land, sets before us one king (Melchizedek) who was a worshipper, not less than Abraham, of “the Most High God, Creator of heaven and earth.” All mankind were at first His worshippers; and in the different places of their dispersion the nations of men varied in the time and extent of their corruptions of original truth. The country out of which Abraham came seems to have been far more gone in polytheistic error than that into which he entered. There, probably, nothing was found to point out the kind of danger which afterwards became connected with groves and high places; and if there had been something of the sort, the danger, which might be great to a nation composed of people of different habits of mind and varied depth of religious feeling, would be but small in the case of the single family of the faithful Abraham, abiding in one locality. The danger arose when the nation lay dispersed over a wider country—and if high places and groves were at all tolerated, they would have had many in simultaneous use in different parts of the land.

It is remarkable with what inveteracy the Israelites clung to the worship in high places. Such were even tolerated by monarchs who exerted themselves to root out idolatry, and of whose zeal for the purity of the worship of Jehovah no doubt can be entertained. As they were not for this subjected to any such judgment as that denounced on Rehoboam, it seems as if some peculiar enormity was found in his case. This is discovered in the connection of “images” with them; for these must have been symbolical representations either of Jehovah or of strange gods—most likely the latter; whereas the others were merely sanctioned as places for the local worship of the Lord, and, so far as tolerated, did not present an immediately idolatrous aspect. This toleration of an acknowledged irregularity the sacred historian indicates as the only blot upon the character of some truly right-minded kings, who certainly would not have allowed anything that seemed to them to savor of idolatry. It probably arose from the known indisposition of the people living at a distance from the temple, to be limited to the altar services at that spot, in which they could only at distant intervals participate; while their earnest wish to have places for the chief ritual acts of their religion—sacrifice and offerings—near to their own homes, may have suggested the fear that, unless they were gratified in having in their own neighborhood places of religious assemblage and of offerings to the Lord, they might be led to make their offerings to idols. Under its first aspect, the wish has the appearance of an excess of religious zeal—which, apart from its latent dangers, may account for the hesitation the kings felt in putting down this abuse, and for winking at an irregularity contrary to one of the first principles of the theocratic institutions. It is worthy of note, in corroboration of this view, that we hear no more of worship in high places and groves, after the establishment of synagogues in the towns afforded an adequate and ready vent to the craving of the people to localize their religion. They were then enabled to have near their homes so much of their religious observances as admitted, without danger, of being separated from the grand ritual solemnities for which the great common center at Jerusalem was still preserved. Besides, the tendency to idolatry had then passed away, and perhaps groves and high places would then not have been refused had they been desired. But so it was, that the people craved to worship upon high places and in groves when it was really dangerous and seducing for them to do so, but ceased to care about them when the danger no longer existed.