Bible Challenge Day 123: What’s Wrong with High Places? (1 Kings 14-15)

I had hoped to write about King Solomon, about whom I have very ambivalent feelings. But life intervened and now we have moved on to the time of the divided kingdom, when the ten tribes to the north secede and take the name Israel, leaving David’s and Solomon’s line ruling the southern tribe of Judah.

The main thing that strikes me in the material for today is the emphasis on “high places.” Already at the beginning of Solomon’s reign, people worshipped at these high places (1 Kings 3:2). But once the temple in Jerusalem was complete, it became the one legitimate place to offer sacrifice in the entire kingdom (and, I suppose, in the world). Unfortunately, Solomon did not remain true to God or to the temple that Solomon himself had commissioned: he built new high places dedicated to foreign gods (e.g. 11:7-8). His son Rehoboam built still more (14:23) and so, apparently, did his son Abijam (15:3). Abijam’s successor Asa was a good and faithful king, but even Asa failed to remove the high places (15:14). Virtually every other king in Judah will continue to be evaluated based in part on their failure to remove the high places. Why do the high places matter? Why do they come up so often?

Part of what is going on is clearly official idolatry. Solomon’s high places were dedicated to gods like Chemosh and Molech (11:7). Rehoboam added male temple prostitutes (14:24). But Asa removed the temple prostitutes (15:12) and presumably refused to patronize explicitly pagan altars at the high places. There must be more.

Part of what is going on is disobedience. In Deuteronomy, it repeatedly states that the Israelites are to offer sacrifice only at the place which God will choose (e.g. 12:14). That means in front of the ark of the covenant, which gets permanently housed in Solomon’s temple. But one might still ask, what is the purpose of this law? Why prohibit worship at other places if the worship was, in other respects legitimate?

I think the issue ultimately goes back to the commandment again any graven images at all (e.g. Deut 5:8f). At the heart of the temple was the holy of holies containing the ark of the covenant. Inside the ark was nothing except the tablets of the law (8:9). Other than the ark, the only thing in the room were statues of cherubim whose wings covered the ark and formed a kind of empty throne. There was no representation of God.

The point, as I understand it, is that God is beyond our representations. The best “image” for God is empty space. The best we can do is provide a kind of frame for the space where God is manifest. Even in the heart of Jerusalem under the (relatively few) faithful kings, most people cannot handle the empty space. They need to fill it with golden calves or images of God or something. Building and sacrificing at high places seems to have addressed that same need.

But what we really need is not a comforting image of a non-god. What we really need is a constant reminder that our images are inadequate to the reality of God, that God sometimes remains hidden and always remains mysterious and elusive. High places were a major way the people of ancient Israel abandoned their exclusive commitment to the God who really is beyond all things in heaven and earth. We don’t build high places today, but we surely do fail to live up to an exclusive commitment to such an awesome God.

Fr. Harvey