condition (see Ewald, §168, c.). The בּמות, or high places,[1] were places of sacrifice and prayer, which were built upon eminences of hills, because men thought they were nearer the Deity there, and which consisted in some cases probably of an altar only, though as a rule there was an altar with a sanctuary built by the side (בּמות בּית, 1Ki 13:32; 2Ki 17:29, 2Ki 17:32; 2Ki 23:19), so that בּמה frequently stands for בּמה בּית (e.g., 1Ki 11:7; 1Ki 14:23; 2Ki 21:3; 2Ki 23:8), and the בּמה is also distinguished from the מזבּח (2Ki 23:15; 2Ch 14:2). These high places were consecrated to the worship of Jehovah, and essentially different from the high places of the Canaanites which were consecrated to Baal. Nevertheless sacrificing upon these high places was opposed to the law, according to which the place which the Lord Himself had chosen for the revelation of His name was the only place where sacrifices were to be offered (Lev 17:3.); and therefore it is excused here on the ground that no house (temple) had yet been built to the name of the Lord.
Verse 3
Even Solomon, although he loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of his father David, i.e., according to 1Ki 2:3, in the commandments of the Lord as they are written in the law of Moses, sacrificed and burnt incense upon high places. Before the building of the temple, more especially since the tabernacle had lost its significance as the central place of the gracious presence of God among His people, through the removal of the ark of the covenant, the worship of the high places was unavoidable; although even afterwards it still continued as a forbidden cultus, and could not be thoroughly exterminated even by the most righteous kings (1Ki 22:24; 2Ki 12:4;
- ↑ The opinion of Böttcher and Thenius, that בּמה signifies a “sacred coppice,” is only based upon untenable etymological combinations, and cannot be proved. And Ewald's view is equally unfounded, viz., that “high places were an old Canaanaean species of sanctuary, which at that time had become common in Israel also, and consisted of a tall stone of a conical shape, as the symbol of the Holy One, and of the real high place, viz., an altar, a sacred tree or grove, or even an image of the one God as well” (Gesch. iii. p. 390). For, on the one hand, it cannot be shown that the tall stone of a conical shape existed even in the case of the Canaanitish bamoth, and, on the other hand, it is impossible to adduce a shadow of a proof that the Israelitish bamoth, which were dedicated to Jehovah, were constructed precisely after the pattern of the Baal's-bamoth of the Canaanites.
