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and setteth me upon my high places.” In these passages,
must be understood
idiomatically, meaning “authority.”
The word is used metaphorically to portray the Lord as providing for His people: “He
made him ride on the high places of the earth, that he might eat the increase of the fields;
and he made him to suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock” (Deut.
32:13; cf. Isa. 58:14). The idiom, “to ride upon the high places of the earth,” is a Hebraic
way of expressing God’s protection of His people. It expresses the exalted nature of
Israel, whose God is the Lord. Not every literal
was a cultic high place; the word
may simply refer to a geographical unit; cf. “Therefore shall Zion for your sake be
plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the [temple] as
the high places of the forest” (cf. Amos 4:13; Mic. 3:12). The Canaanites served their
gods on these hills, where pagan priests presented the sacrifices to the gods: Israel
imitated this practice (1 Kings 3:2), even when they sacrificed to the Lord. The
surrounding nations had high places dedicated to Chemosh (1 Kings 11:7)Baal (Jer.
19:5), and other deities. On the “high place,” a temple was built and dedicated to a god:
"[Jeroboam] made a house of high places, and made priests of the lowest of the people,
which were not of the sons of Levi” (1 Kings 12:31). Cultic symbols were added as
decoration; thus, the sacred pillars (
) and sacred trees or poles (
) were
associated with a temple: “For they also built them high places, and [sacred stones], and
groves, on every high hill [
], and under every green tree” (1 Kings 14:23; cf. 2
Kings 16:4). Before the temple was built, Solomon worshiped the Lord at the great
of Gideon (1 Kings 3:4). This was permissible until the temple was constructed;
however, history demonstrates that Israel soon adopted these “high places” for pagan
customs. The
was found in the cities of Samaria (2 Kings 23:19)in the cities of
Judah (2 Chron. 21:11), and even in Jerusalem (2 Kings 23:13). The
was a place
of cult prostitution: "[They] pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor, and
turn aside the way of the meek: and a man and his father will go in unto the same maid,
to profane my holy name: And they lay themselves down upon clothes laid to pledge by
every altar, and they drink the wine of the condemned in the house of their god” (Amos
2:7-8).
The Septuagint gives the following translations:
$
(“high; lofty; elevated”),
(a transliteration of the Hebrew),
(“altar”),
(“pillar”) and
$
(“height; high place”).
HOLY
A. Adjective.
%
(
$
, 6918), “holy.” The Semitic languages have two separate original
forms of the root. The one signifies “pure” and “devoted,” as in Akkadian
% $
and in
Hebrew
%
, “holy.” The word describes something or someone. The other signifies
“holiness” as a situation or as an abstract, as in Arabic
/% $
“the most holy or most
pure.” In Hebrew the verb
%
and the word
%
combine both elements: the