HIGH PLACE, is the literal translation of the Heb. bamah. This rendering is etymologically correct, as appears from the poetical use of the plural but in prose bamah is always a place of worship. It has been surmised that it was so called because the places of worship were originally upon hill-tops, or that the bamah was an artificial platform or mound, but neither view is historically demonstrable. The word was probably adopted from the Canaanites together with the holy places themselves.
In old Israel every town and village had its own place of sac rifice which was often on the hill above the town, as at Ramah (I Sam. ix. 12-14) ; there was a stele (massebah), the seat of the deity, and a wooden post or pole (asherah), which marked the place as sacred and was itself an object of worship; there was a stone altar, on which offerings were burnt; a cistern for water, and perhaps low stone tables for dressing the victims; sometimes also a hall (lishkah) for the sacrificial feasts.
Around these places the religion of the ancient Israelite cen tred; at festival seasons, or to make or fulfil a vow, he might journey to more famous sanctuaries, but ordinarily the offerings were paid at the bamah of his own town. The building of royal temples in Jerusalem or in Samaria made no change in this re spect; they simply took their place beside the older sanctuaries to which they were, indeed, inferior in repute.
The religious reformers of the 8th century assail the popular religion as corrupt and as fostering the monstrous delusion that immoral men can buy the favour of God by worship; but they make no difference in this respect between the high places of Israel and the temple in Jerusalem; Hosea stigmatizes the whole cultus as pure heathenism—Canaanite baal-worship.