HIGH PLACES AND GROVES, High Places.—The word rendered high place' in the A. V. is ma, a natural height.' Upon such TT heights in Palestine altars were raised and ples built, the latter called houses of high places' minmn 11713 sing. romn nn). When used in relation to religion, whether idolatrous or not, this word may signify the sacred height itself, or the altar or temple upon it. At a late period high places seem to have been often slight artificial ele vations, and thus the name may have come to be applied to altars. It is needless to shew the motives which led mankind to worship upon heights, or to instance different forms of this practice. Our inquiry must be as to the character of the worship at the high places of Palestine (1) bcfore the con quest of the country ; (2) in the time of the Judges, and until the Temple was built ; and (3) after the building of the Temple. [ALTAR.] 1. This practice was probably of great antiquity in Palestine. Upon the summit of lofty Hermon are the remains of 'a small and very ancient temple,' towards which faced a circle of temples surround. ing the mountain (Smith's Dia. of the Bible, HER MON, i. p. 790 a). That a temple should have been built on a summit of bare rock perpetually covered with snow, shews a strong religious motive, and the position of the temples around the mountain indi cates a belief in the sanctity of Hermon itself. This inference is supported by a passage in the treaty of Rarneses with the Hittites of Syria, in which, besides gods and goddesses, the mountains and the rivers, both of the land of the Hittites and of Egypt, and the winds, are mentioned, in a list of Hittite and Egyptian divinities. The Egyptian divinities are spoken of from a Hittite point of view, for the ex pression, the mountains and the rivers of the land of Egypt' is only half-applicable to the Egyptian nature-worship, which had, in Egypt at least, but one sacred river (Lepsius, DenkmOier, Ili. 146 ; Brugsch, Geographische hiscriften, p. 29 ; De Rouge in Rev. Arch., nouv. ser., iv. p. 372 ; HIT TITES). 'That Hermon was worshipped in connec
tion with Baal is probable from the name Mount Baal-Hermon (judg. iii. 3), Baal-Hermon (1 Chron. v. 23) being apparently given to it,* Baal being, as the Egyptian monuments indicate, the chief' god of the Hittites [HITTrrEs]. That there was such a belief in the sanctity of mountains and hills seems evident from the great number of high places of the old inhabitants, which is clearly indicated in the prohibition of their worship as compared with the statement of tbe disobedience of the Israelites. The command enjoined the de struction uf all the idolatrous places upon the high mountains, ancl upon the hills, and under every green tree' (Deut. xii. 2) ; and it is related that the Israelites set up idolatrous objects in every high hill, and under every green tree,' high places being spoken of in connection with this worship, and as belonging to the system of the natives of Canaan (2 Kings xvii. 9-10. There is no distinct mention of the exact character of any idolatrous worship at high places in the narrative portions of Scripture re lating to the period before the conquest of Canaan, but no doubt there is an indication in the name high-places of Baal,' applied to one of the heights whence Balaam says, Israel, and where he sacrificed. But Balaam here, as elsewhere, had altars built for the sacrifices (Num. xxii. 41 ; xxiii. 1). There is no evidence that the believing Hebrews before the Law followed this practice. Those who endeavour to discover it cite the passage describing Abraham's arrival at a mountain' between Bethel and A;, and there building an altar (Gen. xii. 8), but this is very insufficient. The mountain, as the Hebrew term allows, must have been a slight eminence, and it is mentioned in connection with Abraham's pitching his tent, rather than his building the altar. It is most nnlikely that Abraham would have chosen a place that would have been chosen by the heathen ; had be done so in this case, we should probably have had some additional evidence from another instance.