| What were the groves and high places mentioned in the Bible? |
| church of Christ |
| TA Baisden |
| The Bible talks about high places 89 time, grove 17 times and groves 24 times, though out the old Testament of the Bible. What were these thing?I hope this study will help you as it did me to better understand what the meaning of these words were when used with false religion and their worship and how God felt about them. High Places- any place a sancturary or shrine that was bulit to worship a god/gods.They were bulit on mounts, slopes, hills, and high mountains. Some say this was to be closer to the sun which many did worship in that day. Some had structures (I King 12:31, 13:32, II King 17:29,32, 23:19) and most all had altars bulit upon them. In some high places stones were placed there to be worship. Grove/Groves- the worship was done under the trees, most of the time the underbrush was cut down. Sometimes these groves were on hills, other times anywhere a group of trees grew by nature or by their own planting of trees. They worship trees, poles, pillars, and wooden images, even a piece of wood and many of the host of heaven such as stars, moon, planets, etc.. It is beleived that sarced tree worshipping was done in some part do to the tree of life and the tree of knowledge mention in Gen. 2: 7, ch 3 by putting some kind of special worth to these tree, of course this type of worship was not commanded of God, it was evil and ungodly in his sight. Early in the Bible history man could worship any where he was, this is written in I King 3:2-4, Acts 17:22. In Gen.21:33 it tells of Abraham planting a grove in Beersheba and calling on the name of the LORD there. But once the temple was built it was no longer okay to worship God in high places (any place) any more. God commanded his people (the Jews) to journey to Jerusalem to worship at the temple, but the Jews bulit high place just like the Gentles/Heathen did to worship God near their homes so they didn't have to travel to the temple and thought it was okay because their worship was directed to the true God. God ask them in Ezkiel 20:20 "Why they did it?". They also used men from any of the twevle tribes to be the priest at these places (I King 12:31) but God chose only the tribe of Levi to take priest from. Deut. 21:5, 31:9 In Deut. 12: 11-14 it tells us that only "one" place (the temple) was chosen to worship God at . It also tell us this in Jer.17:3, Deut. 12:4, II Chr. 33:15-17 also in this same verse it tells that they (the Jews) did not obey this commandment of GOD. Pagan or idolatry worship was done in the groves and high places , the heathen consecrated these places to their gods, these gods were given names and that is usually what these places were call.They had their own priest and priestess, prophets. Many had sexual rites that took place as well as animal and human sacrifices offered to their gods, also many other bizarre rituals took place in these groves and high places. Just as the Jews thought that their worship of GOD was okay to do at the high places they bulit of their own choosing, many people today worship GOD in unscriptural way that GOD does not except as his way. Please go the way of GOD and not in the ways that are not pleasing in his sight as the Jew did in those days. God's plan of salavtion is the only way to go to be truly saved. |