THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
these sacred places were still employed under Johoshaphat (xxii. 43), by Jehoash, who was under the tutelage of Jehoiada (II Kings xii. 3), Amaziah (xiv. 4), Azariah (xv. 4), Jotham (xv. 35), Ahaz (xvi. 4). Manasseh (xxi. 3), and presumably Amon (xxi. 20-21). The first thoroughgoing attempt at abolishment of these ancient seats of worship was under Josiah, yet Ezek. vi. 3-7 shows that they continued after the promulgation of the Deuteronomic law.
The matter of the high places is important not only for itself but for its bearing upon the date and authorship of the Pentateuch (see Hexatetjch). Into this connection come not merely the sanctuaries which were technically high places, but the entire circle of places of sacrifice outside the temple after Solomonic times. Within the 5. High Pentateuchal codes themselves three Places situations appear. (1) Ex. xx. 24 in Codes clearly recognizes the legitimacy of a and plurality of places of worship, and this History, is what appears in history until Josiah's destruction and defilement of the sanctuaries outside the temple and is echoed in Elijah's lament and his practise at Carmel (I Kings xviii. 30, " repaired the altar of the Lord which was broken down "). (2) Deuteronomy (xii. 4- 7, xiv. 22-23, xv. 19-20, xvi. 1-2, xviii. 6, xxvi. 2, etc.) regards one sanctuary and one alone as sacred and legitimate for purposes of worship (contrast the use of the phrase " the place which the Lord your God shall choose " in these passages with the phrase " in all places where I record my name " of Ex. xx. 24). (3) The Priest Code assumes that there is but one sanctuary and legislates for it. With this diverse usage history seems to accord. The Judges erect altars, Samuel officiates at many sites, Solomon's high places were not all the loci of foreign cults, Elijah's position has been shown, while the pious kings Asa, Jehoshaphat, Johoash, Amaziah, Azariah, and Jotham, as well as the evil kings, used them. The idea underlying the use of the many altars seems to be that " the whole land, being Israel's possession, is Jehovah's house, people are convinced that they may worship him at any place within it at which he may make himself known " (H. Schultz, Old Testament Theology, p. 209, Edinburgh, 1895; cf. Hos. viii. 3 sqq.; II Kings v. 17). The author and editors of the Books of Samuel record the continued employment of the many altars and high places without condemning it . The Books of Kings, beginning their narrative practically with the reign of Solomon, assume the Deuteronomic position and denounce worship at these places in spite of the fact that they contain the story of Elijah and record that pious kings worshiped there, while the author excuses prior use of the bamoth because the temple was not yet built (I Kings iii. 2). Hezekiah was apparently the first king who attempted to do away with a cult condemned by the author of Kings (II Kings xviii. 4)*, and Manasseh s reign saw a very vigorous re-
* The reform of Hezekiah is doubted by some scholars on the ground that II Kings xviii. 4, 32, xxi. 3 are late, and that the account of the reformation of Josiah seems to imply no earlier efforts.
nascence of the cult. These historical facts are explained in two ways. (1) Those who hold to the substantially Mosaic origin of the Pentateuch regard the cult as the result of a defiance of the Deuteronomic and priestly codes, the persistent wrongdoing of a perverse nation. But this still leaves unexplained Ex. xx. 24. (2) Those who deny Mosaic authorship to the Pentateuch and place the Deuteronomic Code in the seventh century affirm the legitimacy of the high places until that code was written, some time before 622. They regard that code as caused by the repulsion produced in the prophetic mind by the debased syncretism of the worship of Yahweh with Canaanitic practises, and explain the renewal of the cult under Manasseh as expressing not only the personal will of that king, but as a response to the demands of the populace who repelled what seemed an attack upon their religion in favor of the royal temple at Jerusalem. The unity of worship commanded in the Deuteronomic Code and assumed in the Priest Code is not that of Isaiah, who predicted an altar to Yahweh in Egypt (Isa. xix. 19); nor, from the standpoint of history, that of Jeremiah, who speaks of Shiloh as the place where Yahweh set his name " at the first " (Jer. vii. 12, 14) and employs the a fortiori argument that if Shiloh could not escape, surely Jerusalem cannot; nor of Amos, who speaks of the desolation of the high places as a part of the punishment of the people (vii. 9); nor of Hosea, whose complaint, according to modern commentators, is not that the people worshiped at the high places, but that they practised there abominable things (chap, iv.), just as the feast-days, new moons, and sabbaths are not in themselves vicious but only occasions of wickedness (ii. 11-13); and so things which the Deuteronomic Code comes to prohibit, but which throughout prior periods had been used without consciousness of wrong, are to be removed or destroyed not as prohibited but as a punishment (iii. 4). The pre-Deuteronomic prophetic denunciation is therefore grounded not upon the inherent illegality of the high places as loci of worship, but upon the idolatry, confusion of worship, abominations, and human sacrifices which were practised there (cf. Jer. vii. 31, xi. 13, xix. 5).
That, from the time of the establishment of the temple cult at Jerusalem, a tendency would be established toward centralization of worship there was from the nature of the case to be expected from the fact that the cult was, under direct royal patronage. That such centralization did not mature earlier shows how strong must 6. Opposing have been the sentiment of regard in Interests the minds of kings, priests, and people and Ideas, for the shrines hallowed by the devotion and example of the patriarchs and heroes of history whose names were associated villi those places. It was to be expected that the presence of the ark first at Shiloh, then at Jerusalem, would exalt those sanctuaries above the rest. \^ prophets and godly kings knew of no obligation to worship only at Jersualem. What was a prion likely to lead to the discrediting of the bamoth and concentration of worship in the capital was the in-