SECT. II. The Places where they were worshipped, and the Behind their doors; on the roofs of their houses; in the gates of their cities; in gardens; high places; groves. The houses of their gods; their altars: of exquisite workmanship; generally high. Reasons why their altars were high; why they worshipped in high places. Why high places were forbidden by Moses; and yet tolerated under the first temple.-Idols worshipped by adorning them; kissing the hand; dancing before them; crying aloud; cutting themselves; feasting and obscenity. a LET us next attend to the places where they were worshipped. These were various, according to the taste of the worshippers; for sometimes they had their images behind their doors, to serve as tutelary deities, in direct opposition to the divine law, which forbade any image to be made, and enjoined them to write on the door-posts of their houses, and on their gates, the words of God's law. Sometimes their idolatrous worship was performed on the roofs of their houses, which being flat, and either paved with brick or tile, or covered with strong terrace cement, were both near at hand and convenient. On these, therefore, the idolatrous Jews built altars of brick, in direct contradiction to the divine command, and burnt incense to their ideal divinities. Sometimes their worship was performed in the gates of the cities, the places of public concourse, as if to set decency, and a respect to public opinion, at defiance; and at last altars to Baal were in every street of Jerusalem. Sometimes they worshipped in their gardens," as places of coolness and retreat, to which the easterns frequently resort from the scorching rays of the sun. g a Isaiah lvii. 8. d b Deut. vi. 9. xi. 20. Hence Isaiah says of his corrupted countrymen, in ch. i. 29, that "they should be confounded for the gardens they had chosen." But their idolatrous rites were most commonly observed on some elevated place without their cities. Thus Josiah, with a laudable zeal for the glory of God, and the reformation of religion, demolished the high places that were before Jerusalem, which were on the right hand of the Mount of Olives; but on account of the idolatry practised on it, emphatically styled the Mount of Corruption, which Solomon, in his old age, had built at the solicitation of his strange wives; and we are told in Jer. ii. 20. iii. 2, 6. Ezekiel vi. 13, that the idolatrous Jews had images upon every high hill, on all the tops of the mountains, under every green tree, and under every thick oak. Indeed, groves were very early applied to idolatrous worship. For, although in Abraham's time they were planted to Jehovah, to create veneration in the worshippers, prevent distraction of thought by surrounding objects, and direct the attention upwards to heaven, yet, in the practice of his posterity they were soon employed to worse purposes; for they were the retreats of idolatry, and the haunts of debauchery. These groves appear to have been often of oak, from the thickness of their foliage. Accordingly, it is said of the idolatrous Israelites in Is. i. 29, that "they should be ashamed of the oaks which they had desired:" and Hosea classes several of these trees together in the following passage: "They sacrifice upon the tops of the mountains, and burn incense upon the hills, under oaks, and poplars, and elms, because the shadow thereof is good." deed, groves of this species of wood, but particularly of In * 1 Kings xi. 7. d Judg. iii. 7. 1 Kings xv. 13. 2 Kings xxiii. 7. Is. lvii. 5—8. Ezek. xvi. 25—34. e Hosea iv. 13. oak, were common also among the heathen. Every scholar will recollect the oracle of Jupiter in the oaks of Dodona, and the interesting accounts of Tacitus," and of Pliny," of the ancient druids or priests of the oaks. But, although the idols were worshipped in these retreats, it was with very different degrees of pomp. For sometimes there was only a single idol, and sometimes more; sometimes they were in the open air, and sometimes under a canopy, or in a temple. In the early times of the Jewish history, however, the Biths, or houses of their gods, were extremely simple, merely a screen from the weather, as a thick oak, and, not unfrequently, only another word for a sacred inclosure, like the Grecian TEμevn; for it is worthy of remark that Moses, who, in Deut. vii. 5. xii. 3, is very particular in commanding the Israelites to destroy the other appendages of the Canaanites' idolatry, never mentions their sacred buildings; nor do we ever read of them in the Book of Joshua. But in the subsequent part of their history, these Biths were frequently used as houses for one or more of their ideal divinities, and were sometimes of large size, and exquisite workmanship. Thus, in Ezek. viii. 10, 11, xxiii. 14, we find them full of images pourtrayed upon the wall. Nay, even the groves were ornamented as places of luxury and lust: for we find women employed in making hangings for them in 2 Kings, xxiii. 7, and the women of Israel are accused by the prophet Ezekiel, xvi. 16, of taking their garments to deck the high places with divers colours, where they played the harlot. Hitherto we have said nothing of their altars on which they sacrificed to these pretended deities. Let us now observe that they were sometimes of beautiful workman a De Morib, Ger. b Nat. Hist. Lib. xvii. cap. 44. See also Amos ii. 8. ship, but, whether they were ornamented or not, they were generally high. Thus Pausanias," when describing a certain Olympic altar, says, that "the whole height of the altar was twenty-two feet;" and a little after he adds of an altar of Diana, that "it raised its steps by degrees aloft." The reasons assigned for their height were various; 1st, To supply the defect of hills in low situations. Thus Apollonius Rhodius says that "the Argonauts erected a high altar on the first shore." 2dly, To remove them beyond the chance of casual pollution and 3dly, To distinguish the altars of the dii superi from those of the dii inferi, which were sunk in a pit, and scarcely level with the ground.-But, if they had reasons for their high altars, they had also reasons for their high places. 1st, Because they thought they would be easier heard on these eminences. Thus Tacitus says, that "those groves especially (which were situated on mountains) approached heaven, and that the prayers of mortals could nowhere be nearer heard by the gods." And Lucian says the same. 2dly, They supposed high mountains to be the thrones of the gods, as Olympus, Ida, &c., and therefore thought them the fittest temples. And 3dly, As the sun and planets were then objects of worship, it was natural to ascend to elevated situations, where the air was more pure, and where, of course, they could see them the more clearly, and be free from the interruptions attending a crowd. From what we have said of these high places we can easily see the reason why they were forbidden in the law of Moses: for they inclined the people to heathenism, they struck against the unity of God and the unity of Eos maxime lucos (montis nempe) propinquare cœlo, præcesque mortalium a Deis nusquam propius audiri. (Annal. Lib. xiii.) worship, by withdrawing them from the common altar of burnt-offering, and they turned their thoughts back to Egypt, where these high altars originated, on account of the level nature of the country, and the annual overflow of the Nile. Hence the obelisks and pyramids with which that country abounded: and hence the words of Lucan when treating of the rites of Egypt, "vows are paid at the lofty altars of the pyramids." After all, there was hardly any time, as Bishop Lowth justly remarks, in his note upon Is. ii. 8, when they were quite free from this irregular and unlawful practice, which they seem to have looked upon as very consistent with the true worship of God, and which seems in some measure to have been tolerated while the tabernacle was removed from place to place, and before the temple was built. Even after the conversion of Manasseh, when he had removed the strange gods, and commanded Judah to serve Jehovah the God of Israel, it is added, "nevertheless the people did sacrifice still on the high places; yet, unto the Lord their God only." The worshipping on the high places, therefore, although it originated in a great measure from the heathen practice, and too often led to it, did not necessarily imply idolatry. From what is said of Uzziah and Jotham in 2 Kings xv. 3, 4, 34, 35, that they did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, by adhering to, and maintaining the legal worship of God in opposition to idolatry, and all irregular worship, save that the high places were not removed, where the people still sacrificed and burnt incense; we may presume that the public exercise of idolatrous worship was not permitted in their time. The idols, therefore, to which the people sacrificed and burnt incense might have been the teraphim, which were commonly a "Votaque pyramidum celsas solvuntur ad aras.” 2 Chron, xxxiii, 17. |