High Place, in the English version of the Old Testament, the literal translation of the Hebrew במה (bamah, plural במות bamot).
This rendering is etymologically correct, as appears from the poetical use of the plural in such expressions as to ride, or stalk, or stand on the high places of the earth, the sea, the clouds, and from the corresponding usage in Assyrian; 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 hilltops, or that the bamah was an artificial platform or mound, perhaps imitating the natural eminence which was the oldest holy place, but neither view is historically demonstrable. The development of the religious significance of the word took place probably not in Israel but among the Canaanites, from whom the Israelites, in taking possession of the holy places of the land, adopted the name also. In old Israel many towns and villages had their own place of sacrifice, and the common name for these places was bamot. It has been suggested that the plural of the word referred to places of sacred prostitution and pagan worhsip.
Read more about High Place: Old Testament, Modern Judaism, Eastern Orthodoxy
Famous quotes containing the words high place, high and/or place:
“We assume that politicians are without honor. We read their statements trying to crack the code. The scandals of their politics: not so much that men in high places lie, only that they do so with such indifference, so endlessly, still expecting to be believed. We are accustomed to the contempt inherent in the political lie.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“Good breeding ... differs, if at all, from high breeding only as it gracefully remembers the rights of others, rather than gracefully insists on its own rights.”
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881)
“Why was the human race created? Or at least why wasn’t something creditable created in place of it? God had His opportunity. He could have made a reputation. But no, He must commit this grotesque folly—a lark which must have cost Him a regret or two when He came to think it over and observe effects.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)