High place

"High place", in English-language versions of the Old Testament, literally translates the Hebrew במה (bamah, plural במות bamot).

This rendering has etymological justification, 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 always means "place of worship". It has been surmised that a semantic shift occurred because the places of worship were originally upon hilltops, or because 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 places of sacrifice, commonly called bamot. It has been suggested that the plural of the word referred to places of sacred prostitution and of pagan worship.

From the Old Testament and from existing remains a good idea may be formed of the appearance of such a place of worship. It was often on the hill above the town, as at Ramah (1 Samuel 9:12–14); there was a stele (matzevah), the seat of the deity, and a wooden post or pole (asherah, named after the goddess Asherah), which marked the place as sacred and was itself an object of worship; there was a stone altar, often of considerable size and hewn out of the solid rock' or built of unhewn stones (Exodus 20:25; see altar), on which offerings were burnt (mizbeh, lit. "slaughter place"); a cistern for water, and perhaps low stone tables for dressing the victims; sometimes also a hall (lishkah) for the sacrificial feasts.

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