Day 114: 1 Kings 3-4

 By the time 1 Kings is written, the practice of sacrificing in the high places is repeatedly noted as a qualification on any king’s zeal for the Lord (2 Kings 12:3; 14:3-4; 15:4,14,35; 22:43). Leviticus 17 forbade the practice of offering sacrifices anywhere besides the Tabernacle. (Lev. 17:2-6) It had been the practice of the heathen nations they drove out to sacrifice in high places and they were commanded to destroy them, (Numbers 33:52, Deuteronomy 12:3). And yet in the city of Gibeon (possibly named after the high place, 1 Kings 3:4) Solomon offers an extravagant sacrifice and the Lord is pleased. (1 Kings 3:5-14) More is going on in the story of the Gibeonites than meets the eye, apparently. In Nehemiah 3:7, they return to the land after captivity with the Israelites and help to build the wall. How could God be so pleased with a sacrifice in a high place undoubtedly formerly dedicated to a Hive deity in a city inhabited by a people the Lord had commanded Israel to exterminate, (Deuteronomy 20:17), made by a king who was already beginning the practices that would bring widespread idolatry into the land? (See 1 Kings 3:1, 1 Kings 11:1-2)

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