Now Solomon loved the LORD, walking in the statutes of his father David, except he sacrificed and burned incense on the high places.I'll admit I'm not quite clear on these high places. A couple verses earlier it says that the people still sacrificed at the high places because the temple had not yet been built. I would think that means that these sacrifices were to God, but not at the Tabernacle for whatever reason.
But here it says that Solomon failed to follow David in this area. He sacrificed at the high places, which he shouldn't have done. Does this mean that the high places were to other gods? That he was denying God the worship he was due? But then, why is it at a high place that God appears to Solomon?
One other theory that comes to mind is that the high places exist because people had gotten lazy, so they were still sacrificing to God, but weren't going to Jerusalem for sacrifices. Maybe things had even been warped, and they'd taken on the practice of sacrificing to God, but in the style of the pagan gods' worship? It's definitely not clear here, though I'm guessing they were other gods being sacrificed to.
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