“The Lord loveth the gates of Zion More than all the dwellings of Jacob.” Psalm lxxxvii. 1. So shall ye know that I am the Lord your God dwelling in Zion, my holy mountain. (Joel iii. 17 and Zech. viii. 3). Human nature would not be what it is if theory and practice always went hand in hand. Laws may be good, but universal obedience to them cannot always be secured. Solomon himself, who had built the temple, and by bringing the Tent of Meeting into it, had disestablished Gibeon, set the example, in his later years, of recognising afresh other high places and the gods of the heathen. Having married “women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites,” besides the daughter of Pharaoh, he doubtless thought it only an enlightened toleration to let them worship in their own way, and as a logical consequence he supplied them with the means, and perhaps occasionally accompanied them to their respective places of worship. “For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians,” and “did build a high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, in the mount that is before Jerusalem, and for Molech, the abomination of the children of Ammon. And so did he for all his strange wives, which burnt incense and sacrificed unto their gods” (1 Kings xi.). We see in this passage that the site selected as the high place for Chemosh was on the Mount of Olives--perhaps the place where Nob had stood, a site which had the tradition of sanctity already. Many later kings imitated Solomon, and declined to regard Jehovah as the only God, or the holy mountain at Jerusalem as the only high place possessing sanctity. It was hardly to be expected that the people should be more faithful than their kings; and the after history furnishes many examples of lapses into heathen worship, and periodical reforms attempted by such kings as Josiah and Hezekiah. It was not convenient for the more distant tribes north of Esdraelon or east of Jordan to come up to Jerusalem to worship. Added to this consideration there was the local shrine, and time-honoured tradition in its favour. Just as in our own country Ripon cathedral is built over St Wilfrid’s Saxon church, and St Paul’s cathedral on the site of a heathen temple, so on the part of the Israelites there was a disposition to keep to the old spots. What wonder if there was, besides, a frequent adherence to the old forms of worship? The tribes east of Jordan worshipped eastern gods--Peor, Chemosh, Milcom. Gad worshipped the god of Fortune (Isaiah lxv. 11), and was named after that deity. Josephus spells the name of Reuben as _Reubel_ (Ρουβελος), and Bel was one of the eastern gods. Manasseh had a sanctuary in the city of Golan. From the east of Jordan came Jephthah, who made a rash vow like a heathen, and kept it, although it involved human sacrifice.