of Gilgal, gave occasion to Gideon and Manoah to rear altars at
their homes, drew the attention of David to the threshing-floor of
Araunah, Jehovah Himself was regarded as the proper founder of all
these sanctuaries,--and this not merely at the period of the
Judges, but more indubitably still at that of the narrator of
these legends. He rewarded Solomon's first sacrifice on the great
Bamah at Gibeon with a gracious revelation, and cannot, therefore,
have been displeased by it. After all this, it is absurd to speak
of any want of legality in what was then the ordinary practice;
throughout the whole of the earlier period of the history of
Israel, the restriction of worship to a single selected place was
unknown to any one even as a pious desire. Men believed themselves
indeed to be nearer God at Bethel or at Jerusalem than at any
indifferent place, but of such gates of heaven there were several;
and after all, the ruling idea was that which finds its
most distinct expression in 2Kings v.17,--that Palestine as a whole
was Jehovah's house, His ground and territory. Not outside of
Jerusalem, but outside of Canaan had one to sojourn far from His
presence, under the dominion and (cujus regio ejus religio) in the
service of strange gods. The sanctity of the land did not depend
on that of the temple; the reverse was the case. /1/

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1. Gen. iv.14, 16: when Cain is driven out of the land (Canaan),
he is driven from the presence of Jehovah (Jonah i.3, 10).
Gen. xlvi.4: Jacob is not to hesitate about going down into Egypt,
for Jehovah will, by a special act of grace, change His dwelling-place
along with him. Exodus xv.17: "Thou broughtest thy people to the mountain
of thine inheritance, to the place which thou hadst prepared for
thyself to dwell in," the explanation which follows, "to the