City Gates and High Places

You will find these two places quite often while reading about the ancient fathers, kings, and prophets in the Bible. Proverbs says that wisdom sits next to the city gates (8:3) and foolishness sits by the high places (8:14). Both call out to those who pass by offering understanding leading to life or pleasure leading to death. This is the same choice offered to every human from Genesis to Revelation to you and me: life or death.

But what exactly is happening at the city gates and it’s high places?

An angel told Abraham, “your seed shall possess the gate of their enemies” (Ge 22:17). The first thought is rather obvious – since everyone comes and goes through the city gates this means the seed will own these cities.  While this is certainly true, I don’t think that controlling access necessarily controls what happens in the city.  “Posessing the gate” is much larger than that and is tied to this prophecy which is also about the seed, “For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; and the government will rest on His shoulders” (Isa 9:6).

The gates of an ancient city is where city officials and judges sat to render judgments and make city government decisions. It is at the gates where Abraham was found worthy to own land in a place that wasn’t his home (Gen 23:17-18) and where Boaz put his case forward for the hand of Ruth (Ruth 4). There are so many more examples so I encourage you to do a search for gate and check them out. However there is one more that I want to share that will lead us into discussing the high places.

Have you ever wondered why only 3,000 men were killed at the base of Mount Sinia when it is estimated that there were at least a million or more there and Moses told the Levites “kill every man”? The rest of the verse holds the answer: “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, ‘Every man of you put his sword upon his thigh, and go back and forth from gate to gate in the camp, and kill every man his brother, and every man his friend, and every man his neighbor.’ ” (Ex 32:27). The Levites only killed the tribal officials who were found at each tribal gate. How merciful God was!

This leads us to the high places. Worshiping the Lord is the only thing that was to occur on the highest landmark of any city (2 Chr 33:17, Hab 3:19) however out of the 72 times this phrase is found, only a handful are about their intended purpose. Most of the high places in the Bible’s ancient cities are where the idols of the queen of heaven were found: the golden calves of Isis, Asherahs aka luxurient green trees, and Astoreth. King Solomon put up an Astoreth for worship on one of Jerusalem’s high places, the Mount of Destruction, which faced the desert for all visitors to see. It wasn’t destroyed until 300 years later by King Josiah.

Proverbs teaches us that worshiping these idols is foolishness and leads to death (sickness of spirit, soul, and body). 

So we have two that are vying for our attention.

Wisdom calls out to us from the seat of righteous justice. Her voice is heard loud and clear by everyone every where as she invites you to an empty chair right next to her. Wealth that can’t be stolen will heap up by learning from her. You will enjoy life as you embrace her understanding. The Lord’s blessings and favor will define who you are as you enjoy a vibrant emotional, spiritual, and physical life with wisdom. 

However, some will walk by her because of a magnificent place that is high in the distance. It is like a forbidden and succulent fruit that we can’t ignore. Beauty, fortunes, and secrets reach out like bait for a fish. That hook will blindfold the eyes of our mind with deception while picking our pockets of all that is good. Any sense that we possess gives way to nonsense and foolishness. Our food becomes sickness and death. 

God is merciful because wisdom isn’t heard just at the city gates. She walks the streets and is even at the fork in the road where we must make the choice to turn to foolishness. I dare say that her voice is even in the ears as death overcomes those who chose to be foolish.

I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live. Dt 30:19

The teaching of the wise is a fountain of life, to turn aside from the snares of death. Pr 13:14