The New Testament recognizes a figurative sort of high places, where Christ’s people worship false gods instead of the one true God. Like Israel’s kings, we have the responsibility to topple all the idols in our own lives in order to give Jesus full Lordship. The fact that they didn’t use their power and authority to remove the high places and worship God alone should be a sobering reminder to us.

Recently someone asked me, “I’m intrigued by a phrase that’s repeated word for word in 2 Kings four times in 12:3, 14:4, 15:4, and 15:35 related to Uzziah and his father, grandfather, and son: ‘The high places, however, were not removed.’ What is this referring to?”

The “high places” is a shorthand term for places of pagan worship, usually (though not always) on hills or mountains to bring them closer to their false gods. They were centers of idolatry. The greatest time of compromise for God’s people in the Old Testament, the Israelites, was when in addition to worshiping Yahweh, the only true God, they worshipped false gods too.

To answer the question more fully I’m going to quote from three excellent sources. Bible Study Magazine has a great article by Adam Couturier about the high places. Here are four paragraphs from it:

A high place was a localized or regional worship center dedicated to a god. Worship at these local shrines often included making sacrifices, burning incense and holding feasts or festivals (1 Kgs 3:2–3; 12:32). Some of these high places contained altars, graven images and shrines (1 Kgs 13:1–5; 14:23; 2 Kgs 17:29; 18:4; 23:13–14). The Canaanites, Israel’s enemy who worshiped Baal as their chief deity, also used them.

Until a temple to Yahweh was built, the Israelites primarily worshiped Yahweh at a local center of worship—a practice that was not condemned. The prophet Samuel blessed sacrifices that were offered at high places, and Solomon sacrificed 1,000 burnt offerings on the altars in Gibeon (1 Sam 9:12–25; 1 Kgs 3:4).

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