ContradictionsReading order 157Bible context 2 min read
Did Jehoshaphat remove the high places?
Chronicles credits Jehoshaphat with removing the high places, while Kings and another Chronicles passage say they were not removed.
- Textual conflict
- Interpretive tension
- The passages pull in different directions, but the conflict depends on how their wording, scope, or narrative context is read.
- Importance
- Supporting
- A supporting event, teaching, or biographical claim.
The king removes Judah's high places in one report while the reign summaries say they were not removed.
An editorial assessment of the quoted passages. Importance describes the stakes; it does not increase certainty. Reading order weighs both.
Jehoshaphat removes Judah's high places and sacred groves
Therefore the Lord stablished the kingdom in his hand; and all Judah brought to Jehoshaphat presents; and he had riches and honour in abundance. And his heart was lifted up in the ways of the Lord: moreover he took away the high places and groves out of Judah.
2 Chronicles 17:5-6
Translation / edition: King James Version (KJV)
Read the full chapter:2 Chronicles 17
High places remain throughout the account of Jehoshaphat's reign
Jehoshaphat was thirty and five years old when he began to reign; and he reigned twenty and five years in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Azubah the daughter of Shilhi. And he walked in all the ways of Asa his father; he turned not aside from it, doing that which was right in the eyes of the Lord: nevertheless the high places were not taken away; for the people offered and burnt incense yet in the high places.