1 Kings 12:31

An house of high places The graven image must have its temple. So in Bethel and in Dan buildings were raised, and an eminence chosen for the site of each. Hence it is better to render the plural notion, as R.V., houses of high places.

and made priests of the lowest of the people Better, as R.V. - and made priests from among all the people ". The noun properly means -an end", -an extremity." Then in the plural, as it is here, -the extremities," which between them comprise the whole space of anything. Thus the word is rendered in Judges 18:2 (R.V.) -five men from their whole number." Here the idea is that Jeroboam's priests were taken from anywhere, and so the selection differed much from that of the southern kingdom, where one tribe alone held the priest's office. The Levites who before the division of the kingdom had been scattered among all the tribes, now, in the main, withdrew to the southern tribes (2 Chronicles 11:13-14).