Is it not the LORD whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed?

[tonychanyt]

Hezekiah's religious reforms were in accordance with the will of God. 2 K 18:

3 He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, according to all that David his father had done. 4 He removed the high places and broke the pillars and cut down the Asherah. And he broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had made offerings to it (it was called Nehushtan).

Hezekiah was strict about where people could make offerings and to whom.

But his enemy Rabshakeh, an Assyrian official, said:

22 "But if you say to me, 'We trust in the LORD our God,' is it not he whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, saying to Judah and to Jerusalem, 'You shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem'?"

This was Rabshakeh's psychological warfare against Jerusalem.

Is it not he whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed?

No. According to the LORD, removing those high-place altars was a good thing. People did not worship the LORD in those high places.

According to Rabshakeh, people worshiped their God at those high places. People should not trust Hezekiah because he only allowed them to worship at the Jerusalem temple. Rabshakeh attempted to sow dissonance between Hezekiah and his people by causing them to doubt the goodness of his reforms.

Decades later, The Jews were exiled to Babylon. During this time, they learned how to worship without access to the Jerusalem temple. The local synagogue system developed, and there were no more gatherings at the high places to worship the LORD.