2 Kings 23:7

7 And he broke down the houses of the sodomites, which were in the house of Jehovah, where the women wove tents for the Asherah.

2 Kings 23:7 Meaning and Commentary

2 Kings 23:7

And he brake down the houses of the Sodomites that were by the
house of the Lord
Near the temple were apartments, in which men, the worshippers of idols, prostituted their bodies to each other; committing that unnatural sin with one another, which has its name from Sodom, and from which those are so called, and which sin they committed in honour of the idols they worshipped; to such vile affections were they, in a judicial manner, delivered up, because of their idolatry; see ( Romans 1:27 Romans 1:28 ) the word signifies "Holy Ones", they being called so by an antiphrasis; though Abarbinel thinks these were the idolatrous priests, whom the worshippers of idols reckoned "holy", and so built houses for them near the temple to lodge in; the Targum is,

``and broke down the houses of things consecrated to idols,''

where they were put; and Theodoret on the place observes, that by an homonymy, they called the demons or idols themselves "Holy Ones"; and it is not likely, indeed, that the Sodomites should be

where the women wove hangings for the grove;
that is, for Astarte, as the same writer observes: or "curtains", as the Jewish writers generally interpret it, in which either the idol was enclosed, or these made apartments for the idolaters to commit their abominable wickedness privately; though the Syriac and Arabic versions are,

``they wove garments for the idols that were there;''

and so the Septuagint version, of the Complutensian edition; that is, they wove garments for the goddess Astarte, which they dressed her with: the word signifies "houses", and may mean the shrines of the idol made of woven work.

2 Kings 23:7 In-Context

5 And he abolished the idolatrous priests, whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense on the high places in the cities of Judah, and the environs of Jerusalem; and them that burned incense to Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the constellations, and to all the host of heaven.

6 And he brought out the Asherah from the house of Jehovah, outside Jerusalem, to the torrent of Kidron, and burned it at the torrent of Kidron, and stamped it small to powder, and cast the powder upon the graves of the children of the people.

7 And he broke down the houses of the sodomites, which were in the house of Jehovah, where the women wove tents for the Asherah.

8 And he brought all the priests out of the cities of Judah, and defiled the high places where the priests had burned incense, from Geba even to Beer-sheba; and he broke down the high places of the gates, those at the entrance of the gate of Joshua the governor of the city, [and] those on the left hand of any [going in] at the gate of the city.

9 Nevertheless the priests of the high places came not up to the altar of Jehovah in Jerusalem, but they ate of the unleavened bread among their brethren.

Footnotes

• [a]. Lit. 'houses.'