1 Kings 14:23

23 For they also built them high places, and pillars, and Asherim, on every high hill, and under every green tree;

1 Kings 14:23 Meaning and Commentary

1 Kings 14:23

For they also built them high places
Which, though allowed of, or at least connived at, before the temple was built, and when the tabernacle was unfixed, yet afterwards unlawful; and the tribe of Judah could have no excuse for them, who had the temple in their tribe:

and images;
contrary to the express command of God, ( Exodus 20:4 ) ,

and groves on every high hill, and under every green tree;
that is, set up idols, and temples for idols, amidst groves of trees, and under all green trees; as was the custom of the Heathens, who sacrificed on the heights of hills and tops of mountains, as was particularly the custom of the Persians, as both Herodotus ^F13 and Xenophon ^F14 relate; and with the Getae, a people in Thrace, was a mountain they reckoned sacred {o}.

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FOOTNOTES:

F13 Clio, sive, l. 1. c. 131.
F14 Cyropaedia, l. 8. c. 45.
F15 Strabo Geograph. l. 7. p. 206.

1 Kings 14:23 In-Context

21 Rechav`am the son of Shlomo reigned in Yehudah. Rechav`am was forty-one years old when he began to reign, and he reigned seventeen years in Yerushalayim, the city which the LORD had chosen out of all the tribes of Yisra'el, to put his name there: and his mother's name was Na`amah the `Ammonite.

22 Yehudah did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, and they provoked him to jealousy with their sins which they committed, above all that their fathers had done.

23 For they also built them high places, and pillars, and Asherim, on every high hill, and under every green tree;

24 and there were also sodomites in the land: they did according to all the abominations of the nations which the LORD drove out before the children of Yisra'el.

25 It happened in the fifth year of king Rechav`am, that Shishak king of Mitzrayim came up against Yerushalayim;