1 Kings 14:23

23 They built Asherah sex-and-religion shrines and set up sacred stones all over the place - on hills, under trees, wherever you looked.

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 Rehoboam son of Solomon was king in Judah. He was forty-one years old when he took the throne and was king for seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city God selected from all the tribes of Israel for the worship of his Name. Rehoboam's mother was Naamah, an Ammonite.

22 Judah was openly wicked before God, making him very angry. They set new records in sin, surpassing anything their ancestors had done.

23 They built Asherah sex-and-religion shrines and set up sacred stones all over the place - on hills, under trees, wherever you looked.

24 Worse, they had male sacred prostitutes, polluting the country outrageously - all the stuff that God had gotten rid of when he brought Israel into the land.

25 In the fifth year of King Rehoboam's rule, Shishak king of Egypt made war against Jerusalem.