Melachim Bais 23:7

7 And he tore down the batim (houses) of hakedeshim (the male and female cult prostitutes) that were in the Beis Hashem, where the nashim were weaving hangings for Asherah.

Melachim Bais 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.

Melachim Bais 23:7 In-Context

5 And he did away with hakemarim (the idol priests), whom the Melachim of Yehudah had ordained to burn ketoret in the high places in the towns of Yehudah, and in the places around Yerushalayim; them also that burned ketoret unto Ba’al, to the shemesh, and to the yarei’ach, and to the mazalot (constellations) and to all the Tzeva HaShomayim.

6 And he took out the Asherah from the Beis Hashem, outside Yerushalayim, unto the Kidron Valley, and burned it in the Kidron Valley, and ground it to powder, and cast its aphar upon the keverim of the Bnei HaAm [i.e., them that sacrificed unto them].

7 And he tore down the batim (houses) of hakedeshim (the male and female cult prostitutes) that were in the Beis Hashem, where the nashim were weaving hangings for Asherah.

8 And he brought all the Kohanim out of the towns of Yehudah, and made tameh the high places where the kohanim had burned ketoret, from Geva to Beer Sheva, and broke down the high places at the she’arim (gates) that were at the entrance of the Sha’ar Yehoshua sar Ir, which were on one’s left at the Sha’ar HaIr.

9 Nevertheless the kohanim of the high places came not up to the Mizbe’ach Hashem in Yerushalayim, only they did eat of the matzot among their achim.