Ver. 7
And he set a graven image of the grove that he had
made in the
house
Which was either an image that had been placed in a grove planted
by him, and now removed into the house or temple of the Lord; or,
as some think, this was a representation of a grove, a carved grove
of gold or silver, in the midst of which an image was placed in the
temple; though what Selden observes
F2, seems best of all, that
this was an image of Asherah, as in the original text; that is, of
Astarte or Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Zidonians, (
1 Kings 11:5 ) , the
same the Phoenicians are said to call Astroarche, and affirm it to
be the moon
F3: in (
2 Chronicles
33:7 ) it is called a carved image the idol he had made; and an
Arabic writer
F4 says, it had four faces, which seems
to be a figure of the cherubim; but, according to Suidas
F5, it was the statue of Jupiter, who
also says it had four faces:
of which the Lord said to David, and to Solomon his
son:
that is, of which house or temple:
in this house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of
all the
tribes of Israel, will I put my name forever;
see ( 1 Kings
8:29 ) ( 9:3 ) (See Gill on
2
Kings 21:3).