1 Kings 14:23

23 For they erected high places, standing-stones and sacred poles 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 was reigning in Y'hudah. Rechav'am was forty-one years old when he began to rule; and he ruled seventeen years in Yerushalayim, the city ADONAI had chosen from all the tribes of Isra'el to bear his name; his mother's name was Na'amah the 'Amonit.

22 Y'hudah did what was evil from ADONAI's perspective; they made him angry because of their sins, which were worse than any their ancestors had committed.

23 For they erected high places, standing-stones and sacred poles on every high hill and under every green tree.

24 Also there were male and female cult-prostitutes in the land attached to these shrines, doing all the disgusting things which the nations did that ADONAI had expelled ahead of the people of Isra'el.

25 In the fifth year of King Rechav'am, Shishak king of Egypt attacked Yerushalayim.