But thus shall ye deal with them
The inhabitants of the land of Canaan:
ye shall destroy their altars;
on which they sacrificed to their idols:
and break down their images;
of their gods, and the statues and pillars erected to the honour
of them:
and cut down their groves;
sacred to idols, which were usually planted on hills, and about
Heathen temples, and under which idols were placed to be
worshipped. The Targum of Jonathan calls them trees of their
adoration, under which they worshipped; though there was a
worship paid to them, not indeed directly to them, or for their
sakes, but for the sake of the idols they were sacred to, or were
placed under them; so Maimonides F5 says, a tree which at first
was planted to be worshipped is forbidden of any use (or profit);
and this is the (hrva) ,
or "grove", spoken of in the law, a tree planted and lopped, of
which a graven image is made for an idol; and so the tree that
has been worshipped, though the body of it is, not forbidden, all
the shoots and leaves, and the branches, and the fruits it
produces all the time it is worshipped, are forbidden to be used:
though the word here used sometimes seems to signify, not a grove
of trees, but some image itself, since we read of it in the
temple, ( 2 Kings 21:7
) ( 23:6 )
,
and burn their graven images with fire;
distinguished from their molten images, which may be meant in a
preceding clause, and which are particularly mentioned as to be
destroyed as well as these, ( Numbers
33:52 ) .