1 Kings 14:23

23 For they also built for themselves high places, pillars, 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 Now Rehoboam son of Solomon reigned in Judah. Rehoboam was forty-one years old when he began to reign, and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city that the Lord had chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, to put his name there. His mother's name was Naamah the Ammonite.

22 Judah did what was evil in the sight of the Lord; they provoked him to jealousy with their sins that they committed, more than all that their ancestors had done.

23 For they also built for themselves high places, pillars, and sacred poles on every high hill and under every green tree;

24 there were also male temple prostitutes in the land. They committed all the abominations of the nations that the Lord drove out before the people of Israel.

25 In the fifth year of King Rehoboam, King Shishak of Egypt came up against Jerusalem;

Footnotes

• [a]. Heb [Asherim]