Melachim Alef 14:23

23 For they also built them [idolatrous] high places, and matzevot (idol images), and Asherim [Canaanite female nature idols] on every high hill, and under every thickly foliaged green tree.

Melachim Alef 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.

Melachim Alef 14:23 In-Context

21 And Rechav‘am Ben Sh’lomo reigned in Yehudah. Rechav‘am was forty and one years old when he began to reign, and he reigned seventeen years in Yerushalayim, the Ir which Hashem did choose out of kol Shivtei Yisroel, to put Shmo there. And shem immo was Naamah HaAmmonit (an Ammonitess).

22 And Yehudah did the rah in the eyes of Hashem, and they provoked Him to kina (jealousy) with their chattot which they had committed, which were more than all that their avot had done.

23 For they also built them [idolatrous] high places, and matzevot (idol images), and Asherim [Canaanite female nature idols] on every high hill, and under every thickly foliaged green tree.

24 And there were also kadesh (male and female cult prostitutes) in the land; and they did according to all the to’avot (abominations) of the Goyim which Hashem drove out before the Bnei Yisroel.

25 And it came to pass in the fifth year of Melech Rechav‘am, that Shishak Melech Mitzrayim came up against Yerushalayim;