They also built for themselves high places, sacred pillars, and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every green tree.
Parallel translations
- WEB For they also built for themselves high places, sacred pillars, and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every green tree.
- KJV For they also built them high places, and images, and groves, on every high hill, and under every green tree.
- NKJV For they also built for themselves high places, sacred pillars, and wooden images on every high hill and under every green tree.
- NASB For they, too, built for themselves high places, memorial stones, and Asherim on every high hill and under every luxuriant tree.
- NLT For they also built for themselves pagan shrines and set up sacred pillars and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every green tree.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Judah builds high places, sacred pillars, and Asherah poles on every hill and under every tree. Their idolatry spreads throughout the land.
Overview
These objects belonged to Canaanite fertility worship that God had forbidden. Building them 'on every high hill and under every green tree' depicts pervasive, deliberate idolatry. The verse documents how far Judah strayed from exclusive worship of Yahweh at His chosen place.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 15
- Deut 12:2Destroy completely all the places where the nations you are dispossessing have served their gods—atop the high mountains, on the hills, and under every green tree.
- Isa 57:5who burn with lust among the oaks, under every luxuriant tree, who slaughter your children in the valleys, under the clefts of the rocks?
- 2 Kgs 17:9–10The Israelites secretly did things against the LORD their God that were not right. From watchtower to fortified city, they built high places in all their cities.
- Ezek 16:24–25you built yourself a mound and made yourself a lofty shrine in every public square.
- 2 Chr 28:4And he sacrificed and burned incense on the high places, on the hills, and under every green tree.
- Jer 17:2Even their children remember their altars and Asherah poles by the green trees and on the high hills.
- Ezek 20:28–29When I brought them into the land that I swore to give them and they saw any high hill or leafy tree, there they offered their sacrifices, presented offerings that provoked Me, sent up their fragrant incense, and poured out their drink offerings.
- Jer 3:13Only acknowledge your guilt, that you have rebelled against the LORD your God. You have scattered your favors to foreign gods under every green tree and have not obeyed My voice,’” declares the LORD.
- Lev 26:1“You must not make idols for yourselves or set up a carved image or sacred pillar; you must not place a sculpted stone in your land to bow down to it. For I am the LORD your God.
- Deut 16:22and do not set up for yourselves a sacred pillar, which the LORD your God hates.
- 1 Kgs 3:2The people, however, were still sacrificing on the high places because a house for the Name of the LORD had not yet been built.
- Mic 5:14I will root out the Asherah poles from your midst and demolish your cities.
- 1 Kgs 14:15For the LORD will strike Israel as a reed is shaken in the water. He will uproot Israel from this good land that He gave their fathers, and He will scatter them beyond the Euphrates, because they have made their Asherah poles, provoking the LORD to anger.
- Jer 2:20“For long ago you broke your yoke and tore off your chains, saying, ‘I will not serve!’ Indeed, on every high hill and under every green tree you lay down as a prostitute.
- 2 Kgs 21:3–7For he rebuilt the high places that his father Hezekiah had destroyed, and he raised up altars for Baal. He made an Asherah pole, as King Ahab of Israel had done, and he worshiped and served all the host of heaven.
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Christ at the center
Solomon's glory, wisdom, and temple where God's presence dwells are a shadow of the greater Son of David — 'one greater than Solomon is here' — and of the true Temple, Christ himself.
How 1 Kings 14:23 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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