For they also built them high places, and images, and groves, 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.
- BSB They also built for themselves high places, sacred pillars, and Asherah poles 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 12:2Ye shall utterly destroy all the places, wherein the nations which ye shall possess served their gods, upon the high mountains, and upon the hills, and under every green tree:
- Isa 57:5Enflaming yourselves with idols under every green tree, slaying the children in the valleys under the clifts of the rocks?
- 2 Kgs 17:9–10And the children of Israel did secretly those things that were not right against the LORD their God, and they built them high places in all their cities, from the tower of the watchmen to the fenced city.
- Ezek 16:24–25That thou hast also built unto thee an eminent place, and hast made thee an high place in every street.
- 2 Chr 28:4He sacrificed also and burnt incense in the high places, and on the hills, and under every green tree.
- Jer 17:2Whilst their children remember their altars and their groves by the green trees upon the high hills.
- Ezek 20:28–29For when I had brought them into the land, for the which I lifted up mine hand to give it to them, then they saw every high hill, and all the thick trees, and they offered there their sacrifices, and there they presented the provocation of their offering: there also they made their sweet savour, and poured out there their drink offerings.
- Jer 3:13Only acknowledge thine iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against the LORD thy God, and hast scattered thy ways to the strangers under every green tree, and ye have not obeyed my voice, saith the LORD.
- Lev 26:1Ye shall make you no idols nor graven image, neither rear you up a standing image, neither shall ye set up any image of stone in your land, to bow down unto it: for I am the LORD your God.
- Deut 16:22Neither shalt thou set thee up any image; which the LORD thy God hateth.
- 1 Kgs 3:2Only the people sacrificed in high places, because there was no house built unto the name of the LORD, until those days.
- Mic 5:14And I will pluck up thy groves out of the midst of thee: so will I destroy thy cities.
- 1 Kgs 14:15For the LORD shall smite Israel, as a reed is shaken in the water, and he shall root up Israel out of this good land, which he gave to their fathers, and shall scatter them beyond the river, because they have made their groves, provoking the LORD to anger.
- Jer 2:20For of old time I have broken thy yoke, and burst thy bands; and thou saidst, I will not transgress; when upon every high hill and under every green tree thou wanderest, playing the harlot.
- 2 Kgs 21:3–7For he built up again the high places which Hezekiah his father had destroyed; and he reared up altars for Baal, and made a grove, as did Ahab king of Israel; and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served them.
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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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