And they set them up images and groves in every high hill, and under every green tree:
Parallel translations
- WEB and they set up for themselves pillars and Asherah poles on every high hill, and under every green tree;
- BSB They set up for themselves sacred pillars and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every green tree.
- NKJV They set up for themselves sacred pillars and wooden images on every high hill and under every green tree.
- NASB And they set up for themselves memorial stones and Asherim on every high hill and under every green tree,
- NLT They set up sacred pillars and Asherah poles at the top of every 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
They set up sacred pillars and Asherah poles on every hill and under every green tree. The land was filled with Canaanite-style idols.
Overview
Israel adopted the standing stones and Asherah symbols of Canaanite fertility religion, the very objects God commanded them to destroy. Placed on high hills and under leafy trees, these idols marked sites of false worship across the land. Their proliferation reveals how completely the nation had abandoned the worship of the one true God.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 8
- 1 Kgs 14:23For they also built them high places, and images, and groves, on every high hill, and under every green tree.
- Mic 5:14And I will pluck up thy groves out of the midst of thee: so will I destroy thy cities.
- Exod 34:13But ye shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves:
- 2 Kgs 16:4And he sacrificed and burnt incense in the high places, and on 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?
- Deut 16:21Thou shalt not plant thee a grove of any trees near unto the altar of the LORD thy God, which thou shalt make thee.
- Deut 12:2–3Ye 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:
- 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.
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Christ at the center
Amid the long decline toward exile, the promise to David's house refuses to die; the flickering lamp kept burning anticipates the coming King who will not fail or be cut off.
How 2 Kings 17:10 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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