2 Kings 21:3

Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Summary

For 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.

The high places

2 Kings 18:4

2 Chronicles 32:12

2 Chronicles 34:3

He reared

2 Kings 10:18

1 Kings 16:31

1 Kings 18:21

Ahab

2 Kings 8:18

Micah 6:16

And worshipped

General references

Deuteronomy 16:21

2 Kings 23:32

Bible References

The high places

He removed the high places [of pagan worship], broke down the images (memorial stones) and cut down the Asherim. He also crushed to pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the Israelites had burned incense to it; and it was called Nehushtan [a bronze sculpture].

Has the same Hezekiah not taken away his [Baal’s] high places and his altars, and commanded Judah and Jerusalem, “You shall worship before [only] one altar and burn incense on it”?

For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was still young (sixteen), he began to seek after and inquire of the God of his father David; and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, the Asherim, and the carved and cast images.

He reared

Jehu assembled all the people and said [in pretense] to them, “Ahab served Baal a little; Jehu will serve him much [more].

It came about, as if it had been a trivial thing for Ahab to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, that he married Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and went and served Baal and worshiped him.

Elijah approached all the people and said, “How long will you hesitate between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him.” But the people [of Israel] did not answer him [so much as] a word.

Ahab

He walked in the ways of the kings of Israel, just as the house of Ahab had done, for [Athaliah] the daughter of Ahab became his wife. He did evil in the sight of the Lord.

“For [you have kept] the statutes of Omri [the idolatrous king],
And all the works of the [wicked] house (dynasty) of Ahab;
And you walk in their counsels and policies.
Therefore, I shall hand you over for destruction and horror
And your [city’s] inhabitants for ridicule,
And you shall bear the rebuke and scorn of My people.”

And worshipped

They abandoned all the commandments of the Lord their God and made for themselves cast images of two calves; and they made an Asherah [idol] and worshiped all the [starry] host of heaven and served Baal.

Then the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest and the priests of the second rank and the doorkeepers to bring out of the temple of the Lord all the articles made for Baal, for [the goddess] Asherah, and for all the [starry] host of heaven; and he burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron, and carried their ashes to Bethel [where Israel’s idolatry began].

And beware that you do not raise your eyes toward heaven and see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, and let yourselves be led astray and worship them and serve them, [mere created bodies] which the Lord your God has allotted to [serve and benefit] all the peoples under the whole heaven.

and has gone and served other gods and worshiped them, or the sun or the moon or any of the heavenly host, [doing these things] which I have commanded not to do,

For he rebuilt the [idolatrous] high places which his father Hezekiah had torn down; and he set up altars for the Baals and made the Asherim, and worshiped all the host of heaven [the sun, the moon, stars and planets] and served them.

If I beheld the sun [as an object of worship] when it shone
Or the moon going in its splendor,

General references

“You shall not plant for yourself an Asherah of any kind of tree or wood beside the altar of the Lord your God, which you shall make.

He did evil in the sight of the Lord, in accordance with everything that his forefathers had done.