Judges 3:7

Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Summary

And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD, and forgat the LORD their God, and served Baalim and the groves.

The groves

General references

Deuteronomy 7:3

Deuteronomy 16:21

Bible References

The groves

Now on that same night the Lord said to Gideon, “Take your father’s bull, the second bull seven years old, and tear down the altar of Baal that belongs to your father, and cut down the Asherah that is beside it;

But you shall tear down and destroy their [pagan] altars, smash in pieces their [sacred] pillars (obelisks, images) and cut down their Asherim

“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.

Ahab also made the Asherah. Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel than all the kings of Israel who were before him.

Now then, send word and gather to me all Israel at Mount Carmel, together with the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of [the goddess] Asherah, who eat at [Queen] Jezebel’s table.”

Josiah brought out the Asherah from the house of the Lord to the Brook Kidron outside Jerusalem, and burned it there, and ground it to dust, and threw its dust on the graves of the common people [who had sacrificed to it].

He also removed Maacah, King Asa’s mother, from the position of queen mother, because she had made a repulsive image for [the goddess] Asherah. Asa cut down her idol, crushed it, and burned it at the Brook Kidron.

They abandoned the house of the Lord, the God of their fathers, and served the Asherim and the idols; so [God’s] wrath came on Judah and Jerusalem for their sin and guilt.

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.

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.

General references

You shall not intermarry with them; you shall not give your daughter to his son, nor shall you take his daughter for your son;

“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.