Bible Strands
1 Kings 14:23
They also built for themselves high places, sacred pillars, and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every green tree.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The narrator records the collective religious actions of the people of Judah during the early divided monarchy, immediately following the account of their provocation of God’s jealousy. The passage functions as a historical indictment rather than a direct address to a specific audience.
The words — The text highlights בָּמ֥וֹת (ba.Mot, "high places") and אֲשֵׁרִ֑ים ('a.she.Rim, "Asherah poles") as the specific cultic structures erected by the people. These terms denote the elevated worship sites and carved wooden symbols that Judah constructed for themselves.
The thread — This practice of localized idolatry reappears in Deuteronomy 12:2 as a command for total destruction, in Isaiah 57:5 as a marker of covenant betrayal, and in 2 Kings 17:9 as a symptom of northern Israel's secret rebellion. The motif consistently traces Israel's shift from centralized worship to decentralized, nature-based paganism.
Why it lands — The verse demands recognition that idolatry begins with the deliberate construction of alternative worship sites rather than abstract belief. It requires the reader to identify modern equivalents of "high places" where personal preference replaces prescribed obedience.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
For they also built them high places, and images, and groves, on every high hill, and under every green tree.
Cross-references
- Deuteronomy 12:2 Destroy 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.
- Isaiah 57:5 who burn with lust among the oaks, under every luxuriant tree, who slaughter your children in the valleys, under the clefts of the rocks?
- 2 Kings 17:9 The 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.
- Ezekiel 16:24 you built yourself a mound and made yourself a lofty shrine in every public square.
- Leviticus 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.
- Deuteronomy 16:22 and do not set up for yourselves a sacred pillar, which the LORD your God hates.
- 1 Kings 3:2 The people, however, were still sacrificing on the high places because a house for the Name of the LORD had not yet been built.
- 1 Kings 14:15 For 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.
- 2 Kings 21:3 For 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.
- 2 Chronicles 28:4 And he sacrificed and burned incense on the high places, on the hills, and under every green tree.