Bible Strands
1 Kings 15:12
He banished the male shrine prostitutes from the land and removed all the idols that his fathers had made.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — King Asa executes a religious purge in Judah, acting between his general righteousness and his subsequent removal of his grandmother Maacah. This moment captures the enforcement phase of his covenant reforms.
The words — וַ/יַּעֲבֵ֥ר (va/i.ya.'a.Ver) translates literally as "he made to pass away," and הַ/גִּלֻּלִ֔ים (ha./gi.lu.Lim) means "the idols." The text states he physically removed these objects and the associated cultic personnel from the territory.
The thread — The purge reappears in 1 Kings 22:46, which notes that male shrine prostitutes from Asa’s reign persisted until later kings. The underlying idolatry traces back to 1 Kings 11:7 and 1 Kings 14:23, where Solomon and Judah’s kings established high places and Asherah poles.
Why it lands — The verse demands a concrete assessment of religious leadership: authority must actively dismantle inherited syncretism. Readers must recognize that covenant fidelity requires the removal of established pagan infrastructure, not merely personal piety.
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
And he took away the sodomites out of the land, and removed all the idols that his fathers had made.
Cross-references
- 1 Kings 22:46 He banished from the land the male shrine prostitutes who remained from the days of his father Asa.
- 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.
- 1 Kings 11:7 At that time on a hill east of Jerusalem, Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab and for Molech the abomination of the Ammonites.
- 2 Chronicles 14:2 And Asa did what was good and right in the eyes of the LORD his God.
- Romans 1:26 For this reason God gave them over to dishonorable passions. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones.
- 1 Peter 1:18 For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life you inherited from your forefathers,
- Jude 1:7 In like manner, Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, who indulged in sexual immorality and pursued strange flesh, are on display as an example of those who sustain the punishment of eternal fire.
- 1 Kings 15:3 And Abijam walked in all the sins that his father before him had committed, and his heart was not as fully devoted to the LORD his God as the heart of David his forefather had been.
- Ezekiel 20:18 In the wilderness I said to their children: ‘Do not walk in the statutes of your fathers or keep their ordinances or defile yourselves with their idols.
- Zechariah 1:2 “The LORD was very angry with your fathers.