Bible Strands
1 Kings 22:46
He banished from the land the male shrine prostitutes who remained from the days of his father Asa.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The narrator records King Jehoshaphat’s administrative summary between accounts of his foreign alliances and the establishment of Edom’s governance. This statement functions as a factual report of royal policy rather than a prophetic declaration.
The words — בִּעֵר (bi.'Er) translates literally as "he destroyed" or "he banished," indicating the king’s decisive action against the remaining cultic figures. הַקֹּדֵשׁ (ha.qōdēš) denotes the male shrine prostitutes whose presence persisted from a previous reign.
The thread — This purge mirrors the earlier removal in 1 Kings 15:12 and directly applies the prohibition in Deuteronomy 23:17. The practice originally infiltrated Judah during the reigns documented in 1 Kings 14:24.
Why it lands — The text states that a king removed tolerated pagan practices to align the land with Mosaic law. A reader must recognize that religious compliance requires active removal of syncretism, not mere nominal continuation.
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 the remnant of the sodomites, which remained in the days of his father Asa, he took out of the land.
Cross-references
- 1 Kings 14:24 There were even male shrine prostitutes in the land. They imitated all the abominations of the nations the LORD had driven out before the Israelites.
- 1 Kings 15:12 He banished the male shrine prostitutes from the land and removed all the idols that his fathers had made.
- Deuteronomy 23:17 No daughter or son of Israel is to be a shrine prostitute.
- Genesis 19:5 They called out to Lot, saying, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Send them out to us so we can have relations with them!”
- 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.
- Judges 19:22 While they were enjoying themselves, suddenly the wicked men of the city surrounded the house. Pounding on the door, they said to the old man who owned the house, “Bring out the man who came to your house, so we can have relations with him!”
- Romans 1:26 For this reason God gave them over to dishonorable passions. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones.
- 1 Corinthians 6:9 Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who submit to or perform homosexual acts,
- 1 Timothy 1:10 for the sexually immoral, for homosexuals, for slave traders and liars and perjurers, and for anyone else who is averse to sound teaching