7 And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, forgetting the LORD their God, and serving the Ba'als and the Ashe'roth.
but ye shall demolish their altars, shatter their statues, and hew down their Asherahs.
And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the LORD and served the Ba'als; and they forsook the LORD, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt; they went after other gods, from among the gods of the peoples who were round about them, and bowed down to them; and they provoked the LORD to anger. They forsook the LORD, and served the Ba'als and the Ash'taroth.
Only take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the things that thine eyes have seen (and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life; but thou shalt make them known to thy sons and to thy sons' sons),
Thou shalt not plant thyself an Asherah of any wood near unto the altar of Jehovah thy God, which thou shalt make thee.
And Ahab made the Asherah; and Ahab did more to provoke Jehovah the God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him.
And now send, gather to me all Israel to mount Carmel, and the prophets of Baal four hundred and fifty, and the prophets of the Asherah four hundred, who eat at Jezebel's table.
And he broke in pieces the columns, and cut down the Asherahs, and filled their place with the bones of men.
And also Maachah, the mother of Asa the king, he removed from being queen, because she had made an idol for the Asherah; and Asa cut down her idol, and stamped it, and burned it in the valley Kidron.
And he built again the high places that Hezekiah his father had broken down; and he reared up altars to the Baals, and made Asherahs, and worshipped all the host of heaven and served them.
And his prayer, and [how God] was intreated of him, and all his sin and his unfaithfulness, and the places in which he built high places, and set up Asherahs and graven images, before he was humbled, behold, they are written among the words of Hozai.
And in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet young, he began to seek after the God of David his father; and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem from the high places, and the Asherahs, and the graven images, and the molten images.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Judges 3
Commentary on Judges 3 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 3
In this chapter,
Jdg 3:1-7
We are here told what remained of the old inhabitants of Canaan.
Now concerning these remnants of the natives observe,
Jdg 3:8-11
We now come to the records of the government of the particular judges, the first of which was Othniel, in whom the story of this book is knit to that of Joshua, for even in Joshua's time Othniel began to be famous, by which it appears that it was not long after Israel's settlement in Canaan before their purity began to be corrupted and their peace (by consequence) disturbed. And those who have taken pains to enquire into the sacred chronology are generally agreed that the Danites' idolatry, and the war with the Benjamites for abusing the Levite's concubine, though related in the latter end of this book, happened about this time, under or before the government of Othniel, who, though a judge, was not such a king in Israel as would keep men from doing what was right in their own eyes. In this short narrative of Othniel's government we have,
Jdg 3:12-30
Ehud is the next of the judges whose achievements are related in this history, and here is an account of his actions.
Jdg 3:31
When it is said the land had rest eighty years, some think it meant chiefly of that part of the land which lay eastward on the banks of Jordan, which had been oppressed by the Moabites; but it seems, by this passage here, that the other side of the country which lay south-west was in that time infested by the Philistines, against whom Shamgar made head.