(Gen 31:13; Gen 35:20; Exo 24:4), more especially stone monuments set up in commemoration of a divine revelation (Gen 28:18, Gen 28:22; Gen 35:14). Like the bamoth, in connection with which they generally occur, they were originally dedicated to Jehovah; but even under the law they were forbidden, partly as places of divine worship of human invention which easily degenerated into idolatry, but chiefly because the Canaanites had erected such monuments to Baal by the side of his altars (Exo 23:24; Exo 34:13; Deu 7:5, etc.), whereby the worship of Jehovah was unconsciously identified with the worship of Baal, even when the mazzeboth were not at first erected to the Canaanitish Baal. As the מצּבות of the Canaanites were dedicated to Baal, so were the אשׁרים to Astarte, the female nature-deity of those tribes. אשׁרה, however, does not mean a grove (see the Comm. on Deu 16:21), but an idol of the Canaanitish nature-goddess, generally most likely a lofty wooden pillar, though sometimes perhaps a straight trunk of a tree, the branches and crown of which were lopped off, and which was planted upon heights and in other places by the side of the altars of Baal. The name אשׁרה was transferred from the idol to the goddess of nature (1Ki 15:13; 1Ki 18:19; 2Ki 21:7, etc.), and was used of the image or column of the Phoenician Astarte (1Ki 16:33; 2Ki 13:6; 2Ki 17:16, etc.), just as אשׁרות in Jdg 3:7 alternates with עשׁתּרות in Jdg 2:13. These idols the Israelites (? Judaeans - Tr.) appear to have also associated with the worship of Jehovah; for the external worship of Jehovah was still maintained in the temple, and was performed by Rehoboam himself with princely pomp (1Ki 14:28). “On every high hill,” etc.; see at Deu 12:2.
Verse 24
1Ki 14:24 “There were also prostitutes in the land.” קדּשׁ is used collectively as a generic name, including both male and female hierodylae, and is exchanged for the plural in 1Ki 15:12. The male קדשׁים had emasculated themselves in religious frenzy in honour of the Canaanitish goddess of nature, and were called Galli by the Romans. They were Canaanites, who had found their way into the land of Judah when idolatry gained the upper hand (as indicated by וגם). “They appear here as strangers among the Israelites, and are those notorious Cinaedi more especially of the imperial age of Rome who travelled about in all directions, begging for the Syrian goddess, and even in the time of Augustine went about asking for alms in the streets of Carthage
