Lectionary Calendar
Sunday, April 26th, 2026
the Fourth Sunday after Easter
Attention!
Take your personal ministry to the Next Level by helping StudyLight build churches and supporting pastors in Uganda.
Click here to join the effort!

Read the Bible

Green's Literal Translation

1 Kings 14:23

And they built, they also, high places for themselves, and standing pillars, and Asherahs on every high hill, and under every green tree.

Bible Study Resources

Concordances:

- Nave's Topical Bible - Groves;   High Places;   Israel, Prophecies Concerning;   Mountain;   Torrey's Topical Textbook - Groves;   High Places;   Kings;  

Dictionaries:

- American Tract Society Bible Dictionary - Gardens;   Rehoboam;   Bridgeway Bible Dictionary - Asherah, asherim;   Baal;   Prostitution;   Rehoboam;   Baker Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology - Ethics;   Gods and Goddesses, Pagan;   Kings, First and Second, Theology of;   Fausset Bible Dictionary - Amos;   Baal (1);   Grove;   Idol;   Jerusalem;   Rehoboam;   Holman Bible Dictionary - Asherah;   Fertility Cult;   Gods, Pagan;   Rehoboam;   Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible - Abijah;   Asherah;   Pillar;   Morrish Bible Dictionary - Grove;   Rehoboam ;   Smith Bible Dictionary - Abi'jah;   Idolatry,;  

Encyclopedias:

- Condensed Biblical Cyclopedia - Babylonish Captivity, the;   International Standard Bible Encyclopedia - Apostasy;   Color;   High Place;   Hill;   Idolatry;   Obelisk;   Pillar;   Rehoboam;   Kitto Biblical Cyclopedia - Ashtoreth;   The Jewish Encyclopedia - Ammon, Ammonites;   Groves and Sacred Trees;   Pillar;  

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
They also built for themselves high places, sacred pillars, and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every green tree;
Hebrew Names Version
For they also built them high places, and pillars, and Asherim, on every high hill, and under every green tree;
King James Version
For they also built them high places, and images, and groves, on every high hill, and under every green tree.
English Standard Version
For they also built for themselves high places and pillars and Asherim on every high hill and under every green tree,
New Century Version
The people built stone pillars and places to worship gods and Asherah idols on every high hill and under every green tree.
New English Translation
They even built for themselves high places, sacred pillars, and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every green tree.
Amplified Bible
For they also built for themselves high places [to worship idols] and sacred pillars and Asherim [for the goddess Asherah]. These were on every high hill and under every luxuriant tree.
New American Standard Bible
For they, too, built for themselves high places, memorial stones, and Asherim on every high hill and under every luxuriant tree.
Geneva Bible (1587)
For they also made them hie places, and images, and groues on euery hie hill, and vnder euery greene tree.
Legacy Standard Bible
They also built for themselves high places and sacred pillars and Asherim on every high hill and beneath every green tree.
Contemporary English Version
They also built their own local shrines and stone images of foreign gods, and they set up sacred poles for worshiping the goddess Asherah on every hill and in the shade of large trees.
Complete Jewish Bible
For they erected high places, standing-stones and sacred poles on every high hill and under every green tree.
Darby Translation
And they also built for themselves high places, and columns, and Asherahs on every high hill and under every green tree;
Easy-to-Read Version
They built high places, memorial stones, and sacred poles. They built them on every high hill and under every green tree.
George Lamsa Translation
For they also built for themselves high places and statues and idols on every high hill and under every green tree.
Good News Translation
They built places of worship for false gods and put up stone pillars and symbols of Asherah to worship on the hills and under shady trees.
Lexham English Bible
They also built for themselves high places and stone pillars and sacred poles on every high hill and under every green tree.
Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
for they likewyse buylded them hye places, pilers, and groues vpo euery hye hill, and amonge all grene trees.
American Standard Version
For they also built them high places, and pillars, and Asherim, on every high hill, and under every green tree;
Bible in Basic English
For they made high places and upright stones and wood pillars on every high hill and under every green tree;
Bishop's Bible (1568)
For they also made them hie places, images, and groues on euery hie hill, and vnder euery thicke tree.
JPS Old Testament (1917)
For they also built them high places, and pillars, and Asherim, on every high hill, and under every leafy tree;
King James Version (1611)
For they also built them high places, and images, and groues on euery high hill, and vnder euery greene tree.
Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
And they built for themselves high places, and pillars, and planted groves on every high hill, and under every shady tree.
English Revised Version
For they also built them high places, and pillars, and Asherim, on every high hill, and under every green tree;
Berean Standard Bible
They also built for themselves high places, sacred pillars, and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every green tree.
Wycliffe Bible (1395)
For also thei bildiden to hem silf auters, and ymagis, and wodis, on eche hiy hil, and vndur ech tree ful of bowis.
Young's Literal Translation
And they build -- also they -- for themselves high places, and standing-pillars, and shrines, on every high height, and under every green tree;
Update Bible Version
For they also built themselves high places, and pillars, and Asherim, on every high hill, and under every green tree;
Webster's Bible Translation
For they also built for themselves high places, and images and groves, on every high hill, and under every green tree.
World English Bible
For they also built them high places, and pillars, and Asherim, on every high hill, and under every green tree;
New King James Version
For they also built for themselves high places, sacred pillars, and wooden images on every high hill and under every green tree.
New Living Translation
For they also built for themselves pagan shrines and set up sacred pillars and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every green tree.
New Life Bible
For they built for themselves high places, holy objects and false gods on every high hill and under every green tree.
New Revised Standard
For they also built for themselves high places, pillars, and sacred poles on every high hill and under every green tree;
J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
And, they also, built for themselves high places and pillars, and Sacred Stems, - upon every high hill, and under every green tree.
Douay-Rheims Bible
For they also built them altars, and statues, and groves, upon every high hill, and under every green tree:
Revised Standard Version
For they also built for themselves high places, and pillars, and Ashe'rim on every high hill and under every green tree;
New American Standard Bible (1995)
For they also built for themselves high places and sacred pillars and Asherim on every high hill and beneath every luxuriant tree.

Contextual Overview

21 And Rehoboam the son of Solomon reigned in Judah. Rehoboam was forty one years old when he began to reign. And he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city which Jehovah chose out of all the tribes of Israel, to put his name there. And his mother's name was Naamah the Ammonitess. 22 And Judah did evil in the sight of Jehovah, and they provoked Him to jealousy above all their fathers did by their sins that they had sinned. 23 And they built, they also, high places for themselves, and standing pillars, and Asherahs on every high hill, and under every green tree. 24 And also the sodomite was in the land. They did according to all the abominations of the nations that Jehovah dispossessed before the sons of Israel. 25 And it happened in the fifth year of King Rehoboam, Shishak the king of Egypt went up against Jerusalem. 26 And he took the treasures of the house of Jehovah, and the treasures of the king's house; yea, he took all. And he took all the golden shields that Solomon had made. 27 And King Rehoboam made in their place bronze shields. And he gave them into the hand of the commander of the runners, who kept the door of the king's house. 28 And it happened, when the king went to the house of Jehovah, the runners bore them, and brought them back to the room of the runners. 29 And the rest of the acts of Rehoboam, and all that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Matters of the Days of the Kings of Judah? 30 And there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam continually.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

built: 1 Kings 3:2, Deuteronomy 12:2, Isaiah 57:5, Ezekiel 16:24, Ezekiel 16:25, Ezekiel 20:28, Ezekiel 20:29

images: or, standing images, or statues, Leviticus 26:1

groves: Micah 5:14, Deuteronomy 12:2, 2 Kings 17:9, 2 Kings 17:10, 2 Kings 21:3-7, 2 Chronicles 28:4, Jeremiah 17:2

under every: Isaiah 57:5, Jeremiah 3:13

Reciprocal: Leviticus 17:5 - in the open 1 Kings 14:15 - provoking 1 Kings 15:12 - all the idols 1 Kings 20:23 - Their gods 1 Kings 22:43 - the high 2 Kings 10:26 - images 2 Kings 16:4 - on the hills 2 Kings 17:16 - a grove 2 Kings 17:19 - Also Judah 2 Kings 23:6 - the grove 2 Chronicles 24:18 - And they left 2 Chronicles 33:3 - made groves Jeremiah 3:6 - she is Ezekiel 6:13 - upon Hosea 4:14 - and they Hosea 10:1 - images

Cross-References

Genesis 14:9
with Chedorlaomer the king of Elam, and with Tidal the king of the nations, and Amraphel the king of Shinar, and Arioch the king of Ellasar; four kings with the five.
Genesis 14:12
And they took Lot, the son of Abram's brother, and his goods, and left; and he was living in Sodom.
Genesis 14:15
And he divided against them by night, he and his slaves, and he struck them, and pursued them as far as Hobah, which is on the left of Damascus.
Genesis 14:16
And he brought back all the goods, and also brought back his brother, and also the women and the people.
1 Kings 13:8
And the man of God said to the king, If you would give me the half of your house, I would not go in with you, nor will I eat bread, nor will I drink water in this place.
2 Kings 5:16
And he said, As Jehovah lives, before whom I stand, I shall not take. And he pressed on him to take, but he refused.
2 Kings 5:20
And Gehazi, the servant of Elisha the man of God, said, Behold, my lord has spared this Syrian, Naaman, not to receive from his hand that which he has brought. As Jehovah lives, surely I will run after him. Then I shall take something from him.
2 Corinthians 12:14
Behold, I am ready to come to you a third time . And I will not burden you, for I do not seek your things, but you. For the children ought not to lay up treasure for the parents, but the parents for the children.
Hebrews 13:5
Set your way of life without money-loving, being satisfied with present things; for He has said, "Not at all will I leave you, not at all will I forsake you," never! Deut. 31:6

Gill's Notes on the Bible

For they also built them high places,.... Which, though allowed of, or at least connived at, before the temple was built, and when the tabernacle was unfixed, yet afterwards unlawful; and the tribe of Judah could have no excuse for them, who had the temple in their tribe:

and images; contrary to the express command of God, Exodus 20:4,

and groves on every high hill, and under every green tree; that is, set up idols, and temples for idols, amidst groves of trees, and under all green trees; as was the custom of the Heathens, who sacrificed on the heights of hills and tops of mountains, as was particularly the custom of the Persians, as both Herodotus m and Xenophon n relate; and with the Getae, a people in Thrace, was a mountain they reckoned sacred o.

m Clio, sive, l. 1. c. 131. n Cyropaedia, l. 8. c. 45. o Strabo Geograph. l. 7. p. 206.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The words “they also” are emphatic. Not only did the Israelites make themselves high places 1Ki 12:31; 1 Kings 13:32, but the people of Judah also. The “high places,” which are said to have been “built,” were probably small shrines or tabernacles hung with bright-colored tapestry Ezekiel 16:16, like the “sacred tent” of the Carthaginians.

The “images” were rather “pillars” (Genesis 28:18 note).

Groves - See 1 Kings 14:15, note. The “groves,” it will be observed, were “built” on high hills and “under green trees.”

Under every green tree - i. e., under all those remarkable trees which, standing singly about the land, were landmarks to their respective neighborhoods, and places of resort to travelers, who gladly rested under their shade Deuteronomy 12:2.


 
adsfree-icon
Ads FreeProfile