2 Kings 17:10

THE MESSAGE

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
They set up for themselves sacred pillars and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every green tree.

Hebrew Names Version
and they set them up pillars and Asherim on every high hill, and under every green tree;

King James Version
And they set them up images and groves in every high hill, and under every green tree:

English Standard Version
They set up for themselves pillars and Asherim on every high hill and under every green tree,

New Century Version
They put up stone pillars to gods and Asherah idols on every high hill and under every green tree.

New English Translation
They set up sacred pillars and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every green tree.

Amplified Bible
They set up for themselves sacred pillars (memorial stones) and Asherim on every high hill and under every green tree.

New American Standard Bible
And they set up for themselves memorial stones and Asherim on every high hill and under every green tree,

World English Bible
and they set them up pillars and Asherim on every high hill, and under every green tree;

Geneva Bible (1587)
And had made them images and groues vpon euery hie hill, and vnder euery greene tree,

Legacy Standard Bible
And they set for themselves sacred pillars and Asherim on every high hill and under every green tree,

Berean Standard Bible
They set up for themselves sacred pillars and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every green tree.

Contemporary English Version
They also built stone images of foreign gods and set up sacred poles for the worship of Asherah on every hill and under every shady tree.

Complete Jewish Bible
They set up standing-stones and sacred poles for themselves on any high hill and under any green tree.

Darby Translation
And they set them up columns and Asherahs on every high hill and under every green tree;

Easy-to-Read Version
They put up memorial stones and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every green tree.

George Lamsa Translation
And they set up for themselves statues and idols on every high hill and under every green tree;

Good News Translation
On all the hills and under every shady tree they put up stone pillars and images of the goddess Asherah,

Lexham English Bible
They set up for themselves stone pillars and poles of Asherah worship on every high hill and under every green tree.

Literal Translation
and set up for themselves pillars and Asherahs on every high hill, and under every green tree;

Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
and set vp pilers and groues, vpon all hye hilles, and amonge all grene trees,

American Standard Version
and they set them up pillars and Asherim upon every high hill, and under every green tree;

Bible in Basic English
They put up pillars of stone and wood on every high hill and under every green tree:

Bishop's Bible (1568)
And they made the images & groues in euery hye hill, & vnder euery thicke tree.

JPS Old Testament (1917)
and they set them up pillars and Asherim upon every high hill, and under every leafy tree;

King James Version (1611)
And they set them vp images, and groues in euery high hill, and vnder euery greene tree.

Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
and they built for themselves high places in all their cities, from the tower of the watchmen to the fortified city. And they made for themselves pillars and groves on every high hill, and under every shady tree.

English Revised Version
and they set them up pillars and Asherim upon every high hill, and under every green tree:

Wycliffe Bible (1395)
And thei maden to hem ymagis, and wodis, in ech hiy hil, and vndur ech tree ful of bowis;

Young's Literal Translation
and set up for them standing-pillars and shrines on every high height, and under every green tree,

Update Bible Version
and they set themselves up pillars and Asherim on every high hill, and under every green tree;

Webster's Bible Translation
And they set up for themselves images and groves on every high hill, and under every green tree:

New King James Version
They set up for themselves sacred pillars and wooden images [fn] on every high hill and under every green tree.

New Living Translation
They set up sacred pillars and Asherah poles at the top of every hill and under every green tree.

New Life Bible
They set up holy objects of the false goddess Asherim on every high hill and under every green tree.

New Revised Standard
they set up for themselves pillars and sacred poles on every high hill and under every green tree;

J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
And they set up for themselves pillars and Sacred Stems, upon every high hill, and under every green tree;

Douay-Rheims Bible
And they made them statues and groves on every high hill, and under every shady tree:

Revised Standard Version
they set up for themselves pillars and Ashe'rim on every high hill and under every green tree;

New American Standard Bible (1995)
They set for themselves sacred pillars and Asherim on every high hill and under every green tree,

Contextual Overview

⁷The exile came about because of sin: The children of Israel sinned against God , their God, who had delivered them from Egypt and the brutal oppression of Pharaoh king of Egypt. They took up with other gods, fell in with the ways of life of the pagan nations God had chased off, and went along with whatever their kings did. They did all kinds of things on the sly, things offensive to their God , then openly and shamelessly built local sex-and-religion shrines at every available site. They set up their sex-and-religion symbols at practically every crossroads. Everywhere you looked there was smoke from their pagan offerings to the deities—the identical offerings that had gotten the pagan nations off into exile. They had accumulated a long list of evil actions and God was fed up, fed up with their persistent worship of gods carved out of deadwood or shaped out of clay, even though God had plainly said, "Don't do this—ever!" ¹³ God had taken a stand against Israel and Judah, speaking clearly through countless holy prophets and seers time and time again, "Turn away from your evil way of life. Do what I tell you and have been telling you in The Revelation I gave your ancestors and of which I've kept reminding you ever since through my servants the prophets." ¹⁴But they wouldn't listen. If anything, they were even more bullheaded than their stubborn ancestors, if that's possible. They were contemptuous of his instructions, the solemn and holy covenant he had made with their ancestors, and of his repeated reminders and warnings. They lived a "nothing" life and became "nothings"—just like the pagan peoples all around them. They were well-warned: God said, "Don't!" but they did it anyway. ¹⁶They threw out everything God , their God, had told them, and replaced him with two statue-gods shaped like bull-calves and then a phallic pole for the whore goddess Asherah. They worshiped cosmic forces—sky gods and goddesses—and frequented the sex-and-religion shrines of Baal. They even sank so low as to offer their own sons and daughters as sacrificial burnt offerings! They indulged in all the black arts of magic and sorcery. In short, they prostituted themselves to every kind of evil available to them. And God had had enough. ¹⁸ God was so thoroughly angry that he got rid of them, got them out of the country for good until only one tribe was left—Judah. (Judah, actually, wasn't much better, for Judah also failed to keep God 's commands, falling into the same way of life that Israel had adopted.) God rejected everyone connected with Israel, made life hard for them, and permitted anyone with a mind to exploit them to do so. And then this final No as he threw them out of his sight. ²¹Back at the time that God ripped Israel out of their place in the family of David, they had made Jeroboam son of Nebat king. Jeroboam debauched Israel—turned them away from serving God and led them into a life of total sin. The children of Israel went along with all the sins that Jeroboam did, never murmured so much as a word of protest. In the end, God spoke a final No to Israel and turned his back on them. He had given them fair warning, and plenty of time, through the preaching of all his servants the prophets. Then he exiled Israel from her land to Assyria. And that's where they are now.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

they set: 2 Kings 16:4, Exodus 34:13, Leviticus 26:1, 1 Kings 14:23, Isaiah 57:5

images: Heb. statues

groves: Deuteronomy 16:21, Micah 5:14

in every: 2 Kings 16:4, 1 Kings 14:23, Deuteronomy 12:2, Deuteronomy 12:3

Reciprocal: Leviticus 17:5 - in the open 2 Kings 17:16 - a grove

Cross-References

Genesis 17:3
Overwhelmed, Abram fell flat on his face. Then God said to him, "This is my covenant with you: You'll be the father of many nations. Your name will no longer be Abram, but Abraham, meaning that ‘I'm making you the father of many nations.' I'll make you a father of fathers—I'll make nations from you, kings will issue from you. I'm establishing my covenant between me and you, a covenant that includes your descendants, a covenant that goes on and on and on, a covenant that commits me to be your God and the God of your descendants. And I'm giving you and your descendants this land where you're now just camping, this whole country of Canaan, to own forever. And I'll be their God."

Genesis 17:9
God continued to Abraham, "And you: You will honor my covenant, you and your descendants, generation after generation. This is the covenant that you are to honor, the covenant that pulls in all your descendants: Circumcise every male. Circumcise by cutting off the foreskin of the penis; it will be the sign of the covenant between us. Every male baby will be circumcised when he is eight days old, generation after generation—this includes house-born slaves and slaves bought from outsiders who are not blood kin. Make sure you circumcise both your own children and anyone brought in from the outside. That way my covenant will be cut into your body, a permanent mark of my permanent covenant. An uncircumcised male, one who has not had the foreskin of his penis cut off, will be cut off from his people—he has broken my covenant."

Genesis 17:18
Recovering, Abraham said to God, "Oh, keep Ishmael alive and well before you!"

Genesis 17:19
But God said, "That's not what I mean. Your wife, Sarah, will have a baby, a son. Name him Isaac (Laughter). I'll establish my covenant with him and his descendants, a covenant that lasts forever.

Exodus 12:48
"If an immigrant is staying with you and wants to keep the Passover to God , every male in his family must be circumcised, then he can participate in the Meal—he will then be treated as a native son. But no uncircumcised person can eat it.

Deuteronomy 30:6
God , your God, will cut away the thick calluses on your heart and your children's hearts, freeing you to love God , your God, with your whole heart and soul and live, really live. God , your God, will put all these curses on your enemies who hated you and were out to get you.

Joshua 5:2
At that time God said to Joshua, "Make stone knives and circumcise the People of Israel a second time." So Joshua made stone knives and circumcised the People of Israel at Foreskins Hill.

Joshua 5:4
This is why Joshua conducted the circumcision. All the males who had left Egypt, the soldiers, had died in the wilderness on the journey out of Egypt. All the people who had come out of Egypt, of course, had been circumcised, but all those born in the wilderness along the way since leaving Egypt had not been. The fact is that the People of Israel had walked through that wilderness for forty years until the entire nation died out, all the men of military age who had come out of Egypt but had disobeyed the call of God . God vowed that these would never lay eyes on the land God had solemnly promised their ancestors to give us, a land flowing with milk and honey. But their children had replaced them. These are the ones Joshua circumcised. They had never been circumcised; no one had circumcised them along the way.

Acts 7:8
"Then he made a covenant with him and signed it in Abraham's flesh by circumcision. When Abraham had his son Isaac, within eight days he reproduced the sign of circumcision in him. Isaac became father of Jacob, and Jacob father of twelve ‘fathers,' each faithfully passing on the covenant sign.

Romans 3:25
God sacrificed Jesus on the altar of the world to clear that world of sin. Having faith in him sets us in the clear. God decided on this course of action in full view of the public—to set the world in the clear with himself through the sacrifice of Jesus, finally taking care of the sins he had so patiently endured. This is not only clear, but it's now—this is current history! God sets things right. He also makes it possible for us to live in his rightness.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

And they set them up images and groves in every high hill, and under every green tree. That is, statues and idols; for groves of trees could not be set under green trees; but they placed idols of stone, and of wood, as the latter were, in such places as Heathens were wont to do; see Jeremiah 3:6

Jeremiah 3:6- :, so the Indians to this day have idols dispersed here and there in the fields, placed in little groves, or at the foot of some hill that casts a shadow h.

h Agreement of Customs between the East Indians and Jews, art. 5. p. 34.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse 2 Kings 17:10. Images and groves — Images of different idols, and places for the abominable rites of Ashtaroth or Venus.