And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD, and forgot the LORD their God, and served Baalim and the groves.
And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD, and forgot the LORD their God, and served Baalim and the groves.
And the children of Israel did that which was evil in the sight of Jehovah, and forgat Jehovah their God, and served the Baalim and the Asheroth.
And the children of Israel did evil in the eyes of the Lord, and put out of their minds the Lord their God, and became servants to the Baals and the Astartes.
And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD, and forgot the LORD their God, and served Baalim, and the groves.
The children of Israel did that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh, and forgot Yahweh their God, and served the Baals and the Asheroth.
And the children of Israel did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, and forgat the LORD their God, and served the Baalim and the Asheroth.
Served Baalim and the groves - No groves were ever worshipped, but the deities who were supposed to be resident in them; and in many cases temples and altars were built in groves, and the superstition of consecrating groves and woods to the honor of the deities was a practice very usual with the ancients. Pliny assures us that trees, in old times, served for the temples of the gods. Tacitus reports this custom of the old Germans; Quintus Curtius, of the Indians; and Caesar, and our old writers, mention the same of the Druids in Britain. The Romans were admirers of this way of worship and therefore had their luci or groves in most parts of the city, dedicated to some deity. But it is very probable that the word אשרות asheroth which we translate groves, is a corruption of the word עשתרות ashtaroth, the moon or Venus, (see on Judges 2:13 (note)), which only differs in the letters ע ת, from the former. Ashtaroth is read in this place by the Chaldee Targum, the Syriac, the Arabic, and the Vulgate, and by one of Dr. Kennicott's MSS.
And the groves - literally, Asheroth, images of Asherah (the goddess companion of Baal): see Deuteronomy 16:21 note.
3:7 And the groves - That is, in the groves, in which the Heathens usually worshipped their Baalim or idols.