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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comFausset Bible Dictionary: Grove
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(See ASHTORETH.) Translated rather "Asherah," the image of the goddess. So , where it is nonsense "Josiah brought out the grove (Asherah) from the house of the Lord"; Manasseh had "set this graven image of Asherah in the house" (; ; compare ). Also a "grove" could not be "set up under every green tree" (; ; ; ). In it is a different word, "Abraham planted a "grove" (eshowl) in Beersheba," rather "a tamarisk tree," a hardy evergreen fitted to be a memorial to his posterity that the well was theirs.
The Asherah was upright, fixed or planted in the ground; of wood, so that it was capable of being "cut down and burned" (-26; see ). "Maacbah had made an idol Asherah" (not" IN grove".) The worship of Asherah like that of Astarte or Ashtoreth, was associated with Baal worship. Astarte is the personal goddess, Ashcrah her conventional symbol in some one of her attributes. The sacred tree in Assyrian sculptures is similar, a symbol of the goddess of nature. The stone "pillar" (as the Hebrew for "image" ought to be translated, ) was Baal's symbol; as the wooden pillar or tree was Astarte's ().
The attempt to combine this with Jehovah worship is the subject of the prohibition (). The Hebrew word translated "plain" (elon) signifies a grove or plantation; that of Mamre (), of Moreh (), of Zaanaim (), of the pillar in Shechem (), of Meonenim (), of Tabor (). Groves were associated with worship from ancient times, as the passages just quoted show. Pliny states that trees were the first temples. Their shade, solitude, and solemn stillness suggested this use. The superstitious abuse of them to idolatry and licentious rites caused the Divine prohibition of them for religious purposes; which prohibition Israel disregarded (; ).
Trees were also used for national assemblies (; ), for burying the dead (; ). Some trees are specially-noted: the tamarisk (eeshel) under which Saul abode in Gibeah (); the terebinth in Shechem under which Joshua, after writing the law of God, set up () a great stone as a witness; the palm tree of Deborah (); the terebinth of enchantments ( margin, (See MEONENIM); of wanderers (, (See ZAANAIM)); , "a pomegranate tree in Migron" ().
Tree worship, perhaps a distortion of the tradition of the tree of life and the tree of knowledge (Genesis 3), may be traced in Egypt, Arabia, Syria, Assyria, Persia, India, Thibet, Siam, China, Japan, Ceylon, the Philippine isles. The Druids venerated oak groves (Pliny, H. N., xvi. 44; Tacitus, Annals xiv. 30). The black priests in Africa alone may enter the sacred groves. The Etrurians worshipped a palm-tree.