Exodus 34:13

Exo 34:13 But ye shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves:

Ver. 13. Break their images.] The Popish historians have blurred and blasted those zealous emperors, Zeno and others, that were Iconomachi and Iconoclastai, as sacrilegious. Berne was the first town that, after the Reformation, was purged of images; which Augustine saith cannot be placed in churches, Sine praesentissimo idololatrioe periculo, {a} without extreme danger of idolatry. Epiphanius saith, It is utterly unlawful and abominable to set up images in the churches of Christians. Irenaeus reproveth the Gnostics, for that they carried about the picture of Christ in Pilate’s time, after his own proportion: using also, for declaration of their affection toward it, to set garlands upon the head of it.

{a} Aug., in Psalm cxiv.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

34:13 Asherah was a Canaanite fertility goddess who would continue to be a temptation throughout Israel’s history (see, e.g., Judg 6:25; 1 Kgs 14:15; 2 Kgs 23:15). • The poles seem to have been fertility symbols.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Which pleasant places they chose for their idols.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Verse 13. Ye shall destroy their images] See the subjects of this and all the following verses, to Ex 34:28, treated at large in the notes on "Ex 23:24".

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(13) Ye shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves.—In the “Book of the Covenant” the command had been simply to “quite break down their images” (Exo_23:24). Now, after the Israelites had displayed their idolatrous leanings, it is added that they are likewise to destroy the “altars” and the “groves.” Altars were common among all the idolatrous nations, sometimes attached to temples (1Ki_16:32; 2Ki_21:4-5), sometimes separate from them (Num_23:1; Num_23:29; 2Ki_16:10-11), and were used for much the same purposes as the Hebrew altars: i.e., for sacrifices, bloody and unbloody, and for burning incense. “Groves”—here mentioned for the first time—were peculiar to a limited number of nations, as the Assyrians, Babylonians, Phœnicians, Syrians, and a few others. They appear to have been artificial constructions, either of wood or stone, or both, imitative of vegetable forms, and probably emblematic of the productive powers of nature. The worship connected with the “groves” was of a peculiarly gross and licentious character. The very name, ashêrah, was a modification of Ashtoreth, or Astarte. It is remarkable that nothing is said of destroying Canaannite temples—an indication that as yet they did not exist, and a mark of the high antiquity of the book.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

13. The altars and religious emblems of the Canaanites to be utterly destroyed. Cf. Exo_23:24, with the references; and the almost verbal repetitions in Deu_7:5; Deu_12:3.

pillars] or standing-stones: see on Exo_23:24.

Ashçrim] The plur. of Ashçrâh, the sacred wooden (see Deu_16:21, Jdg_6:26) post or column, which stood by the altar in Canaanite places of worship (cf. Jdg_6:25-30, by an altar of Baal), and was often by the unspiritual Israelites set up (2Ki_17:10), or (Deu_16:21) ‘planted,’ beside the altar of Jehovah. It is often supposed to have been a conventional substitute for a sacred tree; but this is not certain. We have no particulars about the precise size or shape of an Ashçrâh: the two posts, of the form of tree-trunks, resting on a wide base, and surmounted by representations of the full and crescent moon, carved upon a stone from Carthage (Nowack, Arch. ii. 19; Benzinger, Arch. 1p. 381, 2p. 326), might indeed be Ashçrâhs; but we have no evidence that they were. The name Abd-ashirta (‘servant of Ashirta’) in the Tell el-Amarna letters, and the expression ‘finger (oracle) of Ashirta,’ on a cuneiform tablet of c. 1350 found at Taanach (see the writer’s Schweich Lectures, p. 82), seem to indicate that there was an old Semitic goddess Ashçrâh; and if this was the case, the ‘Ashçrâh’ of the OT. was probably her emblem: but the great difference in the Heb. (אשרה and עשתרת) makes it unlikely that she was the same as the Phoen. ‘Ashtôreth, or the Ass. Ishtar (Benz. Arch.2[220] 326 f.). On account of their heathen associations, the Ashçrîm, like the maẓẓçbâhs (see on Exo_23:24), were proscribed by the more spiritual Israelites. For other allusions to Ashçrâhs, see Deu_7:5; Deu_12:3 (repetitions of the present prohibition), 1Ki_14:15; 1Ki_14:23; 1Ki_15:13; 1Ki_16:33, 2Ki_13:6; 2Ki_18:4; 2Ki_21:3; 2Ki_21:7; 2Ki_23:4; 2Ki_23:6-7; 2Ki_23:14-15; and comp. Moore’s art. in EB. s.v.

[220] I. Benzinger, Hebr. Archäologie, 1894, ed. 2 (enlarged), 1907.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

But ye shall destroy their altars,.... On which they had sacrificed to their idols; since, if they were allowed to continue, they might be temptations to offer sacrifice thereon, contrary to the command of God:

break their images: of gold or silver, wood or stone, which they made for themselves, and worshipped as deities; seeing if these continued, the sight of them might lead to the worship of them, and so bring under the divine displeasure, as a breach of the command of God given them:

and cut down their groves; which were clusters of trees, where they had their temples and their idols, and did service to them, and where, besides idolatry, many impurities were committed. Such places were originally used by good men for devotion, being shady and solitary, but when abused to superstitious and idolatrous uses, were forbidden. It is said (n), the word for "grove" is general, and includes every tree they serve, or plant, for an idol.

(n) R. Sol. Urbin. Ohel Moed, fol. 72. 1.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Statues. Septuagint have, "pillars," and subjoin after groves, (unless it be another translation, as Grabe insinuates) "you shall burn with fire the graven things of their gods."

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Which at first were used by good men for their devotion, as Gen 21:33; but afterwards being horribly abused to superstition and idolatry, were by God, s command to be destroyed.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

13. Groves — Rather, Asherah, pillars, wooden images of Asherah. See notes on Jdg_2:13; Jdg_3:7; and 1Ki_19:15.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Ye shall destroy their altars, etc. This command is more sweeping than the corresponding one in the "Book of the Covenant", (Exo_23:24) which expressly mentions only the "images." Here the destruction of idol-altars and idol-groves is further commanded. On idol-altars, see Num_23:1, Num_23:29; Jud_1:2:2; 1Ki_16:32 1Ki_18:26, etc. Groves are here for the first time mentioned. They appear to have been artificial constructions, either of wood or metal, or both, more or less imitative of trees, and regarded as emblems of the Oriental nature-deities, especially Baal and Astarte or Ashtoreth. The word translated "grove" (asherah) is a modification of the name Ashtoreth. The well-known "sacred tree" of the Assyrians is probably an asherah.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

אשריו — An אשרה was a tree which they worshipped.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.