Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Deuteronomy 12:2
Ye shall utterly destroy all the places, wherein the nations which ye shall possess served their gods, upon the high mountains, and upon the hills, and under every green tree:
2 7. First Statement of the Law of the One Altar
In the Pl. address, with one later insertion, Deu 12:3, and possibly another Deu 12:5 b; the rest is a unity. It appropriately opens with the command to destroy all the places at which the nations worship, whom Israel is about to dispossess; for it was the use of these sanctuaries for the worship of Jehovah and the consequent confusion of Him with the Canaanite deities that produced the evils from which the only practical escape was by concentrating His worship. The preface to this first form of the law differs from that to the second which is also Pl.
Deu 12:2. surely destroy ] A form of the vb. used only with Pl. address, Deu 11:4, Deu 12:2-3. Another form of the same vb. is used both with Sg. and Pl., Deu 7:24, Deu 8:20, etc.
all the places ] The Heb. mam, lit. place of standing up but used in the widest sense of spot or locality, is to be understood throughout this ch. as holy or sacred place (cp. Gen 12:6, the mam of Shechem); like its Ar. form, mam, ‘sacred place,’ whether as the place where one stands up to pray (one of the special senses of the vb. km) or, with the name of a saint attached to it, as the place of his burial which he still haunts, or at which he once stood, e.g. ‘mam ’Ibrahim’ (Pocock, Specimen Hist. Arabum, 124). But in this restricted sense the Heb. mam is rather the place of the Deity, His habitation: cp. Deu 12:5, Isa 60:13, place of my sanctuary = place of my feet; Eze 43:7, place of my throne, of the soles of my feet, where I dwell, etc.; Act 6:13, this holy place, 14, this place.
wherein the nations which ye are to dispossess worshipped their gods ] On dispossess see Deu 9:1. Worshipped or have worshipped may be a sign of the writer’s own time when the Canaanites were no more; yet it is not incompatible with the standpoint of the speaker.
upon the high mountains, and upon the hills, and under every green tree ] A frequent combination in O.T. The part of a hill selected for a shrine was not the top but either one of the lower promontories (so, and not tops, in Hos 4:13; Eze 6:13), or a hollow below the summit or between two summits (e.g. the high-place at Gezer discovered by Mr Macalister) within reach of water. Green can hardly be the meaning of the Heb. ra‘n n, which is either luxuriant, branching and overshadowing, or mobile and wavy, or full of sound; as variously appears from the forms of the same root in Ar. (= loose, with much motion, quickly changing, but also redundant and bulging), from the LXX translations of the Heb. (leafy, overshadowing, and the like), and from such passages as Hos 4:13 ( they sacrifice under oaks, poplars, and terebinths, for their shade is good), Eze 6:13 ( under every spreading tree and thick oak), Eze 20:28 ( every thick tree). ‘The luxury of the trees’ (Bacon), ‘her leafy arms with such extent were spread’ (Dryden). The presence of a god was suggested not merely by the power of life manifest in the greenness of the tree (W. K. Smith, Rel. Sem. 173) nor only by its conspicuousness in the landscape and the shade it gave from a glowing atmosphere, but also by the mobility (cp. the N.H. ra‘al, to wave, and the Syr. r‘ula, shaking) and the rustling of the tree which suggested the movement or speech of the deity; the sound of a marching in the tops of the mulberry trees Jehovah gone forth before thee (2Sa 5:24), the sound of Jehovah God walking in the garden in the wind (Gen 3:8), and terebinths of Moreh, i.e. Revealer, oracle-giver (Deu 11:30; Gen 12:6). It is among these ideas of luxuriance, shade, mobility and sound that the meaning of ra‘n n is to be found. That it cannot mean green is also proved by its application to oil, Psa 92:10 (11), where LXX renders it by rich.
These sites, naturally sympathetic to worship, were used by the Semites as by other races. On mountains, as especially places of burnt offering, see W. R. Smith, Rel. Sem. 99, III, 470 f.; on trees as objects of worship, id. 125 f., 169; and believed by modern Arabs to be inhabited by spirits, Musil, Ethn. Bericht, 325 f. So frequently in the O.T. of the Canaanite cults. But the same sites were indicated by God to the Hebrew Patriarchs: Abraham was bidden to offer Isaac on a mountain (J, Gen 22:2), Jehovah appeared to him at the place of Shechem, the oak or terebinth of Moreh, and there he built an altar to Jehovah (J, Gen 12:6 f.), similarly at the oak of Mamre (J, Gen 13:18); while at Be’ersheba he planted a tamarisk and called on God’s name (J, Gen 21:33). At Sinai Moses went up into the Mount to meet God (JE, Exodus 19 ff.). So too after Israel’s entrance into Canaan: an oak stood in the sanctuary of Jehovah at Shechem (E, Jos 24:26). As in Abraham’s time, Gideon was bidden build an altar on the top of the stronghold, and Jehovah’s angel appeared to him under the oak in ‘Ophrah and there Gideon presented offerings and built an altar to Jehovah (Jdg 6:11; Jdg 6:19; Jdg 6:24; Jdg 6:26); under Samuel the ark of Jehovah was taken to the house of Abinadab on the hill (1Sa 7:1), and Israel sacrificed at Mipah, Gilgal, and Ramah at the high place there ( 1Sa 7:5 ff., 1Sa 7:16 f., 1Sa 9:12 f., 1Sa 9:19), on the hill of God with a high place (1Sa 10:5; 1Sa 10:10; 1Sa 10:13), and Nob (1Sa 21:1 ff.); cp. the altars built by Saul on the field of a victory over the Philistines (1Sa 14:35) and by David on the threshing floor of Araunah, where the angel had appeared (2Sa 24:21; 2Sa 24:25) and the yearly sacrifice by David’s family at Beth-lehem (1Sa 20:6; 1Sa 20:29), and Solomon’s sacrifices at Gibeon, the great high place (1Ki 3:4). Elijah was bidden to go to Carmel, and build there an altar to Jehovah (1Ki 18:19 f., 1Ki18:32), and again went to oreb the Mount of God (1Ki 19:8 ff.). Deut. itself repeats the account of Moses’ intercourse with Jehovah on the Mount (9, 10) and contains (Deu 27:4 ff., partly from E?) the command to put up stones inscribed with the Law and an altar upon Mt Ebal. Therefore down at least to the building of the Temple in Jerusalem, it was the custom in Judah and Benjamin to worship Jehovah on such high places as those at which the Canaanites worshipped their gods, and this custom was continued in N. Israel by Elijah. By the 8th century Israel appears to have promiscuously adopted the Canaanite shrines, and the prophets complain of their apostasy and licentious rites on the headlands of the mountains and on the hills and under every spreading tree with special mention of oaks, poplars, and terebinths and predict the futility and disappointment of their trust in such places (Hos 4:12 f.; Isa 1:29; Jer 2:20; Jer 3:6; Jer 3:8; Jer 3:13; Jer 3:23; Jer 17:1 f.; Eze 6:13; Eze 18:5 f., Eze 20:28; Isa 57:5; Isa 65:7). The prophets regard all this as a backsliding from the pure worship of earlier times. Israel ought to have known better than sink to such traitorous and degrading practices. But the prophets appeal to no law on the subject and it is clear that their objections to sites so natural for worship, and used by the Patriarchs and leaders of Israel with the sanction of Israel’s God, is due both to the emergence with prophecy of a purer religion and to the experience throughout the intervening centuries of the evil effect on Israel of the associations of these sites with the immoral practices of the Canaanites and of the trust in purely material objects which they engendered in the worshippers. Nothing could overcome these evils except the destruction of the high places and the concentration of the worship of Jehovah upon one altar. Hence the rise of D’s law, clearly unknown to the Judges, Prophets, and Kings of Israel at least down to Solomon and also to Elijah. The law is therefore the result of the teaching of the prophets of the 8th century; but this conclusion does not preclude the possibility of earlier sporadic attempts, especially in Judah, to do away with the heathen sanctuaries (see Introd. 11).
Deu 12:3. Destruction of altars, and other sacred objects in the Canaanite places. Similarly Deu 8:5; cp. Exo 34:13. But here the verse is evidently a later intrusion; it breaks the connection between Deu 12:2 ; Deu 12:4.
break down ] Rather, tear down; in O.T. of altars, high places, walls.
altars ] Lit. positions for slaughter and sacrifice. See Driver on Exo 20:24.
pillars Asherim ] For these see on Deu 16:21-22. The verbs burn and hew down ought probably to be transposed (Grtz), cp. LXX and Deu 7:5; Deu 7:25.
graven images of their gods ] Apparently distinct from the pillars and ’Ashrm. Heb. pasI as in Deu 7:5; Deu 7:25 (also in Hos. and Mic.) another form of pesel, Deu 4:16; Deu 4:23; Deu 4:25, Deu 5:8.
and destroy their name out of that place ] Deu 7:24 with another form of the same vb.: see on Deu 12:2. To destroy the worship of a god is to prevent his manifestation to men, so that it is as if he ceased to be. Cp. the analogy in Israel, when Moses pleads that Jehovah will not destroy for His name’s sake; if they perish, who will perpetuate His name, i.e. His worship, His revelation, Himself? See on Deu 12:4.
Deu 12:4. Ye shall not do so unto the Lord your God ] Clearly this follows not the preceding verse but Deu 12:2.
Deu 12:5. the place which the Lord your God shall choose ] Place, Sg., in contrast to all the places of Deu 12:2. ‘Jehovah chooses it (in contrast to the sanctuaries chosen by Israel themselves) for a sanctuary for Himself, as He has chosen the people that it may be holy to Him (cp. Deu 7:6). He is therefore no limited, local deity, tied to the soil, like the Ba‘alim. He might have chosen another place out of all your tribes than Jerusalem’ (Bertholet). The phrase is D’s regular description of the One Sanctuary: either alone, Deu 12:18; Deu 12:26, Deu 14:25, Deu 15:20; Deu 16:7; Deu 16:15-16, Deu 17:8; Deu 17:10, Deu 18:6, Deu 31:11; or with additions: in one of thy tribes (Deu 12:14) = out of all your tribes (here LXX, in one of your cities); to put His name there, here Deu 12:21, Deu 14:24; to cause His name to dwell there, Deu 12:11, Deu 14:23, Deu 16:2; Deu 16:6; Deu 16:11, Deu 26:2. All these except Deu 12:4; Deu 12:11 are in the Sg. address. The only other passage in the Hex. in which the phrase occurs is the deuteronomic Jos 9:27. In E. Exo 20:24, the parallel but contradictory phrase is in every place where I record my name (see Driver’s note). For shall choose Sam. has curiously hath chosen, abandoning the standpoint of the speaker, assumed by the Heb. text, for that of the writer. The place is of course Jerusalem (cp. 1Ki 8:44; 1Ki 8:48 and other deuteronomic passages in Kings). The naming of the place would not be compatible with the standpoint of the speaker, and was superfluous to the generation for whom D wrote.
to put his name there ] For other instances of the phrase in D and its alternative, cause his name to dwell there, see previous note. The name of God is just God Himself as manifested to men. So E, Exo 23:21, of the angel sent by Him before Israel: my name is in him; and J, Exo 33:19, of the moral nature of Israel’s God: I will make all my goodness pass before thee and will proclaim the name of Jehovah before thee. His sanctuary is the place of Jehovah’s name (Isa 18:7) because there He reveals Himself to Israel; to Jerusalem the nations shall gather to the name of Jehovah (Jer 3:17); cp. the deuteronomic phrase to build an house to the name of Jehovah (2Sa 7:13; 1Ki 3:2 ; 1Ki 5:3; 1Ki 5:5 (17, 19). 1Ki 8:16-20; 1Ki 8:44; 1Ki 8:48.
even unto his habitation ] So Heb.; but LXX (as in Deu 12:11), to cause it to dwell. If this reading be adopted the following vb. must refer back to the words, to the place, at the beginning of the verse.
shall ye seek ] A technical term for resort to the Deity or his shrine: Deu 12:30, after other gods (but with sense of enquiring); J, Gen 25:22, to Jehovah; Amo 5:5, to Bethel. In Deu 4:29 the sense is not technical but has a moral force. For another meaning of the same vb. see Deu 11:12.
and thither thou shall come ] The only Sg. phrase in this statement of the law; but either delete thou shalt come with LXX B, or read ye shall come with Sam., LXX A and other codd. and Luc.
Deu 12:6. Thither all sacrifices and sacred dues are to be brought; for variants in the other statements of the law see Deu 12:11 ; Deu 12:13 ; Deu 12:17 ; Deu 12:27.
your burnt offerings and your sacrifices ] ‘Olth and z e baim: the two most ordinary forms of animal sacrifice, Deu 12:11 ; Deu 12:27; Exo 10:25 (J) and Deu 18:12 (E), but in Exo 20:24 (E), ‘olth and sh e lamm. The ‘lah, what goes up, either upon the altar or in smoke to heaven, was the whole victim (except the hide) and was wholly consumed (hence the LXX, , Vg. holocaustum); the worshippers took no part of it. The zeba, lit. the slaughtering at first all slaughter of domestic animals was sacrificial was the more ancient and common form of sacrifice, of which the blood was poured out and the fat burned as the Deity’s portion, certain other parts were given to the priest as his due (see on t e rumah below) and the rest eaten by the worshippers. In early Israel the zeba is mentioned along with the minah (lit. gift), the cereal or ‘meat’ offering (1Sa 3:14; 1Sa 26:19). The shelem: R.V. peace offering (after the LXX), according to others thank offering, is more probably, because of its name (from shillem, to fulfil or discharge) and because of its use (instead of zeba) for sacrifices in general, fulfilment, discharge, i.e. of vows, etc. Yet in this case the form shillum would be more natural. See on Deu 27:7.
These ordinary sacrifices, then, which the older law in E directs shall lie made on an altar in every place where Jehovah shall record His name (Exo 20:24), must, according to D, be brought to the One Altar. The necessary corollary is not given in this first statement of the law but follows in the third, Deu 12:15 f., Deu 12:20 ff.
your tithes ] or tenths: at first used generally in Eng. ‘every tithe soul,’ ‘the tithe of a hair’ (Shakespeare) but like the Scots ‘tiends’ generally limited to taxes of one-tenth especially in kind; in D of corn, wine and oil, Deu 12:17, Deu 14:23, of the increase of thy seed, Deu 14:22, of the increase of each third year, Deu 14:28, Deu 26:12. See further on these passages.
the heave offering of your hand ] Heb. t e rumah from herm, to raise; not as the Eng. translation suggests that which is elevated ritually before the altar; but that which is lifted off or out of a greater mass, LXX, , and separated or abstracted, LXX, , for the sanctuary. In D (before which it does not occur) only here and Deu 12:11 ; Deu 12:17. Probably it is here intended to cover the firstfruits of corn, wine, oil and wool, Deu 18:4, of all the fruit of thy ground, Deu 26:2 (on which see further), already prescribed in the earlier legislation of E, Exo 23:16; Exo 23:19. The term is much more frequent in P and Ezekiel and with a wider application: of fruits of the soil, Num 15:19-21 (cp. Neh 10:37); of gold, silver, bronze and other precious objects for the sanctuary, Exo 25:2 f.; of the sanctuary half-shekel, Exo 30:13; of the lands reserved for priests and Levites, Eze 45:1; Eze 45:6 f.; of the portions for priests lifted off the sacrificial victims, Lev 7:14; Exo 29:27 f. Contribution is therefore the Eng. word which comes nearest to it, but is not satisfactory 1 [131] . Of your hand: it is not to be abstracted by an official but must be a direct and personal gift of the worshipper.
[131] Transfer or conveyance is also possible.
your vows ] Things vowed to God or to the sanctuary in connection with prayers, for deliverance from some pressing danger or the success of an enterprise, see further on Deu 23:21-23 (22 24), and here note only the development from the simple directions of D to the elaborate and discriminating laws of P on the same subject, Lev 27:1-29; Numbers 30 (further in the Mishna tractate Nedarim); and the frauds practised with vows, Mal 1:14, and the casuistry, Mat 15:4 f.; Mar 7:10 f.
your freewill offerings ] Sacrifices you are moved to make without previous promise or legal injunction.
firstlings of your herd and of your flock ] See on Deu 15:19-23.
Deu 12:7. and there ye shall eat before the Lord your God ] i.e. sacra-mentally; for this eating is as much a part of the religious rite as the offering of certain portions of the victim on the altar. Before your God ( Deu 12:12 ; Deu 12:18, Deu 14:23; Deu 14:26, etc.), in His presence; there is no statement that the feast was shared with Him, though of course the burning of the fat on the altar meant that He shared it; and there can be no doubt that this physical communion of the deity and his worshippers was the original meaning of such sacrifices (see W. R. Smith, Rel. Sem. 207 ff.). The absence of the statement of any such idea was, however, to be expected in D.
and ye shall rejoice in all that ye put your hand unto ] Rejoice, so simply, Deu 14:26; before Jehovah thy God, Deu 16:11, Deu 27:7; rejoice in the feast, Deu 16:14; be altogether joyful, Deu 16:15; in all the good which Jehovah thy God hath given thee, Deu 25:11; in all the mission or enterprise of your hand, Deu 12:18, Deu 15:10, Deu 23:20 (21); cp. Deu 28:8; Deu 28:20, blessing and rebuking in all that thou puttest thy hand to. This last expression is peculiar to D and synonymous with the work of thy hand (Deu 2:7, Deu 14:29, Deu 16:15, Deu 24:19, Deu 28:12, Deu 30:9). The sacrament was thus also an eucharist; a thanksgiving for the success of the year’s toil.
It has been rightly emphasised (Steuern. and Berth.) that in so elaborate a list of offerings, apparently meant to be complete, there is no mention of the sin and guilt offerings which are enforced in P; these, therefore, were unknown, or disregarded, by the deuteronomists. The worship to which Israel is commanded in D is, in spite of D’s rigorous ethical teaching and sense of Israel’s sins, one only of joyous communion with Jehovah and thankfulness for the material blessings which He annually provides.
ye and your households ] The family character of the worship is frequently emphasised by D and is very striking in view of his centralisation of Israel’s worship. Here again there is a contrast with P.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
I. First Division of the Laws: on Worship and Religious Institutions Deu 12:2 to Deu 16:17, Deu 16:21 to Deu 17:7
Some 16 laws occupying because of their subject the premier place in the Code.
2 28. The Law of the One Altar and its Corollary
As we have seen the law of One Sanctuary for Israel was, in the circumstances of that people in the 7th century, an inevitable consequence from the prophetic proclamation of One God for Israel. For the practice of worshipping Him at many shrines, sanctioned by Himself in the earlier period of Israel’s settlement, had, especially as many of the sites chosen were those of the Canaanite worship of local Ba‘alim, tended to break up the people’s belief in His Unity. He became to their minds many Jehovahs (see above on Deu 6:4); and at the same time their conceptions of Him were degraded by the confusion of His attributes with those of the deities to whose shrines He had succeeded. Therefore as the Unity of Jehovah and His ethical character are the burden of the Miwah or Charge introductory to the Code it is appropriate that the first of the laws should be that abolishing the custom of sacrifice at many sanctuaries and limiting His ritual to a single altar. Note, too, how this is immediately followed by a warning against the worship of other gods ( Deu 12:29-31); and that the next laws (Deu 12:32 to Deu 13:18) deal with those who entice, or are enticed, to that worship. Nothing could more clearly show how urgently the concentration of the worship of Jehovah was required in the interest of faith in His Unity and in His spiritual nature. How thoroughly such a law contradicts the earlier legislation about altars, as well as the divinely sanctioned practice of sacrifice in Israel after the settlement; and how far it is incompatible with the corresponding laws in P, will appear in the notes.
The chapter has some obvious editorial insertions disturbing the connection ( Deu 12:3 ; Deu 12:15-16 ; Deu 12:32); but there are besides repetitions of the central injunction of the law in the same or similar phraseology and introduced or followed by different reasons for it. A careful analysis shows that these are not due to the discursiveness of one writer, but are statements of the same law from different writers of the same religious school. This conclusion is confirmed by the prevalence in Deu 12:2-12 of the Pl. and in Deu 12:13-28 of the Sg. form of address. But even within Deu 12:2-12 there is a double statement of the central injunction; on the other hand in Deu 12:13-28 the repetitions are either clearly editorial insertions, or due to the necessity of repeating the central injunction of the law in a practical corollary permitting the non-sacrificial enjoyment of flesh to Israelites, too far from the One Altar to be able regularly to consecrate it there. Thus we may distinguish three statements or editions of the law, 1st Deu 12:2-7 Pl.; 2nd Deu 12:8-12 Pl.; 3rd Deu 12:13-19 Sg., with the practical corollary or supplement to the law, Deu 12:20-27, the whole enforced by a general exhortation in Deu 12:28. All three statements have much in common: defining the One Sanctuary as the place which Jehovah your (or thy) God shall choose to put His name there (1st and 3rd) or cause His name to dwell there (2nd); detailing the same list of sacrifices and offerings which are to be brought (1st and 2nd) or offered (3rd which has also take and go), but with some variations, for while all have burnt offerings, vows, tithes, contributions (A.V. and R.V. heave offerings), only the 1st and 3rd add sacrifices to burnt-offerings, the 2nd speaks of choice vows, the 3rd defines the tithes to be in kind, the 1st and 3rd add freewill offerings and firstlings and the 3rd speaks of holy things. The variations in the descriptions of how the feasts are to be enjoyed and who are to enjoy them are just such as might be made by different but sympathetic writers with the same aim. But all three give different prefaces to the law, the first two containing different reasons for it. As it is uncertain whether we have these three readings of the law complete, it is impossible to say which of them is the earlier. It is natural to suppose priority for the Sg. statement; but as they stand the 1st is the least developed. And it is only the 3rd or Sg. statement which has added to it the practical corollary of permission for the non-sacrificial enjoyment of flesh.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Deu 12:2
Destroy all the places.
Destruction of evil
The first thing Israel had to do appears to be a work of violence. All idols were to be destroyed. Israel could understand no other language. This is not the language of today; but the thing inculcated upon Israel is the lesson for the present time: words change, but duties remain. Violence was the only method that could commend itself to infantile Israel. The hand was the reasoner; the breaking hammer was the instrument of logic in days so remote and so unfavoured. Forgetting this, how many people misunderstand instructions given to the ancient Church; they speak of the violence of those instructions, the bloodthirstiness even of Him who gave the instructions to Israel. Hostile critics select such expressions and hold them up as if in mid-air, that the sunlight may get well round about them; and attention is called to the barbarity, the brutality, the revolting violence of so-called Divine commandments. It is false reasoning on the part of the hostile critic. We must think ourselves back to the exact period of time and the particular circumstances at which and under which the instructions were delivered. But all the words of violence have dropped away. Destroy, overthrow, burn, hew down, are words which are not found in the instructions given to Christian evangelists. Has the law then passed away? Not a jot or tittle of it. Is there still to be a work of this kind accomplished in heathen nations? That is the very work that must first be done. This is the work that is aimed at by the humblest and meekest teacher who shoulders the Gospel yoke and proceeds to Christianise the nations. Now we destroy by reasoning, and that is a far more terrible destruction than the supposed annihilation that can be wrought by manual violence. You cannot conquer an enemy by the arm, the rod, or the weapon of war; you subdue him, overpower him, or impose some momentary restraint upon him; fear of you takes possession of his heart, and he sues for peace because he is afraid. That is not conquest; there is nothing eternal in such an issue. How, then, to destroy an enemy? By converting him–by changing his motive, by penetrating into his most secret life, and accomplishing the mystery of regeneration in his affections. That mystery accomplished, the conquest is complete and everlasting; the work of destruction has been accomplished; burning and hewing down, and all actions indicative of mere violence have disappeared. (J. Parker D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
All the places; temples, chapels, altars, groves, as appears from other scriptures. The Gentiles used to employ the
high mountains for their idolatry; (see Isa 57:5,7; Eze 6:13; Hos 4:13) and as they consecrated divers trees to their false gods, so they worshipped these under them:
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
2. Ye shall utterly destroy all theplaces, wherein the nations which ye shall possess served theirgodsThis divine command was founded on the tendencies of humannature; for to remove out of sight everything that had beenassociated with idolatry, that it might never be spoken of and novestige of it remain, was the only effectual way to keep theIsraelites from temptations to it. It is observable that Moses doesnot make any mention of temples, for such buildings were not inexistence at that early period. The “places” chosen as thescene of heathen worship were situated either on the summit of alofty mountain, or on some artificial mound, or in a grove, plantedwith particular trees, such as oaks, poplars, and elms (Isa 57:5-7;Hos 4:13). The reason for theselection of such sites was both to secure retirement and to directthe attention upward to heaven; and the “place” was nothingelse than a consecrated enclosure, or at most, a canopy or screenfrom the weather.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Ye shall utterly destroy all the places wherein the nations which ye shall possess served their gods,…. The temples erected for the worship of them by the Canaanites, of which there were many, as appears by the various names of places given them from the temples in them, as Bethshemesh, Bethbaalmeon, Bethpeor, and others:
upon the high mountains and upon the hills: which they chose to worship on, being nearer the heavens, and which they thought most acceptable to their gods; and some of them had their names from hence, as Baalpeor, in like manner as Jupiter Olympius was called by the Greeks; see Jer 2:20,
and under every green tree; which being shady and solitary, and pleasant to the sight, they fancied their gods delighted in, and this notion prevailed among other nations; and there is scarcely any deity but what had some tree or another devoted to it; as the oak to Jupiter, the laurel to Apollo, the ivy to Bacchus, the olive to Minerva, the myrtle to Venus, &c. see Jer 2:20.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(2) Ye shall utterly destroy.First of all these requirements is the destruction of every vestige of idolatry. In the land of Jehovah there must be no trace of any other god but Him. The non-fulfilment of this command in the early history of Israel has led some to suppose that the command itself belongs to later times. But it must be observed that the destruction of these things is inextricably connected with the conquest of the country in detail. It was part of the work assigned to the several tribes of Israel when the land had been divided by Joshua. His work was to conquer the Canaanitish armies, and give Israel possession of their chief cities. He then assigned the land to the several tribes, to make it their own throughout. Obviously, if every tribe had insisted upon destroying all monuments of idolatry in its own territory, one of two results must have followed: either the remnant of the Canaanitish nations must have been excited to fresh acts of rebellion and hostility, resulting in their extermination, or else they must have yielded themselves entirely to the worship of Jehovah. But Israel disobeyed the order. They did not themselves yield to idolatry in Joshuas time. The disturbance made respecting the altar Ed (see Joshua 22) is quite sufficient of itself to prove the strictness of the law against strange altars. But the Canaanites being left undisturbed after they ceased to resist openly, and their objects of worship being left unmolested, there were constant temptations to idolatry, to which Israel yielded. And thus it was not until the times of Heze-kiah and Josiah that these laws were carried out. But this does not prove the law to have come into existence then, any more than the present condition of the human race proves that man was not made in Gods image in Paradise.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
Ver. 2. And under every green tree The use of sacred groves for the celebration of mysteries is of very great antiquity, and, perhaps, of all others, the most universal. At first, there were in these groves neither temples nor altars; they were simple retreats, to which there was no access for the profane, i.e. such as were not devoted to the service of the gods. Afterwards they built chapels and temples in them: in future times they became extremely frequented on holidays; and, after the celebration of the mysteries, public entertainments, accompanied with dancing, were held in them. See Tibullus, lib. 1: Elegy 11: ver. 51. They decked these groves with flowers, chaplets, garlands, and nosegays, and hung them about with donations and offerings, most lavishly, says Abbe Banier, in his Mythol. b. 3: ch. 7 on the sacred groves. See also Callimachus’s Hymn to Diana, ver. 200 and Spanheim’s note.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
He that is at peace with GOD in CHRIST, is at war with all the enemies of GOD and CHRIST. Reader! if your body be really a temple of the HOLY GHOST, all idol worship is your abhorrence. See 2Co 6:16-17 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Deu 12:2 Ye shall utterly destroy all the places, wherein the nations which ye shall possess served their gods, upon the high mountains, and upon the hills, and under every green tree:
Ver. 2. Ye shall utterly destroy. ] This clause of this law is judicial, peculiar only to the Jews, saith a grave interpreter; as being chiefly intended to prevent their worshipping God in any other place than that one that he had appointed, to which we in the days of the gospel are not tied. See Deu 12:5-6 . It was a temporary ordinance, saith another, and a part of Moses’s polity, now abrogate.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
green. Hebrew. z’anan. First occurrence.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
utterly: Deu 7:5, Deu 7:25, Deu 7:26, Exo 23:24, Exo 34:12-17, Num 33:51, Num 33:52, Jdg 2:2
possess: or, inherit, Num 22:41, 2Ki 16:4, 2Ki 17:10, 2Ki 17:11, 2Ki 23:13, Jer 3:6, Eze 20:28, Eze 20:29, Hos 4:13
Reciprocal: Exo 34:13 – ye shall Lev 17:5 – in the open 1Ki 3:2 – the people 1Ki 14:23 – built 2Ki 18:4 – brake 2Ch 21:11 – Moreover 2Ch 28:4 – General Psa 78:58 – their high Isa 36:7 – is it not Isa 57:5 – under Jer 2:20 – when upon Jer 3:2 – unto Jer 3:13 – under every 1Th 3:9 – before
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Deu 12:2. Ye shall destroy all the places Temples, chapels, altars, groves, as appears from other scriptures. Green tree As the Gentiles consecrated divers trees to their false gods, so they worshipped these under them. Pillars Upon which their images were set. Names That is, all the memorials of them, and the very names given to the places from the idols. Not do so That is, not worship him in several places, mountains, and groves.