Isaiah 17:8 - Exposition

And he shall not look to the altars . The altars at Dan and Bethel ( 1 Kings 12:28-33 ) may be intended, or the Israelites may have had other idolatrous altars besides these ( 2 Kings 17:11 ; Hosea 8:11 ). Josiah, about B.C. 631, broke down altars throughout all the land of Israel, in the cities of Manasseh and Ephraim and Simeon (?), even unto Naphtali ( 2 Chronicles 34:5-7 ). Apparently he had the consent of the inhabitants to this demolition. Either the groves, or the images , Asherah , the word here and elsewhere commonly translated "grove" in the Authorized Version, is now generally admitted to have designated an artificial construction of wood or metal, which was used in the idolatrous worship of the Phoenicians and the Israelites, probably as the emblem of some deity. The Assyrian "sacred tree" was most likely an emblem of the same kind, and may give an idea of the sort of object worshipped under the name of Asherah. The Israelites, in the time of their prosperity, had set up "groves" of this character "on every high hill, and under every green tree" ( 2 Kings 17:10 ). Many of them were still standing when Josiah made his iconoclastic raid into the Israelite country ( 2 Chronicles 34:5-7 ), and were broken down by him at the same time as the altars. The "images" of this place are the same as those coupled with the Israelite "groves" in 2 Chronicles 34:7 , namely "sun-images," emblems of Baal, probably pillars or conical stones, such as are known to have held a place in the religious worship of Phoenicia.