Attributed commentary excerpt
John Gill's Exposition on Judges 3:7
A historical reference excerpt for this verse. Read it alongside the biblical text and other available sources.
Exposition of the Old and New Testament
John Gill (1697–1771) · 18th-century historical commentary
Source: BibleWord.ai's local reference edition of this named work.
And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, etc.] Both by marrying with Heathens, and worshipping their gods: and forgot the Lord their God; as if they had never heard of him, or known him, their Maker and Preserver, who had done so many great and good things for them: and served Baalim, and the groves; of Baalim, (see <070211>Judges 2:11); the groves mean either idols worshipped in groves, as Jupiter was worshipped in a grove of oaks, hence the oak of Dodona; and Apollo in a grove of laurels in Daphne: there were usually groves where idol temples were built; and so in Phoenicia, or Canaan, Dido the Sidonian queen built a temple for Juno in the midst of the city, where was a grove of an agreeable shade f38: so Barthius f39 observes, that most of the ancient gods of the Heathens used to be worshipped in groves. And groves and trees themselves were worshipped; so Tacitus says f40 of the Germans, that they consecrated groves and forests, and called them by the names of gods. Groves are here put in the place of Ashtaroth, (<070213>Judges 2:13); perhaps the goddesses of that name were worshipped in groves; and if Diana is meant by Astarte, Servius f41 says that every oak is sacred to Jupiter and every grove to Diana; and Ovid f42 speaks of a temple of Diana in a grove. But as they are joined with Baalim, the original of which were deified kings and heroes, the groves may be such as were consecrated to them; for, as the same writer observes f43, the souls of heroes were supposed to have their abode in groves; (see Gill on “<023413>Exodus 34:13”) and (see Gill on “<050705>Deuteronomy 7:5”). It was in this time of defection that the idolatry of Micah, and of the Danites, and the war of Benjamin about the Levite’s concubine, happened, though related at the end of the book; so Josephus f44 places the account here.
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