SEV Biblia, Chapter 3:7
Hicieron, pues, los hijos de Israel lo malo en ojos del SEŃOR; y olvidados del SEŃOR su Dios, sirvieron a los baales, y a Astarot.
Clarke's Bible Commentary - Judges 3:7
Verse 7. Served Baalim and the groves] No groves were ever worshipped, but the deities who were supposed to be resident in them; and in many cases temples and altars were built in groves, and the superstition of consecrating groves and woods to the honour of the deities was a practice very usual with the ancients. Pliny assures us that trees, in old times, served for the temples of the gods. Tacitus reports this custom of the old Germans; Quintus Curtius, of the Indians; and Caesar, and our old writers, mention the same of the Druids in Britain. The Romans were admirers of this way of worship and therefore had their luci or groves in most parts of the city, dedicated to some deity. But it is very probable that the word twrŤa asheroth which we translate groves, is a corruption of the word twrtŤ[ ashtaroth, the moon or Venus, (see on chap. ii. 13, ) which only differs in the letters [, t , from the former. Ashtaroth is read in this place by the Chaldee Targum, the Syriac, the Arabic, and the Vulgate, and by one of Dr. Kennicott's MSS.
John Gill's Bible Commentary
Ver. 7. 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 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 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 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, ( Judges 2:13); perhaps the goddesses of that name were worshipped in groves; and if Diana is meant by Astarte, Servius says that every oak is sacred to Jupiter and every grove to Diana; and Ovid 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 “ Exodus 34:13”) and (see Gill on “ 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.
Matthew Henry Commentary
Verses 1-7 - As the Israelites were a type of the church on earth, they were not to be idle and slothful. The Lord was pleased to try them by the remain of the devoted nations they spared. Temptations and trials detect the wickedness of the hearts of sinners; and strengthen he graces of believers in their daily conflict with Satan, sin, and this evil world They must live in this world, but they are not of it, and are forbidde to conform to it. This marks the difference between the followers of Christ and mere professors. The friendship of the world is more fata than its enmity; the latter can only kill the body, but the forme murders many precious souls.
Original Hebrew
ויעשׂו 6213 בני 1121 ישׂראל 3478 את 853 הרע 7451 בעיני 5869 יהוה 3068 וישׁכחו 7911 את 853 יהוה 3068 אלהיהם 430 ויעבדו 5647 את 853 הבעלים 1168 ואת 853 האשׁרות׃ 842
