“You must destroy all the places where the nations you are dispossessing served their gods, whether on high mountains, on hills, or under some leafy tree.”-Deuteronomy 12:2
Verse 2 refers to something that was very common among the pagan religions.
It talks about altars of sacrifice being set up in groves of evergreen trees.
Or the opposite would occur.
After the altar was erected, a grove of trees would be planted around it.
What was the reason behind this practice?
The reason was because out of all the heathen sacrifices, sacrifices for fertility were the most common AND…
…evergreen trees symbolized fertility.
That’s it.
One interesting Hebrew term we’ll encounter here is ASHERAH which means “grove” as in evergreen groves or olive groves.
In some cases, Bible translators will screw up and translate ASHERAH into the word “pole“.
Why do I say this would be a screw up?
Because we ain’t talking about poles here man!
We’re talking about a bunch of trees being planted.
The only possibility where this translation would work is if we we’re dealing with a unique situation where it was not possible to plant trees.
In that case, then a grove of wooden dead tree trunks would be erected.
So I guess you could call these erected dead tree trunks “poles” (I still think it’s weird though).
But that was a really rare situation.
I would say “grove” is the correct translation for ASHERAH.
Now this word ASHERAH should ring a bell for you.
It’s related to the word ASHTEROTH.
Do you recall what this word means?
It’s the formal name of the fertility goddess!
And do you recall what the Anglo-Saxon English rendering of ASHTEROTH is?
It’s “easter“.
That’s right man.
I ain’t joking when I say Christianity is pagan to the core.
Again, there’s good reasons why Orthodox Jews will never even go near a Christian church.
Onward.
In addition to the pagan altars of sacrifice, sometimes a carved pole would be placed amidst the tree groves (ASHERAH).
What did this carved pole look like?
Well, it was pretty much just like a totem pole except it was more simpler in terms of what was carved on it.
However, their purpose was pretty much the same.
They were used as land markers to indicate where the altars for sacrifices and worship to certain gods and goddesses were supposed to take place.
Let’s next examine the true Biblical meaning of the word “pillar“.
When we think of pillars, the image that usually comes to mind are those super tall, cylindrical stone pillars like what was common in ancient Roman architecture.
That is NOT at all what the Bible is talking about when it speaks of “pillars“.
When the Bible talks about “pillars”, it is referring to standing stones.
When I say “standing stone“, I mean exactly that.
A massive flat stone was erected upright and sometimes had some words chiseled onto it.
However, more often than not, there was nothing chiseled onto the stone and it was just used in its natural state the way it was found.
A standing stone mainly served two purposes.
One purpose was it stood as a monument in memory of something significant that took place at the place where it was erected.
The other purpose was the heathens used a standing stone to represent one of their false gods.
Hence, it was also considered an object of worship.
Regardless of the purpose, God ordered the Hebrews to tear down all the pillars of the Canaanites.
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