Exodus 23:24

Thou shalt not bow down to …, nor serve them as Exodus 20:5.

nor do after their works Cf. Leviticus 18:3.

overthrow properly, tear down(viz. their images).

pillars so RV. always, AV. sometimes wrongly images; RVm. obelisks; best, perhaps, standing-stones: Heb. maẓẓçbôth. The maẓẓçbâh(lit. something set up) was a large oblong block of stone originally, no doubt (cf. on Exodus 20:24, and the writer's note on Genesis 28:18, p. 267), conceived as the abode of a numenor deity set up in or near a temple or high place, or beside an altar. Several such maẓẓçbâhs, or -standing stones," have been excavated recently at Gezer, Taanach, and Megiddo: at Gezer, for instance, there is a striking row of ten, and at Taanach a double row, each consisting of five (see the writer's Modern Research as illustrating the Bible, 1908, pp. 62 5, 84). maẓẓçbâhswere the regular accompaniment of a Canaanite temple or other sacred place (cf. 2 Kings 10:26 f., in the temple of Baal in Samaria); and during the earlier period of Israel's history they seem to have been used freely in the worship of Jehovah as well: Moses erects twelve (ch. Exodus 24:4); Hosea 3:4; Hosea 10:1 f. alludes to them as religious symbols of which Israel will be deprived on account of its sins; in Isaiah 19:19 a maẓẓçbâhis a symbol of Egypt's conversion to Jehovah. Later, however, they were proscribed on account of their heathen associations: Moses is represented as having commanded the demolition of the Canaanite -standing-stones" (here, Exodus 34:13; Deuteronomy 7:5; Deuteronomy 12:3: cf. Micah 5:13); and their erection beside Jehovah's altar is prohibited (Deuteronomy 16:22; Leviticus 26:1 H): the same view of them is also reflected in the notices by the Deuteronomic compiler in 1 Kings 14:23; 2 Kings 17:10. See further DB.iii. s.v. Pillar, and EB.iii. s.v. Massebah.