Deuteronomy 12:3

_AND YE SHALL OVERTHROW THEIR ALTARS, AND BREAK THEIR PILLARS, AND BURN THEIR GROVES WITH FIRE; AND YE SHALL HEW DOWN THE GRAVEN IMAGES OF THEIR GODS, AND DESTROY THE NAMES OF THEM OUT OF THAT PLACE._ Overthrow their altars - piles of turf or small stones. BREAK THEIR PILLARS. Before the art of sculpture was known, the statues of idols were only rude blocks of coloured stones (see the note at Deuteronomy 7:5)....

1-4 Moses comes to the statutes he had to give in charge to Israel; and begins with such as relate to the worship of God. The Israelites are charged not to bring the rites and usages of idolaters into the worship of God; not under colour of making it better. We cannot serve God and mammon; nor worship the true God and idols; nor depend upon Christ Jesus and upon superstitious or self-righteous confidences....

Verse Deuteronomy 12:3. _YE SHALL OVERTHROW THEIR ALTARS_] Where unholy sacrifices have been offered; _and break their pillars_, probably meaning statues and representations of their gods cut out of stone; _and burn their groves_, such as those about the temple of _Ashtaroth_, the Canaanitish _Venus_, whose impure rites were practised in different parts of the inclosures or groves round her temples; _and ye shall hew down the graven images_, probably implying all images _carved out of wood; and destroy the names of_ _them_, which were no doubt at first graven on the stones, and carved on the trees, and then applied to the surrounding districts. In various instances the names of whole mountains, valleys, and districts were borrowed from the gods worshipped there....

THEIR GROVES - Render their idols of wood: and see the Deuteronomy 7:5 note....

EXPOSITION ANNOUNCEMENT OF PARTICULAR LAWS. CHAPTERS 12-26. Moses, having in his first address cast a glance at the events which had transpired between Sinai and the plains of Moab, and in his second recapitulated what had happened at Sinai, repeated the Decalogue, and urgently counseled the people to be obedient to the Divine commandment, and steadfast in their adherence to Jehovah as their God and King; proceeds now to set forth certain laws which it specially behooved them to observe. These are for the most part the same as those already recorded in the previous books; but a few are new, and are to be found only here. No special order or plan of exposition is here observed; the speaker uses that freedom of discourse which was fitting in a popular address. One or two historical narratives are interpolated; but the address as a whole is hortatory, and is designed to dir

AND YOU SHALL OVERTHROW THEIR ALTARS,.... Which were of stone, as Jarchi observes; whereas the altar ordered to be made by the Lord, before the altar of burnt offering in the tabernacle was made, was of earth, Exodus 20:24 these were to be demolished, lest the Israelites should be tempted to make use of them; and besides, the Lord would not have any remains of idolatry in the land where his tabernacle and worship were, as being abominable to him: AND BREAK DOWN THEIR PILLARS; or statues erected to the honour of their idols; according to Jarchi it was a single stone hewed out at first for the basis of a statue y; perhaps such as were called Baetulia, in imitation of the stone Jacob set up for a pillar at Bethel, Genesis 28:18 AND BURN THEIR GROVES WITH FIRE; which were

8. THE PLACE OF WORSHIP CHAPTER 12 _ 1. The overthrow of false worship (Deuteronomy 12:1)_ 2. The true place of worship (Deuteronomy 12:5) 3. Concerning eating and the blood (Deuteronomy 12:15) 4. Warning against the abominations of idolatry (Deuteronomy 12:29) The law, and love as the fulfilment of that law, was the main subject of the words of Moses up to the close of the eleventh chapter. The Chapter s which follow also contain expositions of the different statutes, as well as exhortations to obedience and warnings against departure from Jehovah. How s

THE LAW OF ONE SANCTUARY. The local sanctuaries (originally Canaanite) with everything belonging to them, are to be destroyed, and all sacrifices are to be offered at the place which Yahweh should choose. Yet (Deuteronomy 12:15 f.) animals intended for food alone may be killed and eaten locally. Though the name Jerusalem does not occur in D, it is fairly evident that no other place can be intended by the place which Yahweh. shall choose, etc., though A. Duff holds that the Deut. code originated in the Northern Kingdom before its fall, and that it aimed at making Shechem the one worship centre for both kingdoms (see his _OT Theology_, ii. 24ff.). Jer. and Dt. have so much in common (see Introd.) that one may be used to interpret the other. In Jeremiah 7:4;...

BREAK. smash. PILLARS. These "menhirs" constantly dug up to-day. groves. Hebrew. _'asherah._ See App-42. GRAVEN IMAGES. sculptures, as in Deuteronomy 7:25. DESTROY. cause to perish. Hebrew. _'abad._ Compare Exodus 23:24; Exodus 34:13.Judges 2:2; Judges 6:28; 2 Kings 10:19; 2 Kings 11:1.

First Statement of the Law of the One Altar In the Pl. address, with one later insertion, Deuteronomy 12:3, and possibly another Deuteronomy 12:5 _b_; the rest is a unity. It appropriately opens with the command to destroy all the places at which the nations worship, whom Israel is about to dispossess; for it was the use of these sanctuaries for the worship of Jehovah and the consequent confusion of Him with the Canaanite deities that produced the evils from which the only practical escape was by concentrating His worship. The preface to this first form of the law differs from that to the second which is also Pl. Deuteronomy 12:2. _surely destroy_ A form of the vb. used only with Pl. addr