Exodus 34:13

Ye shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves. — In the “Book of the Covenant” the command had been simply to “quite break down their images” (Exodus 23:24). Now, after the Israelites had displayed their idolatrous leanings, it is added that they are likewise to destroy the “altars” and the “groves.” Altars were common among all the idolatrous nations, sometimes attached to temples (1 Kings 16:32; 2 Kings 21:4), sometimes separate from them (Numbers 23:1; Numbers 23:29; 2 Kings 16:10), and were used for much the same purposes as the Hebrew altars: i.e., for sacrifices, bloody and unbloody, and for burning incense. “Groves” — here mentioned for the first time — were peculiar to a limited number of nations, as the Assyrians, Babylonians, Phœnicians, Syrians, and a few others. They appear to have been artificial constructions, either of wood or stone, or both, imitative of vegetable forms, and probably emblematic of the productive powers of nature. The worship connected with the “groves” was of a peculiarly gross and licentious character. The very name, ashêrah, was a modification of Ashtoreth, or Astarte. It is remarkable that nothing is said of destroying Canaannite temples — an indication that as yet they did not exist, and a mark of the high antiquity of the book.