Grove

It is proper to observe, that in order the more effectually to guard the Israelites from idolatry, the blessed God, in instituting the rites of his own worship, went directly counter to the practice of the idolatrous nations. Thus, because they worshipped in groves, he expressly forbade “the planting a grove of trees near his altar,” Deu 16:21. Nor would he suffer his people to offer their sacrifices on the tops of hills and mountains, as the Heathens did, but ordered that they should be brought to one altar in the place which he appointed, Deu 12:13-14. And as for the groves, which the Canaanites had planted, and the idols and altars which they had erected on the tops of high mountains and hills for the worship of their gods, the Israelites are commanded utterly to destroy them, Deu 12:2-3. The groves and high places do not seem to have been different, but the same places, or groves planted on the tops of hills, probably round an open area, in which the idolatrous worship was performed, as may be inferred from the following words of the Prophet Hosea: “They sacrifice upon the tops of mountains, and burn incense upon the hills, under oaks, and poplars, and elms,” Hos 4:13. The use of groves for religious worship is generally supposed to have been as ancient as the patriarchal ages; for we are informed, that “Abraham planted a grove in Beersheba, and called there on the name of the Lord,” Gen 21:33. However, it is not expressly said, nor can it by this passage be proved, that he planted the grove for any religious purpose; it might only be designed to shade his tent. And this circumstance perhaps is recorded to intimate his rural way of living, as well as his religious character; that he dwelt in a tent, under the shade of a grove, or tree, as the word אשל , eshel, may more properly be translated; and in this humble habitation led a very pious and devout life. The reason and origin of planting sacred groves is variously conjectured; some imagining it was only hereby intended to render the service more agreeable to the worshippers, by the pleasantness of the shade; whereas others suppose it was to invite the presence of the gods. The one or the other of these reasons seems to be intimated in the fore-cited passage of Hosea: “They burn incense under oaks, and poplars, and elms, because the shade thereof is good,” Hos 4:13. Others conceive their worship was performed in the midst of groves, because the gloom of such a place is apt to strike a religious awe upon the mind; or else, because such dark concealments suited the lewd mysteries of their idolatrous worship. Another conjecture, which seems as probable as any, is, that this practice began with the worship of demons, or departed souls. It was an ancient custom to bury the dead under trees, or in woods. “Deborah was buried under an oak, near Bethel,” Gen 35:8; and the bones of Saul and Jonathan under a tree at Jabesh, 1Sa 31:13. Now an imagination prevailing among the Heathen, that the souls of the deceased hover about their graves, or at least delight to visit their dead bodies, the idolaters, who paid divine honours to the souls of their departed heroes, erected images and altars for their worship in the same groves where they were buried; and from thence it grew into a custom afterward to plant groves, and build temples, near the tombs of departed heroes, 2Ki 23:15-16, and to surround their temples and altars with groves and trees; and these sacred groves being constantly furnished with the images of the heroes or gods that were worshipped in them, a grove and an idol came to be used as convertible terms, 2Ki 23:6.

Grove.

1. A word used in the Authorized Version, with two exceptions, to translate the mysterious Hebrew term, Asherah, which is not a grove, but probably an idol or image of some kind. See Asherah. It is also probable that there was a connection between this symbol or image, whatever it was, and the sacred symbolic tree, the representation of which occurs so frequently on Assyrian sculptures.

2. The two exceptions noticed above are Gen 21:33 and 1Sa 22:6, (margin). In the religions of the ancient heathen world, groves play a prominent part. In the old times, altars only were erected to the gods.

It was thought wrong to shut up the gods within walls, and hence, trees were the first temples; and from the earliest times, groves are mentioned in connection with religious worship. Gen 12:6-7; Deu 11:30. Authorized Version, "plain," the groves were generally found connected with temples, and often had the right of affording an asylum.

(See ASHTORETH.) Translated rather "Asherah," the image of the goddess. So 2Ki 23:6, where it is nonsense "Josiah brought out the grove (Asherah) from the house of the Lord"; Manasseh had "set this graven image of Asherah in the house" (2Ki 21:7; 2Ki 22:7; compare Jdg 3:7). Also a "grove" could not be "set up under every green tree" (2Ki 17:10; 1Ki 14:23; 1Ki 18:19; Exo 34:13). In Gen 21:33 it is a different word, "Abraham planted a "grove" (eshowl) in Beersheba," rather "a tamarisk tree," a hardy evergreen fitted to be a memorial to his posterity that the well was theirs.

The Asherah was upright, fixed or planted in the ground; of wood, so that it was capable of being "cut down and burned" (Jdg 6:25-26; see 1Ki 15:13). "Maacbah had made an idol Asherah" (not" IN grove".) The worship of Asherah like that of Astarte or Ashtoreth, was associated with Baal worship. Astarte is the personal goddess, Ashcrah her conventional symbol in some one of her attributes. The sacred tree in Assyrian sculptures is similar, a symbol of the goddess of nature. The stone "pillar" (as the Hebrew for "image" ought to be translated, Exo 34:13) was Baal’s symbol; as the wooden pillar or tree was Astarte’s (2Ki 18:4).

The attempt to combine this with Jehovah worship is the subject of the prohibition (Exo 34:13). The Hebrew word translated "plain" (elon) signifies a grove or plantation; that of Mamre (Gen 13:18), of Moreh (Gen 12:6), of Zaanaim (Jdg 4:11), of the pillar in Shechem (Jdg 9:6), of Meonenim (Jdg 9:37), of Tabor (1Sa 10:3). Groves were associated with worship from ancient times, as the passages just quoted show. Pliny states that trees were the first temples. Their shade, solitude, and solemn stillness suggested this use. The superstitious abuse of them to idolatry and licentious rites caused the Divine prohibition of them for religious purposes; which prohibition Israel disregarded (Jer 17:2; Eze 20:28).

Trees were also used for national assemblies (Jdg 9:6; Jdg 9:37), for burying the dead (Gen 35:8; 1Sa 31:14). Some trees are specially-noted: the tamarisk (eeshel) under which Saul abode in Gibeah (1Sa 22:6); the terebinth in Shechem under which Joshua, after writing the law of God, set up (Jos 24:26) a great stone as a witness; the palm tree of Deborah (Jdg 4:5); the terebinth of enchantments (Jdg 9:37 margin, (See MEONENIM); of wanderers (Jdg 6:11, (See ZAANAIM)); 1Sa 14:2, "a pomegranate tree in Migron" (1Sa 10:3).

Tree worship, perhaps a distortion of the tradition of the tree of life and the tree of knowledge (Genesis 3), may be traced in Egypt, Arabia, Syria, Assyria, Persia, India, Thibet, Siam, China, Japan, Ceylon, the Philippine isles. The Druids venerated oak groves (Pliny, H. N., xvi. 44; Tacitus, Annals xiv. 30). The black priests in Africa alone may enter the sacred groves. The Etrurians worshipped a palm-tree.

the representative in the A.V. in certain passages of two Heb. words.

1. אֲשֵׁרָה (or אֲשֵׁירָח), asherah"’(from, אָשִׁר to be upright). Selden was the first who endeavored to show that this word which in the Sept. and Vulg. is generally rendered groce, in which our authorized version has followed them must in some places, for the sake of the sense, be taken to mean a wooden image of Ashtoreth (De Diis Syris, ii. 2). Not long after, Spencer made the same assertion scholars assume that Asherah is a name for Ashtoreth, and that it denotes more especially the relation of that goddess to the planet Venus, as the lesser star of good fortune. It appears, namely, to be an indisputable fact that both Baal and Ashtoreth, although their primary relation was to the sun and moon, came in process of time to be connected, in the religious conceptions of the Syro-Arabians, with the planets Jupiter and Venus, as the two stars of good fortune. SEE MENI.

We may instance the connection between Artemis and Selene; that between Juno and the planet Venus, mentioned in Creuzer, ii, 566; the fact that astro is also the name of the same planet in the religious books of the Tsalians (Norberg’s Onomast. Cod. Nasarai, p. 20). It is in reference to this connection, too, that a star is so often found among the emblems with which Ashtoreth is represented on ancient coins. Lastly, while the word Asherah cannot, in the sense of grove, be legitimately deduced from the primitive or secondary signification of any Syro-Arabian root, as a name of the goddess of good fortune it admits of a derivation as natural in a philological point of view as it is appropriate in signification. The verb אָשִׁר means to prosper; and Asherah is the feminine of an adjective signifing fortunate, happy. SEE ASHERAH

We must not omit to notice a probable connection between this symbol or image — whatever it was and the sacred symbolic tree, the representation of which occurs so frequently on Assyrian sculptures, and is shown in the subjoined woodcut. The connection is ingeniously maintained by Mr. Fergusson in his Nineveh and Persepolis restored (p. 299-304), to which the reader is referred. (De Leg. Hebraeor. ii, 16). Vitringa then followed out the same argument in his note on Isa 17:8. Gesenius, at length, has treated the whole question so elaborately in his Thesaurus (p. 162) as to leave little to be desired, and has evinced that Asherah is a name, and also denotes an image of this goddess. Some of the arguments which support this partial, or, in Gesenius’s case, total rejection of the signification grove for asherah are briefly as follows: It is argued that it almost always occurs with words which denote idols and statues of idols; that the verbs which are employed to express the making an Asherah are incompatible with the idea of a grove, as they are such as to build, to shape, to erect (except in one passage, where, however, Gesenius still maintains that the verb there used means to erect); that the words used to denote the destruction of an Asherah are those of breaking to pieces, subverting; that the image of Asherah is placed in the Temple (2Ki 21:7); and that Asherah is coupled with Baal in precisely the same way as Ashtoreth is (comp. Jdg 2:13; Jdg 10:6; 1Ki 18:19; 2Ki 23:4; and particularly Jdg 3:7; Jdg 2:13, where the plural form of both words is explained as of itself denoting images of this goddess; see also 2Ch 33:19; 2Ch 34:3-4). Besides, Selden objects that the signification grove is even incongruous in 2Ki 17:10, where we read of "setting up groves under evergreen tree." Moreover, the Sept. has rendered Asherah by Astarte in 2Ch 15:16 (and the Vulg, has done the same in Jdg 3:7), and, conversely, has rendered Ashtaroth by groves in 1Sa 7:3. SEE ASHTORETH; SEE HIGH-PLACE, On the strength of these arguments most modern

2. אֵשֶׁל, e’shel (Sept. αρονρα, Vulg. nemus). The first notice of this tree is in Gen 21:33, "And Abraham planted a grove (eshel) in Beersheba, and called there on the name of the Lord." The second passage where it occurs is 1Sa 22:6: "Now Saul abode in Gib-eah under a tree (eshel) in Ramah, having his spear in his hand, and all his servants were standing about him." Under such a tree also he and his sons were buried, for in the only other notice of this word it is said (1Sa 31:13), "And they took their bones, and buried them under a tree (eshel) at Jabesh, and fasted seven days. In the parallel passage 2Ch 10:12, the word alah is employed, which perhaps signi ties a terebinth tree, but is translated "oak" in the A.V.

Celsius (Hierobot. i, 535) maintains that eshel has always a general, and not a specific signification, and that it is properly translated tree. This, as stated by Rosenmuller, has been satisfactorily refuted by Michaelis in his Supplem. p. 134. In Royle’s Illustrated Himal. Bot. p. 214, it is stated, "The Arabic name asul or atul is applied to furas (an arboreous species of tamarisk) in India, as to Horientalis in Arabia and Egypt." So in the Ulfaz Uduieh, translated by Mr. Gladwin, we have at No. 36. ussel, the tamarisk bush, with ljhaou as the Hindee, and guz as the Persian synonym. The tamarisk and its products were highly valued by the Arabs for their medicinal properties, and are described in several places under different names in Avicenna. If we refer to travellers in Eastern countries, we shall find that most of them mention the athul. Thus Prosper Alpinus (De Plantis AEgypti, c. 9:De Tamarisco atle vocals) gives a figure which sufficiently shows that it must grow to the size of a large tree, and says that he had heard of its attaining, in another place, to the size of a large oak; that its wood was employed for making a variety of vessels, and its charcoal used throughout Egypt and Arabia; and that different parts of it were employed in medicines. So Forskal, who calls the species Tamariscus orientalis, gives atl as its Arabic name, and identifies it with eshel. So Belon (Observ. ii, 28). In Arabia Burckhardt found the tree called asul in the neighborhood of Medina, and observes that the Arabs cultivated it on account of the hardness of its wood. If we endeavor to trace a species of tamarisk in Syria, we shall find some difficulty from the want of precision in the information supplied by travellers on subjects of Natural History. But a French naturalist, M. Bove, who travelled from Cairo to Mount Sinai, and from thence into Syria, has given ample proofs of the existence of species of tamarisk in these regions. A minute description of the tree under its Arabic name is given by I. E. Faber, in Fab. and Reishii Opusc. wed. ex mon. Ar. p. 137. It is very remarkable that the only tree which is found growing among the ruins of Babylon is a tamarisk. "The one in question is in appearance like the weeping-willow, but the trunk is hollow through age, and partly shattered. The Arabs venerate it as sacred, in consequence of the calf Ali having reposed under its shade after the battle of Hillah" (Rosenmuller, Bibl. Geog. ii, p. 26, from Ker Porter; comp. Ainsworth’s Researches, p. 125). From the characteristics of the tamarisk-tree of the East, it certainly appears as likely as any to have been planted in Beersheba by Abraham, because it is one of the few trees which will flourish and grow to a great size even in the arid desert. Besides the advantage of affording shade in a hot country, it is also esteemed on account of the excellence of its wood, which is converted into charcoal. It is no less valuable on account of the galls with which its branches are often loaded. and which are nearly as astringent as oak-galls. SEE TAMARISK.

3. It is now generally recognised (see Gesen. Thes. 50 b; Stanley, S. and P. § 76, 3; p. 142 note, 220 note) that the word Elon, אֵלוֹן, which is uniformly rendered by the A.V. "plain," signifies a grove or plantation. such were the Elon of Mamre (Gen 13:18; Gen 14:13; Gen 8:1); of Moreh (Gen 12:6; Deu 11:30; of Zaa-aim (Joshua’xix, 33); of the pillar (Jdg 9:6); of Meonenim (Jdg 9:37); and of Tabor (1Sa 10:3). in all these cases the Sept. has δρῦς or βάλανος" the Vulgate — which the A. V. probably followed — Vallis or ConvalIis; in the last three, however, Quercus. See Elon, In the religions of the ancient heathen world groves play a prominent part. In old times altars only were erected to the gods. It was thought wrong to shut p the gods within walls, and hence, as Pliny expressly tells us (H. N. 12:2), trees were the first temples Tacit. Germ. 9; Lucian, de Sacrific. 10; see Carpzov, App. Crit. p. 332), and from the earliest times groves re mentioned in connection with religious worship Gen 12:6-7; Gen 13:18; Deu 11:30; A. V. "plain ;" see above). Their high antiquity, refreshing shade, solemn silence, and awe-inspiring solitude, as well as he striking illustration they afford of natural life, marked them out as the fit localities, or even the actual objects of worship ("Lucos et in iis silentia ipsa adoramus," Pliny, 12:1; "Secretum luci... et ad-miratio umbrae fidem tibi numinis facit," Senec. Ep. xli; "Quo posses viso dicere Numen habet," Ovid, Fast. iii, 295; "Sacra; nemus accubct umbra," Virgil, Georg. iii, 334; comp. Ovid, Met. 8:743; see Eze 6:3; Isa 57:5; Hos 4:13). This last passage hints at another and darker reason why groves were opportune for the degraded services of idolatry; their shadow hid he atrocities and obscenities of heathen worship. The ;roves were generally found connected with temples, and often had the right of affording an asylum (Tacit. Germ. 9, 40; Herod. ii, 138; Virgil, AEn. i, 441; ii, 512; Sil. Ital. i, 81). Some have supposed that even the Jewish Temple had a τέμενος planted with palm, and cedar (Psa 92:12-13), and olive (Psa 52:8), as the mosque which stands on its site now has. This is more than doubtful; but we know that a celebrated oak stood by the sanctuary at Shechem (Jos 24:26; Jdg 9:6; Stanley, Sinai and Pal. p. 142). We find repeated mention of groves consecrated with deep superstition to particular gods (Livy, 7:25; 24:37 35:51; Tacit. Ann. ii, 12, 51, etc.; 4:73, etc.). For this reason they were stringently forbidden to the Jews (Exo 34:13; Jer 17:2; Eze 20:28), and Maimonides even says that it is forbidden to sit under the shade of any green tree where an idol-statue was (Fabric. Bibl. Antiq. p. 290). Yet we find abundant indications that the Hebrews felt the influence of groves on the mind ("the spirit in the woods," Wordsworth), and therefore selected them for solemn purposes, such as great national meetings (Jdg 9:6; Jdg 9:37) and the burial of the dead (Gen 35:8; 1 Samuel 31:14). Those connected with patriarchal history were peculiarly liable to superstitious reverence (Amos 5:57; 8:13); and we find that the groves of Mature were long a place of worship (Sozomen, H. E. ii, 4; Euseb. Vit. Const. p. 81; Reland, Palaest. p. 714). There are in Scripture many memorable trees; e.g. Allon-bachuth (Gen 35:8), the tamarisk (see above)in Gibeah (1Sa 22:6), the terebinth in Shechem (Jos 24:26, under which the law was set up), the palm-tree of Deborah (Jdg 4:5), the terebinth of enchantments (Jdg 9:37), the terebinth of wanderers (Jdg 4:11), and others (1Sa 14:2; 1Sa 10:3; sometimes "plain" in A. V., Vulg. "convallis").

This observation of particular trees was among the heathen extended to a regular worship of them. "Tree-worship may be traced from the interior of Africa not only into Egypt and Arabia, but also onward uninterruptedly into Palestine and Syria, Assyria, Persia, India, Thibet, Siam, the Philippine Islands, China, Japan, and Siberia; also westward into Asia Minor, Greece, Italy, and other countries; and in most of the countries here named it obtains in the present day, combined as it has been in other parts with various forms of idolatry" (Poole, Genesis of Earth and Man, p. 139). "The worship of trees even goes back among the Iranians to the rules of Horn, called in the Zend-Avesta the promulgator of the old law. We know from Herodotus the delight which Xerxes took in the great plane-tree in Lydia, in which he bestowed golden ornaments, and appointed for it a sentinel in the person of one of the ’immortal Ten Thousand.’ The early veneration of trees was associated, by the moist and refreshing canopy of foliage, with that of sacred fountains. In similar connection with the early worship of nature were among the Hellenic nations the fame of the great palm-tree of Delos, and of an aged platanus in Arcadia. The Buddhists of Ceylon venerate the colossal Indian fig-tree of Anurah-depura A single trees thus became objects of veneration from the beauty of their form, so did also groups of trees, under the name of groves of gods.’ Pausanias (i, 21,§ 9) is full of the praise of a grove belonging to the temple of Apollo at Grynion in AEolis; and the grove of Co-lone is celebrated in the renowned chorus of Sophocles" (Humboldt, Cosmos, ii, 96, Eng. ed.). The custom of adorning trees "with jewels and mantles" was very ancient and universal (Herod. 7:31; AElian, V. H. ii, 14; Theocr. id. xviii; Ovid, Met. 8:723, 745; Arnob. adv. Gentes, i, 39), and even still exists in the East.

The oracular trees of antiquity are well known (Homer, Il. 16:233; Od. v, 237; Soph. Trach. 754; Virgil; Georg. ii, 167 Sil. Ital. iii, 11). Each god had some sacred tree (Virgil, Ecl. 7:61 sq.). The Etrurians are said to have worshipped a palm, and the Celts an oak (Max. Tyr. Dissert. 38, in Godwyn’s Mos. and Aar. ii, 4). On the Druidic veneration of oak-groves, see Pliny, H. N. 16:44; Tacit. Ann. 14:30. In the same way, according to the missionary Oldendorp, the negroes "have sacred groves, the abodes of a deity, which no negro ventures to enter except the priests" (Prichard, Nat. Hist. of Man, p. 525-539, 3d ed.; Park’s Travels, p. 65). So, too, the ancient Egyptians (Raw-Hinson’s Herod, ii, 298). Long after the introduction of Christianity it was found necessary to forbid all abuse of trees and groves to the purposes of superstition (Harduin, Act. Concil. i, 988; see Orelli, ad Tac. Germ. 9). See Pehnen, De arbore non plantanda ad altare Dei (Lips. 1725); Dresler, De lucis religioni gotil. destinatis (Lips. 1740); Lakemacher, Antiq. Grace. sacrae, p. 138 sq. SEE TREK.

Grove. The translation, except in Gen 21:33 A. V. (the R. V. reads "tamarisk tree)," of the Hebrew word asherah; but since asherah is an idol or an idolatrous pillar—an image of Astarte, and not a "grove," the A. V. is misleading, as in 1Ki 18:19; 2Ki 13:6, and other places, where the R. V. transfers the Hebrew word and reads "Asherah."

1. eshel , a tamarisk, or perhaps any large tree. Abraham planted a memorial tree in Beer-sheba, and called there on the name of Jehovah. Gen 21:33. The same word is translated ’tree’ in the A.V. in 1Sa 22:6 (’grove’ in margin ) and 1Sa 31:13.

2. asherah, asherath. The word ’grove’ naturally suggests a row of trees, but that this cannot be the meaning is evident from groves being set up ’under every green tree.’ 1Ki 14:23; 2Ki 17:10. Manasseh set a graven image of the grove that he had made in the temple, which Josiah removed, burnt, and ground to powder. 2Ki 21:7; 2Ki 23:6. This was doubtless made of metal, but the groves were of wood, as we learn from their being cut down, and burnt. Jdg 6:25-26; 2Ki 23:14-15. One passage speaks of groves being planted, Deu 16:21; another, of their being made, and another, of their being built. 1Ki 14:15; 1Ki 14:23. They are constantly associated with idols and images, and Jdg 3:7 speaks of their being served along with Baalim.

On the whole it seems most probable that they were wooden symbols of a goddess, in the form of images or pillars, or mere stems of trees inserted in the earth. In 2Ki 23:7 we read that women wove ’hangings’ for the groves, but these were literally ’houses’ or ’tents,’ which implies that they enclosed the groves, probably for impure purposes, for immorality was almost constantly associated with idolatry. Kalisch and others suppose that the name Asherah has reference to the Syrian goddess Astarte, and it is so translated by the LXX in 2Ch 15:16. Fürst refers it to the Phoenician nature-god. The many references to the idols, images, and groves show how far Israel had departed from the living God and fallen into idolatry.

GROVE.—Apart from Gen 21:33, to be presently mentioned, ‘grove’ is everywhere in AV [Note: Authorized Version.] a mistaken tr. [Note: translate or translation.] , which goes back through the Vulgate to the LXX [Note: Septuagint.] , of the name of the Canaanite goddess Asherah. The ‘groves,’ so often said to have been, or to be deserving to be, ‘cut down,’ were the wooden poles set up as symbols of Asherah. See further the art. Asherah.

In Gen 21:33 the grove which AV [Note: Authorized Version.] makes Abraham plant in Beer-sheba was really ‘a tamarisk tree’ (so RV [Note: Revised Version.] ), a tree which also figures in the story of Saul, 1Sa 22:6; 1Sa 31:13 (both RV [Note: Revised Version.] ).

A. R. S. Kennedy.

grōv:

(1) אשׁרה, ’ăshērāȟ. See ASHERAH.

(2) אשל, ’ēshel (Gen 21:33 the King James Version, the Revised Version (British and American) “a tamarisk tree”). See TAMARISK.

Exo 34:13 (a) The groves which are described in this passage and in the others which are given in this paragraph represent an unusual planting of branches of trees or saplings carved into shapes for immoral purposes. As in most cases of idolatry, immorality is quite evident, so in this case. Men and women approach these groups of planted sticks to arouse their passions and to gain some unnatural satisfaction. (See Deu 7:5; Deu 12:3; Deu 16:21; Jdg 6:25; 2Ki 13:6; 2Ki 18:4; 2Ch 34:3; Mic 5:14).

2Ki 23:6 (a) It should be noted that these plantings of items to encourage immorality were found inside the temple of GOD. They were small in size so that they could be placed in the building. They were to be removed from the temple, burned, and, if they were covered with metal, that was to be ground up and scattered. (See 2Ki 23:14). The grove mentioned in Deu 16:21 and the groves planted by Abraham were normal and natural groups of ordinary trees.