John Gill's Bible Commentary Ver. 7. And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord , etc.] Both by marrying with Heathens, and worshipping their gods: and forgot the Lord their God ; as if they had never heard of him, or known him, their Maker and Preserver, who had done so many great and good things for them: and served Baalim, and the groves ; of Baalim, (see Judges 2:11); the groves mean either idols worshipped in groves, as Jupiter was worshipped in a grove of oaks, hence the oak of Dodona; and Apollo in a grove of laurels in Daphne: there were usually groves where idol temples were built; and so in Phoenicia, or Canaan, Dido the Sidonian queen built a temple for Juno in the midst of the city, where was a grove of an agreeable shade f38 : so Barthius observes, that most of the ancient gods of the Heathens used to be worshipped in groves. And groves and trees themselves were worshipped; so Tacitus says of the Germans, that they consecrated groves and forests, and called them by the names of gods. Groves are here put in the place of Ashtaroth, ( Judges 2:13); perhaps the goddesses of that name were worshipped in groves; and if Diana is meant by Astarte, Servius says that every oak is sacred to Jupiter and every grove to Diana; and Ovid speaks of a temple of Diana in a grove. But as they are joined with Baalim, the original of which were deified kings and heroes, the groves may be such as were consecrated to them; for, as the same writer observes f43 , the souls of heroes were supposed to have their abode in groves; (see Gill on “ Exodus 34:13”) and (see Gill on “ Deuteronomy 7:5”). It was in this time of defection that the idolatry of Micah, and of the Danites, and the war of Benjamin about the Levite’s concubine, happened, though related at the end of the book; so Josephus f44 places the account here.
Matthew Henry Commentary
Verses 1-7 - As the Israelites were a type of the church on earth, they were not to be idle and slothful. The Lord was pleased to try them by the remain of the devoted nations they spared. Temptations and trials detect the wickedness of the hearts of sinners; and strengthen he graces of believers in their daily conflict with Satan, sin, and this evil world They must live in this world, but they are not of it, and are forbidde to conform to it. This marks the difference between the followers of Christ and mere professors. The friendship of the world is more fata than its enmity; the latter can only kill the body, but the forme murders many precious souls.
Original Hebrew ויעשׂו6213 בני1121 ישׂראל3478 את853 הרע7451 בעיני5869 יהוה3068 וישׁכחו7911 את853 יהוה3068 אלהיהם430 ויעבדו5647 את853 הבעלים1168 ואת853 האשׁרות׃842
