1 Kings 14:23

Judah of course did not follow Jeroboam in his idol worship. Judah kept up the temple worship at Jerusalem. Yet Judah had the wonderful privilege of true worship at the centre God had appointed, and still took the lead in serving and worshipping idols (v.22), adding this to the true worship of God. They had seen Solomon's example. He worshipped the god Milcom, and he built high places for his many idol-worshipping wives, favouring all their evil religions. This is the boasted "tolerance" of our own day. It tolerates anything except the exclusive worship of the living God revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ.

These high places were very offensive to the LORD. They showed the people's neglect and even contempt for His chosen centre. He had commanded the people to destroy all the images of the Canaanites and to demolish their high places (Num. 33:52)... In Deuteronomy 12, Moses told the people before he died that they would find the land full of idols. Its places of worship stood "on the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree." All this expressed the self-will of people who knew nothing of God and who were blinded by Satan. But the people of God must not be like them... He would choose His own centre, and He told the tribes of Israel to bring their sacrifices and offerings there.

Man is not to decide his own ways as a worshipper. Willingness in worship is right; wilfulness destroys it all... Keeping up groves and high places in Israel was always proof that the people had not truly prepared their hearts to seek the LORD God of Israel. He is the only true God, and He had set His name at Jerusalem.

On the whole it seems most likely that they were wooden symbols of a goddess. They took the form of images or pillars, or bare tree trunks set into the ground. In 2 Kings 23:7 we read that women wove "hangings" for the groves. But these were actually "houses" or "tents." That implies they enclosed the groves, probably for impure purposes, since immorality went with idolatry almost every time.

In Israel, turning away from God showed itself outwardly in making "high places" for themselves. It was only a heathen habit. It played on the imagination with a worship that had no heart in it. Men still try to satisfy themselves the same way — with music, architecture, curtains, and that most typical "dim religious light," in which to worship a God who is Light itself, and in whom there is no darkness. Such things work on nature. They produce a feeling that is so often taken for the reality it lacks. So on the mountain tops a man could imagine himself nearer to God than in the valleys. The depths of groves and forests helped too, and so did the beauty of nature, making him think he was nearer to the God of nature than he really was.

No doubt they would say that these things were there to remind them of God. But God had forbidden such things. Using them always lowered God in their eyes, until the things themselves became the objects of their worship.

It does not appear to be he himself who introduced idolatry into his land. It was the act of the people (v. 22). But Rehoboam let the evil take root in his kingdom. He is just as guilty as Judah, because he was responsible for Judah's conduct.