He brake down the houses of the sodomites The name sometimes given to the most infamous of all prostitutes, who exposed their bodies to be abused contrary to nature, in honour of those filthy deities whom they worshipped. Their houses were near the temple, and the persons themselves were dedicated to impurity, and, that they might commit their abominations with the greater licentiousness, they had women appointed to make them tents, wherein they were wont to retire upon these detestable occasions. Calmet. Thus corporal and spiritual whoredoms went together, and the vile affections to which they were given up were the punishment of their vain imaginations. They that dishonoured their God were justly left thus to dishonour themselves. Where the women wove hangings for the grove For the idols worshipped in the grove, or rather for Asherah, or Ashtaroth, an idol so called, as observed before, and probably the same with the Grecian Venus. These hangings might possibly be curtains to draw before the idol, to preserve it from defilement, or to gain more reverence to it: or garments for it, or for the priests or priestesses belonging to it. But the Hebrew word בתים, bathim, here used, properly means houses; which, most likely, were either little chapels or shrines made of woven work, like those mentioned Acts 19:24, which were made of silver, within which were representations of the idol; or they were tents, encompassing the image, where the worshippers committed all manner of lewdness, and that in or near the house of the Lord, in an impudent defiance of the holiness of God and his temple. Well might the apostle call these kinds of worship abominable idolatries! Can any wonder that wrath, not to be quenched, was kindled against this city and people?
Related Commentaries of 2 Kings 23:7
2 Kings 23:7
7 And he brake down the houses of the sodomites, that were by the house of the LORD, where the women wove hangingsa for the grove.