[478] It is a Jewish tradition that Hezekiah would not bury his father Ahaz in a sarcophagus, but on a bier (Pesachin, f. 56, 1; Sanhedrin, f. 47, 1; Grätz, Gesch. d. Juden., ii, 224).
[479] His name, Chizquîyyah, is shortened from Yechizquîyyahoo (Isa. i. 1; 2 Kings xx. 10; Hos. i. 1). It means "Jehovah's strength" (Gesen.), or "Yah is might" (Fûrst).
[480] The first of these dates is highly uncertain, as is the entire chronology of this reign. I follow Kittel.
[481] 2 Chron. xxxi. 2-21.
[482] Josiah did this many years later (2 Kings xxiii. 13).
[483] Gen. xxxv. 14. See Spencer, De legg. Hebr., i. 444; Bochart, Canaan, ii. 2.
[484] Exod. xxiv. 4. Comp. Deut. vii. 5, xii. 3, xvi. 22; Lev. xxvi. 1; 2 Chron. xiv. 3, xxxi. 1; Jer. xliii. 13; Hos. x. 2; Mic. v. 13 (where the A.V. often has "statue" or "image"). Comp. Clem. Alex., Strom., i. 24; Arnob., c. Gent., i. 39.
[485] The rendering "grove" in the A.V. is borrowed from the ἄλσος of the LXX., and the lucus of the Vulgate. On the connection of the Asherah with the sacred tree of the Assyrian, see my article on "Grove" in Smith's Dict. of the Bible; and Fergusson, Nineveh and Persepolis Restored, 299-304. On the worship of Asherah, see 1 Kings xv. 13; 2 Kings xxi. 3-7, xxiii. 4; 2 Chron. xv. 16; Judg. iii. 5-7, vi. 25, xviii. 18. Baudissin in Herzog Realencykl., s.v. We may well be startled by the prevalence of idolatry in Jerusalem revealed in Isa. x. 11, xxvii. 9, xxix. 11, xxx. 9, 22, etc.
[486] See Wellhausen, Hist., 235; Stade, Gesch. d. V. I., 460; W. R. Smith, Religion of the Semites, 171; Cheyne, Isaiah, ii. 303; Renan, Hist. du Peuple d'Israel, i. 230 (Prof. Driver, Bibl. Dict., i. 258, 2nd edition).
[487] Hierozoicon, ii. 3, § 13.