Leviticus 26:30

26:30 I will destroy your high places and cut down your incense altars, ¹  and I will stack your dead bodies on top of the lifeless bodies of your idols. ²  I will abhor you. ³ 

Numbers 33:52

33:52 you must drive out all the inhabitants of the land before you. Destroy all their carved images, all their molten images, ⁴  and demolish their high places.

Deuteronomy 12:2

12:2 You must by all means destroy ⁵  all the places where the nations you are about to dispossess worship their gods – on the high mountains and hills and under every leafy tree. ⁶ 

Deuteronomy 12:4

12:4 You must not worship the Lord your God the way they worship.

Ezekiel 20:28-29

20:28 I brought them to the land which I swore ⁷  to give them, but whenever they saw any high hill or leafy tree, they offered their sacrifices there and presented the offerings that provoke me to anger. They offered their soothing aroma there and poured out their drink offerings. 20:29 So I said to them, What is this high place you go to?’” (So it is called “High Place” ⁸  to this day.)

¹ sn Regarding these cultic installations, see the remarks in B. A. Levine, Leviticus (JPSTC), 188, and R. E. Averbeck, NIDOTTE 2:903. The term rendered “incense altars” might better be rendered “sanctuaries [of foreign deities]” or “stelae.”

² tn The translation reflects the Hebrew wordplay “your corpses…the corpses of your idols.” Since idols, being lifeless, do not really have “corpses,” the translation uses “dead bodies” for people and “lifeless bodies” for the idols.

³ tn Heb “and my soul will abhor you.”

⁴ tn The Hebrew text repeats the verb “you will destroy.”

⁵ tn Heb “destroying you must destroy”; KJV “Ye shall utterly (surely ASV) destroy”; NRSV “must demolish completely.” The Hebrew infinitive absolute precedes the verb for emphasis, which is reflected in the translation by the words “by all means.”

⁶ sn Every leafy tree. This expression refers to evergreens which, because they keep their foliage throughout the year, provided apt symbolism for nature cults such as those practiced in Canaan. The deity particularly in view is Asherah, wife of the great god El, who was considered the goddess of fertility and whose worship frequently took place at shrines near or among clusters (groves) of such trees (see also Deut 7:5). See J. Hadley, NIDOTTE 1:569-70; J. DeMoor, TDOT 1:438-44.

⁷ tn Heb “which I lifted up my hand.”

⁸ tn The Hebrew word (“Bamah”) means “high place.”