| I Kings 15:13
| Moreover, he also removed his mother, Maacha, from being the princess in the sacrifices of Priapus, and in the grove which she had consecrated to him: and he destroyed her den, and broke in pieces the filthy idol, and burnt it by the torrent Cedron:
| Priapus. He would not spare such abominations in his own family. (Menochius) He took from his mother the direction of the palace, (Vatable) and her guards. (Grotius) --- Hebrew, "even her he removed from being queen, because she had made a Miphlatstah." (Haydock) --- Septuagint render this term a synod, "meeting," or something shameful; also a cavern, or den; and in Paralipomenon, the "idol" Astarte. St. Jerome also gives different meanings; so that the precise import is not well known. Most people translate, "a scarecrow;" (Calmet) terriculum. In the gardens of Greece and of Rome, the figure of Priapus was set up (Du Hamel) to frighten thieves and birds away. Inde ego furum aviumque Maxima formido. (Horace, Sat. 1. 8.) Others understand that Pan, another frightening idol, is here meant; (Castalion) or the abominations of Phallus and Ithyphallus, derived from the same Hebrew word. (Seldon) --- As the goddess Astarte, or Asera, "the grove," here the object of adoration, was the wife of Adonis, it is probable, that the same obscenities were carried in triumph, as Herodotus (II. 28., and 49.) specifies in the description of the festival of Bacchus, celebrated by the Egyptians. --- To him. Protestants, "She had made an idol in the grove." Hebrew also, "to Asera; and Asa destroyed her idol, (miphlatstah) and burnt it." (Haydock)
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