GROVE . Apart from Genesis 21:33 , to be presently mentioned, ‘grove’ is everywhere in AV [Note: Authorized Version.] a mistaken tr. [Note: translate or translation.] , which goes back through the Vulgate to the LXX [Note: Septuagint.] , of the name of the Canaanite goddess Asherah . The ‘groves,’ so often said to have been, or to be deserving to be, ‘cut down,’ were the wooden poles set up as symbols of Asherah. See further the art. Asherah.
In Genesis 21:33 the grove which AV [Note: Authorized Version.] makes Abraham plant in Beer-sheba was really ‘a tamarisk tree’ (so RV [Note: Revised Version.] ), a tree which also figures in the story of Saul, 1Sa 22:6; 1 Samuel 31:13 (both RV [Note: Revised Version.] ).
A. R. S. Kennedy.