Rashi
Jewish
1040–1105
“You built yourself an eminent place Heb. גָב, a height such as pedestal or an altar. You built Heb. וַתִּבְנִי, an expression for building.”
From the early Church Fathers to now.
1 Jewish · 2 Reformed · 1 Methodist
“That thou didst also build thee a common stew, and madest thee a brothel house in every street.”
“You built yourself an eminent place Heb. גָב, a height such as pedestal or an altar. You built Heb. וַתִּבְנִי, an expression for building.”
“Thou hast built thy high place at every head of the way,.... Where two or more ways, or two or more streets, met; and so was most conspicuous, and was seen from different parts; which shows the same as before: and hast made thy beauty to be abhorred; by the Lord himself, Who otherwise greatly desires and delights in the beauty of his people, when they worship him, Psa 45:11; and by all good men, and such as fear the Lord, who cannot but abhor such idolatrous practices, and those that are guilty of them; and even by the Heathens themselves, to whom the Jews became mean and despicable, when they fell into idolatry, and under the displeasure of God, whom they forsook; as a common strumpet becomes, in process of time, loathsome to her quondam lovers: and hast opened thy feet to everyone that passed by; an euphemism, signifying the exposing to view the privities or secret parts, in order to allure to impure embraces; and the meaning is, that the Jews were ready to receive any idol, and give into any idolatrous worship that offered to them, and even courted and solicited the Gentiles to join with them in all idolatrous practices: and multiplied thy whoredoms; or idolatries; the number of their idols being answerable to their cities, and even were as many as the streets and heads of ways in them.”
“Thou hast also built unto thee an eminent place - גב gab, a stew or brothel; Vulg. lupanar; Septuag. οικημα πορνικον. So my old MS. Bible, a bordel house. "Thou hast builded thy stewes and bordell houses in every place." - Coverdale's Bible, 1636. Bordel is an Italian word: how it got so early into our language I know not. Our modern word brothel is a corruption of it. Diodati translates, Tu hai edificato un bordello, "Thou hast built a brothel." Houses of this kind were of a very ancient date.”
“eminent place--rather, "a fornication-chamber," often connected with the impure rites of idolatry; spiritual fornication, on "an eminent place," answering to "fornication-chamber," is mainly meant, with an allusion also to the literal fornication associated with it (Jer 2:20; Jer 3:2).”
The in-app commentary runs from the Fathers to the early-modern record, then stops — that's where the public-domain sources end, not where the reading does. For the modern reading, follow the sources directly.