While contemplating this thread I was reminded of the many references to "obelisks" in some translations, King James and others read either "columns" or "pillars" but obelisks are a better description or should I say gives a more textured, insightful meaning to certain verses.
First off here is a definition/description of an obelisk;
History of the Egyptian Obelisks
The obelisk, called TEJEN in the sacred language of the ancient
Egyptians, was a term which was synonymous with "protection" or "defense." The needle of stone had the function of perforating the clouds and dispersing negative forces that always threaten to accumulate, in the form of visible storms
or invisible ones, and was placed over the temple as a symbol of a petrified ray.
The word "Obelisk" comes from the Greek obeliskos, meaning a prong for roasting. It is a stone that is frequently monolithic, of a quadrangular base, placed upright and ending with a pointed top. It was placed in the center of large open spaces in the temples of the solar god RA. They arose, by the time of the predynastic period cults, to a great sacred stone which was raised in the Temple of Heliopolis, the "City of the Sun." As with the pyramids, this monument had a primitive relation with the solar cult.
As a general rule, obelisks were erected in pairs and served to magically protect the temple.
The obelisk is composed of two parts:the body and the pyramidon. The body is a long block of a conic trunk section and the pyramidon symbolizes the rays of the sun. The top is the point of a pyramid formation which crowns the monolith and rested on a base. It was plated in gold, a metal which the Egyptians affirmed was the "flesh of the gods."
Now this from;
Exodus 34 (Ampilfied)
12Take heed to yourself, lest you make a covenant or mutual agreement with the inhabitants of the land to which you go, lest it become a snare in the midst of you.
13But you shall destroy their altars, dash in pieces their pillars (obelisks, images), and cut down their Asherim [symbols of the goddess Asherah];
14For you shall worship no other god; for the Lord, Whose name is Jealous, is a jealous (impassioned) God,
15Lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and when they play the harlot after their gods and sacrifice to their gods and one invites you, you eat of his food sacrificed to idols,
16And you take of their daughters for your sons, and their daughters play the harlot after their gods and make your sons play the harlot after their gods.
17You shall make for yourselves no molten gods.
18The Feast of Unleavened Bread you shall keep. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, in the time of the month of Abib; for in the month of Abib you came out of Egypt.
And;
2 Chronicles 31:1
NOW WHEN all this was finished, all Israel present there went out to the cities of Judah and broke in pieces the pillars or obelisks, cut down the Asherim, and threw down the high places [of idolatry] and the altars in all Judah and Benjamin, in Ephraim and Manasseh, until they had utterly destroyed them all. Then all the Israelites returned to their own cities, every man to his possession.
I remember Ray touching on this subject and him pointing out the similarity to what one may see when looking up at a roof of a church building, this pointed pillar/obelisk reaching into the sky.
His Peace and Wisdom to you,
Joe