This terminology derives fundamentally from the context of cultic processions in which the devotees of a divinity would follow the image of a deity carried by priests to and from places of religious celebration. Here it is used more generally of any expression of spiritual commitment.
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12 And they abandoned the LORD, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. They went after other gods, from among the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed down to them. And they provoked the LORD to anger.