3. The notices of their great wars show that the en- mity between the Philistines and the Israelites was too great for any idolatry to be then borrowed from the for*
IDOLATRY
481
roOLATRY
mcr by the latter, though at an earlier time this was not 1 the case. Under Samuel's administration a fast was held, and purificatory rites performed, to mark tlie public re- nunciation of idolatry (1 Sam. vii, 3-G). Said's family were, however, tainted, as it seems, with idolatry, for the names of Ishbosheth or Esh-baal, and Mepliibosheth or jNIerib-baal, can scarcely have been given but in hon- or of Baal. From tlie circumstances of Michal's strata- gem to save David, it seems not only that Saul's family kept teraphim, but, apparently, that they used them for piu-poses of divination, the Sept. having "liver" for " pillow," as if the Hebr. had been IllS instead of the present ^^^'2. See Pillow. The circumstance of having teraphim, more especially if they were used for divination, lends especial force to Samuel's reproof of Saul (1 Sam. xv, 23). During the reign of David idol- atry ill public is unmentioned, and no doubt was almost unknown. See David.
The earlier days of Solomon were the happiest of the kingdom of Israel. The Temple worship was fully es- tablished, with the highest magnificence, and there M'as no excuse for that worship of God at high places which seems to have been before permitted on account of the constant distractions of the country. But the close of that reign was marked by an apostasy of which we read with wondei*. Hitherto the people had been the sinners, their leaders reformers ; this time the king, led astray by his many strange wives, perverted the people, and raised liigh places on the jNIount of Corruption, op- posite God's temple. He worshipped Ashtoreth, god- dess of the Zidonians, Chemosh, the god of the Moab- ites, and jNIilcom, the abomination of the Ammonites, building high places for the latter two, as well as for all the gods of his strange wives. Solomon, no doubt, was very tolerant, and would not prevent these women from following their native superstitions, even if they felt it a duty to burn their and his children before Molech. Foreign idolatry was openly imitated. Three of the summits of Olivet were crowned with the high places of Ashtoreth, Chemosh, and INIolech (1 Kings xi, 7 ; 2 Kings xxiii, 13), and the fourth, in memory of his great apostasy, was branded with the opprobrious title of the "Mount of Corruption." Calamity speedily followed this great apostasy : the latter j^ears of Solomon were troubled by continual premonitions of those political re- verses which were the inevitable penalty of this high- treason against tlie theocracy. This is clearly brought out by the marked and frequent denunciations of the later prophets. — Kitto ; Smith. See Solomon.
Rehoboam, the son of an Ammonitish mother, perpet- uated the worst features of Solomon's idolatry (1 Kings xiv, 22-2i) ; and in his reign was made the great schism in the national reUgion — when Jeroboam, fresh from his recollections of the Apis worship of Egypt, erected gold- en calves at Bethel and at Dan, and by this crafty state policy severed forever the kingdoms of Judah and Is- rael (1 Kings xii, 20-33). To their use were temples consecrated, and the service in their honor was studi- ously copied from the IMosaic ritual. High-priest him- self, Jeroboam ordained priests from the lowest ranks (2 Chron. xi, 15) ; incense and sacrifices were offered, and a solemn festival appointed, closely resembling the feast of tabernacles (1 Kings xii, 23, 33 ; comp. Amos iv, 4, 5). See Jeroboam. The worship of the calves, " the sin of Israel" (Hos. x, 8), which was apparently associated with the goat-worship of Mendes (2 Chron. xi, 15; Herod. ii,4G) or of the ancient Zabii (Lewis, Oriff. Ilebr. V, 3), and the Asherim (1 Kings xiv, 15 ; A.V. "groves"), ultimately spread to the kingdom of Judab, and centred in Beersheba (Amos v, 5; vii, 9). At what precise pe- riod it was introduced into the latter kingdom is not certain. The Chronicles tell us how Abijah taunted Jeroboam with his apostasy, while the less partial nar- rative in 1 Kings represents his own conduct as far from exemplary (1 Kings xv, 3). Asa's sweeping reform spared not even the idol of his grandmother jNIaachah, and, with the exception of the high places, he removed IV.— Hh
all relics of idolatrous worship (1 Kings xv, 12-14), with its accompanying impurities. His reformation was completed by Jehoshaphat (2 Chron. xvii, G). See each king in alphabetical order.
The successors of Jeroboam followed in liis steps, till Aliab, who married a Zidonian princess, at her instiga- tion (1 Kings xxi, 25) built a temple and altar to Baal, and revived all the abominations of the Amorites (1 Kings xxi, 2G). For this he attained the bad pre-emi- nence of having done " more to provoke Jehovah, the God of Israel, to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him" (1 Kings xvi, 33). Compared with the worship of Baal, the worship of the calves was a venial offence, probably because it was morally less de- testable, and also less anti-national (1 Kings xii, 28; 2 Kings X, 28-31). See Elijah. Henceforth Baal-wor- ship became so completely identified with the northern kingdom that it is described as walking in the way or statutes of the kings of Israel (2 Kings xvi, 3 ; xvii, 8), as distinguished from the sin of Jeroboam, which ceased not till the Captivity (2 Kings xvii, 23), and the corrup- tion of the ancient inhabitants of the land. The idola- trous priests became a numerous and important caste (1 Kings xviii, 19), Uving under the patronage of royalty, and fed at the royal table. The extiqiation of Baal's priests by Elijah, and of his followers by Jehu (2 Kings x), in which the royal family of Judah shared (2 Chron. xxii,7), was a death-blow to this form of idolatry in Is- rael, though other systems still remained (2 Kings xiii, G). But, while Israel thus sinned and was punished, Judah was morally more giulty (Ezek. xvi, 51). The alliance of Jehoshaphat with the family of Ahab trans- ferred to the southern kingdom, during the reigns of his son and grandson, all the appurtenances of Baal-worship (2 Kings viii, 18, 27). In less than ten years after the death of that king, in whose praise it is recorded that he " sought not the Baalim," nor walked " after the deed of Israel" (2 Chron. xvii, 3, 4), a temple had been built for the idol, statues and altars erected, and priests appointed to minister in his service (2 Kings xi, 18). Jehoiada's vigorous measures checked the evil for a time, but his reform was incomplete, and the high places still re- mained, as in the days of Asa, a nucleus for any fresh system of idolatry (2 Kings xii, 3). IMuch of this might be due to the influence of the king's mother, Zibiah of Beersheba, a place intimately connected with tlie idola- trous defection of Judah (Amos viii, 14). After the death of Jehoiada, the princes prevailed upon Joash to restore at least some portion of his father's idolatry (2 Chron. xxiv, 18). The conquest of the Edomites by Amaziah introduced the worship of their gods, which had disappeared since the days of Solomon (2 Chron. XXV, 14, 20). After this period, even the kings who did not lend themselves to the encouragement of false wor- ship had to contend with the corruption ^v•hich still lin- gered in the hearts of the people (2 Kings xv, 35 ; 2 Chron. xxvii, 2). Hitherto the temple had been kept pure. The statues of Baal and the other gods were worshipped in their own shrines ; but Ahaz, who " sac- rificed imto the gods of Damascus, which smote him" (2 Chron. xxviii, 23), and built altars to them at every cor- ner of Jerusalem, and high places in every city of Judah, replaced the brazen altar of burnt-offering by one made after the model of " the altar" of Damascus, and dese- crated it to his own uses (2 Kings xvi, 10-15).