a. Sun-worship, though mentioned with other kinds of high nature-worship, as in the enumeration of those suppressed by Josiah, seems to have been practiced alone as well as with the adoration of other heavenlj' bodies. In Ezekiel's remarkable vision of the idolatries of Jeru- salem, he saw about four-and-twenty men between the porch and the altar of the Temple, with their backs to the Temple and their faces to the east, worshipping the sun (Ezek. viii, 16). Josiah had before this taken away " the horses that the kings of Judah had given to the sun, at the entering in of the house of the Lord," and had " burned the chariots of the siui with fire" (2 Kings xxiii, 11). The same part of the temple is perhaps here meant. There is nothing to show whether these were images or living horses. The horse was sacred to the sun among the Carthaguiians, but the worship of the visible smi instead of an image looks rather like a Per- sian or an Arab custom. See Sun.
h. In the account of Josiah's reform we read of the abolition of the worsliip of Baal, the sun, the moon, Mazzaloth, also called Mazzaroth (Job xxxviii, 32), which we hold to be the mansions of the moon [see Astronomy], and all the host of heaven (2 Kings xxiii, 5). Manasseh is related to have served " all the host of heaven" (xxi, 3). Jeremiah speaks of "the houses of Jerusalem, and the houses of the kings of Judah," as to be defiled, " because of all the houses upon Mhose roofs they have burned incense unto ' all the host of heaven, and have poured out drink-offerings unto other gods" (Jer. xix, 13). In this prophet's time the people of Judah and Jerusalem, among other abominations, made cakes for " the queen of heaven," or " the worship of heaven:" a different form justifying the latter read- ing. The usual reading is T^b:;, queen, which the Sept. once foUows, the ViUg. always ; some copies give rrxbp, worship, that is, '-a deity or goddess." The former reading seems preferable, and the context in two passages in Jeremiah shows that an abstract sense is not admissible (xliv, 17, 18, 19, 25). In Egypt, the remnant that fled after the murder of Gedaliah were warned by the prophet to abandon those idolatrous prac- tices for which their country and cities had been deso- lated. The men, conscious that their wives had burned incense to false gods in Egypt, declared that thcj^ would certainly bum incense and pour out cbink-offerings to the queen of heaven, as they, their fathers, their kings, and their princes had done in a time of plenty, asserting that since they had left off these practices they had been consumed by the sword and by famine : for this a fresh doom was pronounced upon them (ch. xliv). It is very difficult to conjecture what goddess can be here meant : Ashtoreth would suit, but is nover mentioned interchangeably; the moon must be rejected for the same reason. Here Ave certainly see a strong resem-
IDOLATRY
483
IDOLATRY
blance to Arab idolatry, which was wholly composed of cosmic worsliip and of fetishism, and in which the man- sions of the moon were reverenced on account of their connection with seasons of rain. This system of cosmic worsliip may have been introduced from the Nabathre- ans or Edomites of Petra, from the Sabians, or from other Arabs or Chaldreans. See Queen of Heaa'en.
c. Two idols, Gad, "t^, or Fortune, and 3Iem, "^ar, or Fate, from rii'O, he or it divided, assigned, numbered, arc spoken of in a single passage in the later part of Isaiah (Ixv, 11). Gesenius, depentUng upon the theory of the post-Isaian authorship of Ihc later chapters of the proph- et, makes these to be idols worshipjied by the Jews in Babylonia, but it must be remarked that their names are not traceable in Babylonian and Assyrian mytholo- gy. Gesenius has, however, following Pococke {Spec. liist. A rabum, p. 93), compared Meni -with Jlfanah, a goddess of the pagan Arabs, worshipped in the form of a stone between Mekkeh and El-;Mednieli by the tribes of Hiidheyl and Khuzaah. But El-Beydawi, though de- riving the name of this idol from the root mana, " he cut," supposes it was thus called because victims were slain upon it {Comment, in Goran, ed. Fleischer, p. 293). This meaning certainly seems to disturb the idea that the two idols were identical, but the mention of the sword and slaughter as punishments of the idolaters who worshipped Gad and ]\Ieni is not to be forgotten. Gad may have been a Canaanitish form of Baal, if we are to judga from the geographical name Baal-gail of a place at the foot of Mount Hermon (Josh. xi. 17 ; xii, 7 ; xiii, 5). Perhaps the grammaucal form of JMeni may throw some light upon the origin of this idolatry. The worship of both idols resembles that of tlie cosmic di- vinities of the later kings of Judah. See Mexi.
(7. In Ezekiel's vision of the idolatries of Jerusalem he beheld a chamber of imagery in the Temple itself, having "every form of creeping things, and abominable beasts, and [or ei'en~\ all the idols of the house of Israel, portrayed upon the wall round about," and seventy Is- raelitish elders offering incense (Ezek. viii, 7-1 2). This is so exact a description of an Egyptian sanctuary, with the idols depicted upon its walls, dimly lighted, and filled with incense-offering priests, that we cannot for a moment doubt that these Jews derived from Egypt their fetishism, for such this special worship appears mainly, if not ivholly to liave been. See Ijiagerv, Cjiambeu of.