Queen of Heaven

There can be but little doubt but by the phrase we meet with Jer. 7: 18. queen of heaven, was meant the moon; and such was the apostacy of Israel in the days of Jeremiah, that as the prophet tells them, the "children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough to make cakes to the queen of heaven."

There had been always in Israel from their intercourse with other nations, a proneness to idolatry; and hence Moses cautioned them against being infected therewith. I beg the reader to turn to the fourth chapter of Deuteronomy, and observe, from beginning to end, with what tenderness and affection the man of God admonished Israel on this point.

Concerning the disposition to pay adoration to the heavenly bodies, we find this, more or less, pervading the human mind untaught of God among all nations. And as the greater light, the sun which JEHOVAH made to rule the day, was called Baal Shemim, lord of heaven, so the lesser light, the moon, which governed the night, was naturally called Malkah Shemem, queen of heaven; and from the influence of both they naturally became idle. While we behold such things, what cause of thankfulness ought it to call forth towardsGod, who by the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, hath opened to us the knowledge of himself, that we might turn from idols to serve the living and true God! Beautifully hath Moses pointed out to us, in his dying benediction to Israel, the blessedness of the Israel of God beyond the precious fruits brought forth by the sun, and the precious things put forth by the moon, in the good will of him that dwelt in the bush. (Deut. 33. 14. 16.)

[ASHTORETH]

A name given by the Hebrew idolaters to the moon, Jer 7:18 44:17-18. See ASHITORETH.\par

Queen of Heaven. Jer 7:18; Jer 44:17-19; Jer 44:25. The Queen of Heaven is the moon goddess, Ashtaroth or Astarte, to whom Hebrew women worshiped by offering cakes in the streets of Jerusalem. See Ashtaroth.

Astarte (See ASHTORETH.) (Jer 7:18; Jer 44:17-25). Wife of Baal or Moloch, "king of heaven." The male and female pair symbolized nature’s generative powers, from whence prostitution was practiced in her worship. The worshippers stoutly refused to give up her worship, attributing their recent deprival of plenty to discontinuing her service, and their former plenty to her service. God makes fools’ present prosperity their doom (Pro 1:32) and does good to His people in their latter end (Deu 8:16). In Jer 44:19 Maurer translated "did we form her image." Crescent-shaped cakes were offered to the moon. Beltis, the female of Bel or Baal, was the Babylonian "queen of heaven." Ishtar the Babylonian Venus (in the Sardanapalus inscriptions) was also "the mistress of heaven and earth." Babylon, Israel’s instrument of sin, was in righteous retribution made Israel’s punishment (Jer 2:19).

See MOON.

QUEEN OF HEAVEN (Heb. m^elekheth hash-shâmayîm).—An object of worship to the people of Jerusalem (Jer 7:16-20) and the Jewish exiles in Egypt (Jer 44:15-30). The Massoretes evidently took the first word as m^ele’kheth (‘work,’ ‘creation’)—supposing that the silent aleph (’) had been omitted—and considered the expression a synonym for ‘Host of Heaven’ (ts^ebhâ’ hash-shâmayîm, Jer 8:2; Jer 19:13, Zep 1:5, Deu 4:19; Deu 17:3 etc.). In apparent confirmation of this view we have the fact that this term seems to be used in a collective sense as equivalent to ‘other gods.’ On the other hand, many modern scholars regard malkath (‘queen’) as the correct reading, and suppose the cultus to be a worship of the Semitic Mother-goddess, the Phœnician Ashtart = the Assyr. [Note: Assyrian.] Ishtar (see Ashtoreth). Indeed, Ishtar is called in Assyr. [Note: Assyrian.] inscriptions Bçlit Shamç (‘lady of heaven’) and Sharrat Shamç (‘queen of heaven’); but Malkat Shamç (which is the cognate of the term under discussion, and which in Assyr. [Note: Assyrian.] means ‘princess of heaven’) is not one of her titles. The fact that cakes were offered in this worship has little evidential value, as we find this rite a frequent feature in Semitic worship. In Arabia, cakes were offered to the goddess of the evening-star and to the sun-god; and the Israelites offered bread and cakes to Jahweh (see ‘Meal-offering’ and ‘Shewbread’ in art. Sacrifice). Cf. the modern Jewish mazzôth.

W. M. Nesbit.

(השּׁמים מלכת, m^elekheth ha-shāmayim, although there is another reading, מלאכת, m^ele’kheth, “worship” or “goddess”): Occurs only in two passages: Jer 7:18; Jer 44:17-19, Jer 44:25, where the prophet denounces the wrath of God upon the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem who have given themselves up to the worship of the host of heaven. This is no doubt a part of the astral worship which is found largely developed among the Jews in the later period of their history in Canaan. It is first mentioned in 2Ki 17:16 as practiced by the men of the Northern Kingdom when Samaria had fallen and the ten tribes were being carried away into captivity. Moses is represented as warning the Israelites against the worship of the sun and moon and stars and all the host of heaven, practiced by the people of Canaan (Deu 4:19; Deu 17:3) and the existence of such worship among the Canaanites and neighboring nations is attested from an early period (compare Job 31:26-28). The worship of the heavenly bodies was widely spread in the East and in Arabia; and the Babylonian pantheon was full of astral deities, where each divinity corresponded either to an astral phenomenon or to some circumstance or occurrence in Nature which is connected with the course of the stars (Jeremias, The Old Testament in the Light of the Ancient East, I, 100). From the prophets we gather that before the exile the worship of the host of heaven had become established among all classes and in all the towns of Israel (Jer ubi supra; Eze 8:16). In that worship the queen of heaven had a conspicuous place; and if, as seems probable from the cakes which were offered, she is to be identified with the Assyrian Ishtar and the Canaanite Astarte, the worship itself was of a grossly immoral and debasing character. That this Ishtar cult was of great antiquity and widely spread in ancient Babylonia may be seen from the symbols of it found in recent excavations (see Nippur, II, 236). How far the astral theorists like Winckler and Jeremias are entitled to link up with this worship the mourning for Josiah, the lamentations over Tammuz, the story of Jephthah’s daughter, and even - the narrative of the misfortunes and the exaltation of Joseph, is questionable. But that the people of Judah in the days before the exile had given themselves over to the worst and vilest forms of heathen worship and incurred the grievous displeasure of Yahweh is made clear by the denunciation of the worship of the queen of heaven by Jeremiah.

.

Probably the false

goddess Astarte. She was the goddess of

sex and war, worshiped by the people of

Mesopotamia. They thought she was the

planet Venus, which looks like a star in

the sky.