Verse 16
16. Two calves See at 1 Kings 12:28.
Grove See note on 1 Kings 14:15.
Worshipped all the host of heaven In our note on 2 Kings 16:10 we observed that the Assyrian astral worship was probably introduced into the kingdoms of Israel and Judah in the times of Pekah and Ahaz, and 2 Kings 21:3; 2 Kings 23:5; 2 Kings 23:11 show that it was common in Judah in the times of Manasseh and Ammon. But long anterior to this it may have been introduced in connexion with the Baal and Ashtoreth worship of Phenicia, for Ashtoreth was not without a sidereal character. “It is not by any means easy,” says Wilkins, ( Phenicia and Israel, p. 171,) “to determine the exact form which the worship of the heavenly bodies took in the various nations of Western Asia. The purest form of star worship was that of the Assyrio-Persian magism; it admitted of no images of the deity, and in its adoration of the heavenly bodies it drew its deepest inspiration from the thought of their perfect beauty. This was the cultus to which Job (xxxi, 26) felt himself tempted when he ‘beheld the sun when it shined, or the moon walking in brightness.’ Compare Deuteronomy 4:19. A second mode of regarding the stars was that of the Phenicians, by whom they were looked upon as the originators of the growth and decay of nature the embodiment of the creative and generative principle; and from this view there was readily developed a further symbolism, which led ere long to the grossest idolatry. The third great system of astral worship was that whose leading tendency was to dwell rather on the contemplation of the eternal unchangeableness of the heavenly bodies, as contrasted with the chances and changes of this transitory life. This was the form most common among the Chaldeans, and naturally produced the astrology for which they were famous. It is not always possible to determine which form of the worship of the host of heaven was that which presented itself as a temptation to the children of Israel; on the whole, we may assume it to have been the second, not only from the connexion in which it is mentioned, but also from the circumstances of the case.”
Served Baal See note on 1 Kings 16:31.
Be the first to react on this!
