y the statement that the people "served Baalim and
Ashtaroth"--the plurals of Baal and Ashtoreth--these representing the
sun and moon, and reigning as king and queen in heaven. When the
Philistines fought with Saul at Mount Gilboa, and he was slain, they
stripped off his armour and put it "in the house of Ashtaroth." Yet
later we find that Solomon loved strange women of the Zidonians, who
turned his heart after Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Zidonians, and he
built a high place for her on the right hand of the Mount of Olives,
which remained for some three and a half centuries, until Josiah, the
king, defiled it. Nevertheless, the worship of Ashtoreth continued, and
the prophet Jeremiah describes her cult:--

"The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire,
and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of
heaven."

This was done in the cities of Judah and streets of Jerusalem, but the
Jews carried the cult with them even when they fled into Egypt, and
whilst there they answered Jeremiah--

"We will certainly do whatsoever thing goeth forth out of our
own mouth, to burn incense unto the queen of heaven, and to
pour out drink offerings unto her, as we have done, we, and
our fathers, our kings, and our princes, in the cities of
Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem: for then had we plenty
of victuals, and were well, and saw no evil. But since we left
off to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out
drink offerings unto her, we have wanted all things, and have
been consumed by the sword and by the famine."

_Ashtoreth_, according to Pinches[90:1] is evidently a lengthening of
the name of the Assyrio-Babylonian goddess I[vs]tar, and the Babylonian
legend of the Descent of I[vs]tar may well have been a myth founded on
the varying phases of the moon. But it must be remembered that, though
Ashtoreth or I[vs]tar might be the queen of heaven, the moon was not
necessarily the only aspect in which her worshippers recognized her. In
others, the planet Venus may have been chosen as her representative; in
others the constellation Taurus, at one time the leader of the Zodiac;
in others, yet again, the actual form of a material bull or cow.

The Hebrews recognized the great superiority in brightness of the sun
over the moon, as testified in their names of the "greater" and "lesser"
lights, and in such passages as that already quoted from