Queen of Heaven
QUEEN OF HEAVEN
A name given by the Hebrew idolaters to the moon, Jer 7:18 44:17-18. See ASHITORETH.
Fuente: American Tract Society Bible Dictionary
Queen Of Heaven
In Jer 7:18; Jer 44:17-19; Jer 44:25, the Heb. , meleketh hash-shamayim, is thus rendered in the A. V. In the margin is given frame or workmanship of heaven, for in twenty of Kennicott’s MSS. the reading is , of which this is the translation, and the same is the case in fourteen MSS. of Jer 44:18, and in thirteen of Jer 44:19. The latter reading is followed by the Sept. and Peshito Syriac in Jer 7:18, but in all the other passages the received text is adopted, as by the Vulg. in every instance. Kimchi says is wanting, and it is as if workmanship of heaven,’ i.e. the stars; and some interpret the queen of heaven,’ i.e. a great star which is in the heavens. Rashi is in favor of the latter; and the Targum renders throughout the star of heaven. Kircher was in favor of some constellation, the Pleiades or Hyades. It is generally believed that the queen of heaven is the moon (comp. siderum regina, Horace, Carm. Sec. 35, and regina coeli, Apul. Met. 11:657), worshipped as Ashtaroth or Astarte, to whom the Hebrew women offered cakes in the streets of Jerusalem. Hitzig (Der Proph. Jeremia, p. 64) says the Hebrews gave this title to the Egyptian Neith, whose name in the form Ta-nith, with the Egyptian article, appears with that of Baai Hamman, on four Carthaginian inscriptions. It is little to the purpose to inquire by what other names this goddess was known among the Phoenician colonists; the Hebrews, in the time of Jeremiah, appear not to have given her any special title. The Babylonian Venus. according to Harpocration (quoted by Selden, De Dis Syris [ed. 1617], synt. 2, cap. 6, p. 220), was also styled the queen of heaven. Mr. Layard identifies Hera, the second deity mentioned by Diodorus, with Astarte, Mylitta, or Venus, and with the queen of heaven,’ frequently mentioned in the sacred volumes…
The planet which bore her name was sacred to her, and in the Assyrian sculptures a star is placed upon her head. She was called Beltis, because she was the female form of the great divinity, or Baal; the two, there is reason to conjecture, having been originally but one, and androgyne. Her worship penetrated from Assvria into Asia Minor, where its Assyrian origin was recognised. In the rock tablets of Pterium she is represented; as in those of Assyria, standing erect on a lion, and crowned with a tower or mural coronet, which, we learn from Lucian, was peculiar to the Shemitic figure of the goddess. This may have been a modification of the high cap of the Assyrian bas-reliefs. A figure of Astarte found in Etruria represents her as winged (Rawlinson, Herod. ii, 404). To the Shemites she was known under the names of Astarte, Ashtaroth, Mylitta, and Alitta, according to the various dialects of the nations among which her worship prevailed (Nineveh, ii, 454, 456, 457). It is so difficult to separate the worship of the moon- goddess from that of the planet Venus in the Assyrian mythology when introduced among the Western nations that the two are frequently confused. Movers believes that Ashtoreth was originally the moon- goddess, while according to Rawlinson (Herod. i, 521) Ishtar is the Babylonian Venus, one of whose titles in the Sardanapalus inscriptions is the mistress of heaven and earth (see Onias, De [Alt. 1666]). SEE ASHTORETH.
With the cakes (, carvvanmi; Sept. which were offered in her honor, with incense and libations, Selden compares the (A. V. bran) of Ep. of Jeremiah 43, which were burned by the women who sat by the wayside near the idolatrous temples for the purposes of prostitution. These were offered in sacrifice to Hecate while invoking her aid for success in love (Theocr. ii, 33). The Targum gives , kanrdutin, which elsewhere appears to be the Greek , a sleeved tunic. Rashi says the cakes had the image of the god stamped upon them, and Theodoret that they contained pine-cones and raisins. SEE CAKE.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Queen of heaven
(Jer. 7:18; 44:17, 25), the moon, worshipped by the Assyrians as the receptive power in nature.
Fuente: Easton’s Bible Dictionary
Queen of Heaven
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).
Fuente: Fausset’s Bible Dictionary
Queen Of Heaven
QUEEN OF HEAVEN (Heb. melekheth hash-shmaym).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 melekheth (work, creation)supposing that the silent aleph () had been omittedand considered the expression a synonym for Host of Heaven (tsebh hash-shmaym, 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 Phnician Ashtart = the Assyr. [Note: Assyrian.] Ishtar (see Ashtoreth). Indeed, Ishtar is called in Assyr. [Note: Assyrian.] inscriptions Blit Sham (lady of heaven) and Sharrat Sham (queen of heaven); but Malkat Sham (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 mazzth.
W. M. Nesbit.
Fuente: Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible
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 towards God, 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.” (Deu 33:14; Deu 33:16)
Fuente: The Poor Mans Concordance and Dictionary to the Sacred Scriptures
Queen of Heaven
( , melekheth ha-shamayim, although there is another reading, , mele’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.
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Fuente: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Queen of Heaven
[ASHTORETH]
Fuente: Popular Cyclopedia Biblical Literature
Queen of Heaven
See MOON.
Fuente: Concise Bible Dictionary
Queen of Heaven
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.