Judg 3:7, implementing the programmatic cycle
of 2:11-19,
stipulates that "The Israelites did what was evil in Yhwh's
sight, and forgot Yhwh their god, and served the baals [plural]
and the asherahs
[plural]." This polytheistic apostasy is thus
established as the referent for "The Israelites did what was
evil...
" at the start of the cycles of succeeding major judges
(3:12; 4:1; 6:1; 13:1).[20] Two texts are more specific.
Judg
8:33 states that on Gideon's death, the Israelites "whored after
the baals, and made Baal Berit into their god
". The particular
figure of Baal Berit is drawn from the Abimelek story (Judg 9:4),
but the editorial elaboration on that attestation deserves
particular attention: service to Baal Berit implies service not
just to one figure, but to many, to the baals generally. The
editor's choice of the plural term here is a device to avoid the
collective singular, and thus ambiguity in his formulation.
Conversely, "the baal" with the altar in Judg 6:25-32 is
understood to be a single figure (esp. 6:31-32).
Even more elaborate is the indictment in Judg 10:6-16.
Here, the Israelite relapse explicitly involves service to "the
baals and the ashtorets and the gods of Aram[21] and the gods of
Sidon and the gods of Moab and the gods of the children of Ammon
and the gods of the Philistines
" (10:6).
From the formulation,
one might expect that the baals and ashtorets were to be
divorced, as the gods of aboriginal Canaanites, from the gods of
the Iron-Age successor-nations -- the Arameans, Phoenicians,
Transjordanian Hebrews and Philistines. Yet the continuation
belies such an inference: the Israelites confess, "We served the
baals
" (10:10), a text quoted at 1 Sam 12:10
as, "We served the
baals and the ashtorets.
" The term "baals" here includes the
various gods mentioned in Judg 10:6, as "the baals and the
ashtorets
" in 1 Sam 12:10 does. Yhwh's rebuttal then mentions
"other gods
" (10:13), so the Israelites remove "the foreign gods
"
(10:16). The "baal/baals" in Josianic usage, and the ashtorets,
are all other gods, foreign gods, including the Host (17:3). The
Host and the baal were in large measure congruent.
For the Host and the baal, a typical cult practice was to
burn incense on rooftops -- Jer 19:13 (c.f.
8:2-3); 32:29 -- where
various cultic activities took place (1 Sam 9:25-26, the
designation of Saul; 2 Sam 16:2 after 11:2, Absalom entering
David's harem on the spot where David had spotted Bathsheba; Isa
22:1,13, sacrificial feasting in the face of Sennacherib's
destruction of the countryside; Neh 8:16, tabernacles on the
rooves; Isa 15:3; Jer 48:38, Moabite mourning on rooftops [and in
streets and piazzas]; Judg 16:27, Philistines watching Samson
from the temple roof; cf. Josh 2:6, Rahab's roof with psty h`s
spread out; Prov 21:9; 25:24). This is also identified as the
locus of proskynesis to the host in Zeph 1:5. It follows that
Ahaz's "upper chamber
" with the altars built by "the kings of
Judah
" was an astral installation on the rooftop outside of an
interior upper chamber, possibly a throne room or a wing of the
clerestory of the temple (Halpern 1988:43-54): as in the case of
Solomon's high places on the Mount of Olives, the cult of the
host survived Hezekiah's measures unimpaired. The cultic
activity attested for the host is the same as that attested for
the baals, chiefly burning incense and child sacrifice (Jeremiah,
above, and Ps 106:28, 38, zbhw l`sby kn`n). Again,
Spieckermann's (1982:83-85) identification of the kmrym of Hos
10:5; Zeph 1:4; 2 Kgs 23:4 as priests of astral cults is central:
it was "to burn incense on the high places in the towns of Judah
and on the outskirts of Jerusalem
" that "the kings of Judah
" had
appointed the kmrym -- who led those "who burned incense to the
baal: to the sun and to the moon and to the constellations and
to all the Host of the Heavens.
" The collocation is not
accidental, but essential. The suppression of Ahaz's upper
chamber with the altars built by the kings of Judah (starting,
one presumes, at least with Ahaz himself: contrast "the altar
which Manasseh made
" in the same verse), the suppression of the
astral priests appointed by the kings of Judah -- including in
the vicinity of Jerusalem, where Solomon's high places continued
in use -- the devotion of the kings of Judah to the Queen of
Heaven and to the Host/baal(s) are all of a piece.
The restriction of the cult to incense offerings is of particular interest. Exod 22:19, zbh l'lhym yhrm blty lyhwh lbdw, already proscribes animal sacrifice for any god but Yhwh. This rule may have been honored traditionally, though sometimes, no doubt, as with child sacrifice, in the breach as much as in the observance (contrast Hos 11:2, but note the MT vocalization, in D). By the same lights, no Catholic or traditional Jew or Muslim would imagine that a prohibition on sacrifice to any but the chief god precluded the dedication of candles, or like rites, to Mary, angels, saints or ancestors. Attention lavished on the high god's retainers, after all, was a mere corollary of the worship of the high god.
The noun, zbh, "sacrifice, sacrificial feast (involving
meat)" is applied to "the baal" only in 2 Kgs 10:19,24 in the
Primary History, where Jehu announces such a feast as a trap. In
2 Kgs 5:17, Naaman declares that he will devote neither burnt
offering nor meat sacrifice to other gods, but only to Yhwh:
notably, he makes no such declaration in connection with other
forms of offering, such as incense. As to the verb, zbh, 1 Kgs
11:8 mentions sacrifice (D) by Solomon's foreign wives, along
with incense burning, to their respective gods -- it seems
natural that these foreigners should in fact seek to dedicate
meat sacrifices to their respective high gods (including
Ashtoret). On the same principle, Judg 16:23 mentions a
Philistine sacrifice (G with cognate accusative) to Dagon, Num
22:40 a sacrifice (G) by Balaq, king of Moab. 1 Kgs 12:32 claims
that Jeroboam sacrificed (D) to his calves. Exod 32:8 describes
sacrifices (G, burnt and whole offerings in v 6) to the golden
calf, and Deut 32:17, sacrifices (G) to sedim -- to be
understood, in light of the Deir Alla plaster, as the subordinate
gods of which Yhwh in P, El Shadday, is the chief (cf. Ps 106:37,
G, child sacrifice to sedim). This material is plainly
polemical, and does not represent the subjective experience of
the alleged votaries. Exod 34:15 warns against sacrifice (G) to
the gods of the Canaanites, Lev 17:7 against sacrifice (G) in the
field to demons (?; s`rym; cf. the possible pun in Deut 32:17,
s`rwm), Exod 22:19, as noted, against sacrifice (G) to any other
god but Yhwh. Otherwise, in the Primary History, there is no
reference to sacrifice to alien deities (but in the postexilic
context, 2 Chr 33:22, Amon [D] to "icons", pesilim, a term
inserted in the parallel Hos 11:2 -- [D]; 2 Chr 28:23, where Ahaz
"sacrificed
" [G] to the god[s] of Damascus, saying "Let me
'sacrifice' [D] to the gods of Aram
" -- those who were smiting
him, in the hope of placation according to Chr -- in the latter
case, Chr deduces the act of meat sacrifice from the importation
of an altar on a Damascene model).
Notably, the D stem of zbh is attached to sacrifice not just to foreign gods, but to Yhwh, presumably, on the high places: 1 Kgs 3:2,3; 22:44; 2 Kgs 12:4; 14:4; 15:4,35; 16:4//2 Chr 28:4 (also Hos 4:13-14; 12:12 at Gilgal; probably 13:2, at Adam, en route to Bethel from the Jordan, where the context condemns the calf iconography; contrast 2 Chr 33:17, G, in Chr's non-synoptic section after the rehabilitation of Manasseh; Ezek 20:28, G); and, at the place of the ark rather than in the temple -- 1 Kgs 8:5//2 Chr 5:6. The only place where the D-stem is used of sacrifice that earns an author's unreserved approbation is in 2 Chr 30:22, where, however, it is the Levites, rather than the Aaronides, who conduct the ritual. All this suggests that the D form is applied to irregular activities, and, to judge from participial forms in which the orthography indicates the conjugation, in this matter the Massora merely follows the lead of the consonantal text.
In Isa 57:7, as in Ps 106:28,38, the noun,
zbh pertains to
the funerary cult (at the highland bench-tomb) in connection with
child sacrifice (57:5-6; also 65:3-4, with
"sacrifice on rooftops, burn incense on bricks [?]"
).
Ezek 16:16-21; 20:28-31
likewise places child sacrifice on the high places, in connection
with metal icons, but with no necessary connection to the
funerary cult (Ps 106:37 connects it to sedim).
1 Kgs 13:2
predicts, and 2 Kgs 23:20 relates the sacrifice of priests of the
high places by Josiah, but this to Yhwh, in the way of a ban. 2
Chr 34:4 relates that Josiah's men "tore down the altars of the
baals and chopped down the hmnym which were above them and broke
up the 'aserim and the icons (pesilim) and the plating (of the
icons -- massekot),
" where the altars of the baals and the hmnym
that were above them occupy the place of the "high places" in v
3. In other words, as in Ezek 16:16-21, where it is described at
some length (c.f. 20:28-31, and further below), the main specific
activity connected with the baals, and with the host of heaven,
other than child sacrifice, is incense burning, not meat
sacrifice.
The cultic situation at Tell Miqneh/Eqron IB, in the mid-to-late 7th c. contributes substantially to our understanding of this circumstance. In connection with a huge boom in olive oil production -- to 1.1 million litres/year, minimum, commanding at least 50,000 dunams of groves, and more probably over 100,000 (Eitam and Shomroni 1987:48-49) -- there is a sudden explosion of incense altars. These are found both in the middle room of the processing workshops (where the pressed oil was presumably finished, possibly by the addition of aromatics) and in the elite area. The incense altars are of a type previously found in Israel and Judah, not Philistia, and may well indicate the socialization of Israelite folk religion at Eqron in the 7th century in both the elite and the industrial and domestic zones (Gitin 1989). This would not be inconsistent with the occurrence of the Phoenician-type name, hmlk, (A)himelek (cf. [A]hiram), in an unpublished ostracon on the site (but written in Aramaic script!). Indeed, a deportation of Phoenicians (or of Israelites originating near Phoenicia) to Eqron in the 7th century might explain how the author of Kings came to identify Ashtoret particularly with Sidonians. However, if the incense altars found on the steps of the adyton of the Arad sanctuary are 7th-century (Ussishkin 1988), and thus absent from earlier levels in Judah, the influence at Eqron is probably strictly Israelite.
As to gods at Eqron, an ostracon uncovered in 1990 reads
"sacred
(i.e., dedicated
) to hq..s
" (h-q-r/d-w?-s),
a divine name
or epithet possibly from a dialect related to that of the
patronymics (?) found in the ostraca from Tel Jemme (Naveh 1985).
This would tend to sustain Kempinski's view (1987) that the Jemme
names are traditional ones of Philistine social groups:
conceivably, the Eqron ostracon even reflects a cult of a deified
ancestor or cult founder. Asherah, however, appears in several
ostraca at Eqron (including one complete, "sacred to Asherah
") in
the elite area, where further incense altars were uncovered in
IB.
Iconographically, Asherah was associated with trees (usually palms -- see Hestrin 1987:222-223); it may be that as Asherah gives suck to the gods, she is naturally associated with the production of liquids. If she was the primary object of the incense offerings (or first fruits of the presses) in the industrial zone, we would have at Eqron the first reflex of the theology against which Israel's reformationist literature is railing. Since the burning of incense is regularly associated in Israelite (reformationist) literature with homage to gods inferior to Yhwh called baals and asherot/ashtarot, the generic names for Israelite gods and goddesses (styled foreign in Josianic literature, but see Halpern 1987), the connection seems a likely one. In any case, the situation at Philistine Eqron in the 7th century establishes the basis for later associations of Demeter with the Philistine coast.
Yhwh's asherah, similarly, is the principal candidate for
the goddess called the Queen of Heaven in Jeremiah 44. This
goddess is identified as the traditional recipient of incense,
libations and fragrant cakes or cookies, shaped in her form
(presumably the triangle, later the symbol of Tannit), in the
female cult (44:15-19; 7:18). Yhwh's epithet in the Elephantine
papyri, mr' smy' (also, 'lh smy'), is not unrelated to this
issue: that the Lord of the Heavens' consort should be the Queen
of the Heavens seems most likely. The association of an asherah
with incense, and probably oil-based cakes, at Eqron considerably
strengthens the case. At the same time, the erection of a high
place outside Jerusalem for "Ashtoret the god(dess) of the
Sidonians
" -- and the fact that this is the only proper name for
a goddess (the scantily attested Anat aside) preserved in HB,
suggests that this was the personal name of Yhwh's asherah: the
latter term, as noted, was a common noun in the singular, yet the
standard 7th-century plural for "goddesses" was apparently
"Ashtorets".
Olyan (1988b, against which Hestrin 1987) has made a persuasive case, independent of these considerations, for the identity of the Queen of Heaven with Ashtoret -- the "cookies", for example, used in her cult are denominated by a term cognate to kamanu, the cakes used in Ishtar's cult (Held 1982); Ishtar's name is cognate with that of Ashtoret. It may be added, the association of cakes -- of a sort excluded from the cult of Yhwh in Lev 2:11 - - with the cult of Ashtoret is assured by an epigraph from Kition (KAI 37.A:10; Peckham 1987:96-97 n. 79). First millennium inscriptions mentioning Ashtoret confirm her stature among Phoenicians across the Mediterranean. And there is no doubt that she is sometimes referred to as a heavenly deity, although it is by no means clear that the epithet "queen" attaches to her (as KAI 37.A:7, 10) in contradistinction to the other major goddesses.
Thus, it may well be that Ashtoret as Queen of Heaven is identical with the asherah of the chief god, even that Ashtoret was somehow identified with Asherah proper: a Phoenician shrine in 7th-6th century Egypt was dedicated to twin goddesses, and a similar shrine in 11th-10th-c. Tel Qasile may reflect the early establishment of such a cult in Philistia;[22] in Carthage, there is evidence of a temple devoted in common to Astarte and Tannit of Lebanon (most likely, Asherah; Cross 1973:30, 31-43; Olyan 1988a:53-61). The temple of the Queen of Heaven referred to in Hermopolis Letter 4.1 (Olyan 1988b; Milik 1967:556-564) would presumably have been dedicated to the single figure that emerged from such a union: the goddess, Tannit-Astarte, of the Sareptah ivory plaque, furnishes such a figure, in Phoenicia already in the 7th century, and possibly associated with a wooden icon (Pritchard 1978:104-108; see Peckham 1987:80). Peckham has explored the parallels between the cult of the Queen and Heaven and that of Astarte at Kition (KAI 37), including the mourning rite of cutting one's hair, possibly in connection with a dying god and child sacrifice.[23] The incense central to the cults of the asherah at Eqron, the Queen of Heaven in Judah and in the worship of Ashtoret and Yhwh's asherah, as well as in the cult of the baals and the Host suggests that these cults stood on a level, and reinforces the possibility of their identity in 8th-7th century Judah. In this case, the Queen of Heaven is Ashtoret, identified with but not necessarily compounded with, Asherah.
Incense, used liberally in the cult of Yhwh, appears as an
offering to other gods in a number of texts. qtr ("burn
incense
") without explicit mention of a meat sacrifice, however,
need not imply the absence of the latter. This verb often refers
to the practice of burning the fat for the gods. In fact, Ahaz
in 2 Kgs 16:13 is said to have "burned his burnt offering and his
meal offering as incense
" (wyqtr 't `ltw w't mnhtw).[24] The
nouns, qetoret, qetora and qitor refer to the substances employed
as incense, to the odors thereby produced (also "pleasing
odors
"), and to the fumes respectively. In the last case, no
implication of vegetarianism is present, and this is probably
true in the other cases as well. The instances in HB are as
follows:
In Kings: 1 Kgs 12:33; 13:1: Jeroboam standing by the
altar to burn incense (C), allegedly to his calf -- the referent
may be burnt fat; 2 Kgs 17:11: the Israelites on high places, to
standing stones and asherim, worshipping gillulim forbidden by
Yhwh, identified as Amorite gods, or as icons; 18:4: Israelites,
to Nehushtan, the bronze serpent; 22:17//2 Chr 34:5: in Huldah's
prophecy, to "other gods" (but on "their manufacture/the deeds of
their hands
" cf. Jer 1:16//"other gods"); 23:5: Josiah
"cashiered the kmrym [astral priests] whom the kings of Judah
appointed to [with OG] burn incense on the high places in the
towns of Judah and in the environs of Jerusalem and those who
burned incense to 'the baal': to the sun and to the moon and to
the constellations and to all the host of heaven
"; cf. 23:4,
"implements donated to 'the baal' and 'the asherah' and to all
the host of heaven
"; 23:8, "the high places where the priests
burned incense from Geba to Beersheva
").
In Jeremiah: Jer 11:12-13: "So the towns of Judah and the
inhabitants of Jerusalem will go forth, and cry out to the gods
to whom they burn incense. But these will never deliver them in
their time of evil fate. For as the number of your towns were
your gods, Judah, and as the number of Jerusalem's streets your
made altars to 'Shame', altars to burn incense to 'the baal'
"
(collective plural); 44:21-23: "is this not the incense-burning
which you burned in the towns of Judah and in the streets of
Jerusalem, you and your fathers and your kings and your officials
and the people of the land, and Yhwh remembered and it entered
his mind...and your land became desolate, and a waste, and a
curse for want of residents as on this day, because you burned
incense and sinned against Yhwh...
"; 19:13: "all the houses
where they burned incense on their rooftops to all the host of
heaven and poured out libations to other gods
"; 32:29: "and the
houses where they burned incense on their rooftops to 'the baal'
[collective plural] and poured out libations to other gods
";
44:3,5,8,15,17,18,19,21,23,25: Jerusalem fell because Judahites
angered Yhwh by burning incense "to other gods, whom they didn't
know, they, you, and your fathers
", so none of the Judahites in
Egypt will return to Judah (a key to the theology of the return).
As noted above, the popular response to Jeremiah's oracle
is rejection: "We will nevertheless do everything which issued
from (y)our mouth, burning incense to the Queen of Heaven and
pouring out libations to her, as we have done -- we, and our
fathers, our kings and our officials, in the towns of Judah and
in the streets of Jerusalem -- when we were sated with bread and
it was well with us, and we saw no evil. It is only since we
ceased to burn incense to the Queen of Heaven, and pour out
libations to her, that we have lacked everything, and have been
finished off by the sword and by famine....
" The devotions
fulfill their vows (ndrynw 'sr ndrnw lqtr lmlkt hsmym, v 25);
7:9: "After robbing, murdering and committing adultery and
uttering false oaths and burning incense to 'the baal' and going
after other gods whom you don't know, you come and stand before
me in this house...?
"; 11:17: to 'the baal'; 18:5: lsw', in
Jeremiah's usage either "vainly
" or "to a vain thing
"; 1:16:
"they burned incense to other gods, and prostrated themselves to
their own manufacture
"; 19:4-5: in the Valley of ben-Hinnom,
"they left me and alienated this place and burned incense in it
to other gods whom they didn't know -- they and their fathers and
the kings of Judah -- and filled this place with the blood of
innocents, and built the high places of 'the baal' to burn their
sons in fire as burnt offerings to 'the baal', which I did not
command, nor did I say, nor did it enter my mind
" -- here, in the
background to the destruction of the rooftops in 19:13; 32:29,
where "the baal" is collective, for the host -- the combination
of burning incense at the Tophet in the Valley of ben-Hinnom with
child sacrifice is also projected onto Ahaz in 2 Chr 28:3, based
on 2 Kgs 16:3, where incense does not appear; 48:35: by Moabites
who build high places and burn incense to their god.
In Ezekiel: Ezek 8:11: to gillulim, possibly representations of animals/cherubim inscribed into a wall; 16:18: to male precious metal icons; effectively 23:41: to gillulim, v 37, recipients of child sacrifice, presumably congruent with Jeremiah's 'baal' and possibly even the active Host.
Note also these occurrences in Chronicles: 2 Chr 25:14: Amaziah bowed and burned incense before captured Edomite icons; 28:24-25: Ahaz multiplied altars all over Jerusalem and Judah to burn incense to other gods; 30:14: Hezekiah removed the altars and the mqtrwt, possibly incense altars in the context.
Aside from the previous texts, incense burning is described
as the principal Yhwhistic rite on the high places in 2 Kgs 23:8,
and, in the past, Isa 65:7 on the mountains and hills (but Isa
65:3 with sacrifice on rooftops, incense on bricks[?]; c.f. 66:3).
Even 1 Kgs 13:2 predicts a sacrifice on the Bethel altar of "the
priests of the high places who burn incense upon you,
" rather
than those who sacrifice meat. Hos 4:13 speaks of sacrifice and
incense burning on the hills, where the prostitutes and sacred
prostitutes practice. But the object of the sacrifice forecast
in 1 Kgs 13:2 is in fact Yhwh, and the same may be true in the
case of the meat sacrifices mocked by Hosea. Hos 2:15 speaks of
"the days of the baals, when she [Israel] burned incense to
them.
" And Hos 11:2 states, "They called to them, thus they went
from my presence. They sacrificed to the baals, and burned
incense to the carved icons.
" In context, this might refer to
almost any incident of apostasy in the tradition, or to all of
them. However, it likely reflects contemporary practice.
Hosea's main complaint is that attention to the baals entailed
forgetfulness about Yhwh's being the one who really -- behind the
scenes -- promoted welfare. That is, the baals are real enough,
but Yhwh is the director of their actions.
Incense burning with sacrifice occurs in 1 Kgs 3:3, where the activity (vv 2-4) is surely Yhwhistic; 11:8, where it is not; 22:44; 2 Kgs 12:4; 14:4; 15:4,35; 16:4//2 Chr 28:4; but here, though it is on the high places, the assumption is the worship is of Yhwh, or at least of Yhwh along with other deities (see Halpern 1988:220-228).