Jeremiah;- The Queen of heaven (ch44)

Jeremiah was now among the Jews who had exiled themselves to Egypt. His diatribe against idolatry in the first half of ch44 had offended the womenfolk of the communities. It was part of the culture of the region that the women tended to have their own preferences. We know how Solomon felt obliged to indulge his wives in that respect. Ezekiel’s vision of idolatrous Jerusalem has women weeping for Tammuz (Ezekiel ch8 v 14). The evil king in Daniel rejects both kinds of deity, the gods of his fathers and the one beloved by women (Daniel ch11 v37).

The women at this time favoured in particular the “queen of heaven” (Ashtoreth). Jeremiah had complained about this already; “The children gather wood, the fathers kindle fire, and the women knead dough to make cakes for the queen of heaven” (ch7 v18). From v15, the wives and their obedient husbands assemble at Pathros to answer him. They protest and admit that they have always been giving incense and libations to the queen of heaven, “we and our fathers, our kings and our princes, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem”. They had done so with the approval of their husbands. Things had gone well in the land as long as they kept that up. Only when they stopped (v18) did the people begin to suffer from famine and the sword.

I assume that “since we left off” refers to the reforms of Josiah, when he abolished all the public idolatry that he could find. And it is true that Josiah’s reign ended in the disaster of Megiddo and things had been going downhill ever since. I imagine that this line of argument was being used from Megiddo onwards. The massive flaw in the argument is that they never did “leave off” the worship of the queen of heaven. They probably continued in private as along as necessary, but the public festivals and the royal indulgence obviously resumed once Josiah was gone. Their troubles had come upon them because they continued worshipping the queen of heaven, not because they left off.

That is what Jeremiah tells them in his reply; “It is because you burned incense and because you sinned against the Lord and did not obey the voice of the Lord or walk in his laws and in his statutes and in his testimonies, that this evil has befallen you, as at this day” (v23).

Because they have declared that they intend to continue this worship, the Lord washes his hands of them. “My name shall no more be invoked by any man of Judah in all the land of Egypt”. He is watching over them for evil and not for good. All of them shall be consumed by the sword and famine. Those who manage to return from Egypt to Judah will be few in number. For that matter, Pharaoh Hophra himself, in whom they are trusting will fall into the hands of his enemies just like Zedekiah.

Hophra was overthrown by Amasis twenty years later. In later centuries there was, of course, a substantial Jewish community in Egypt, but they may not have been descendants of these first exiles. It’s possible that the syncretism of this party was drawing them into being absorbed by the local culture, which is probably what happened to the exiled “ten tribes” of Israel.

The Tammuz type of story runs through multiple religions. I really enjoyed this thread. I had already learnt much about this topic from watching Dr. Barnett (DTBM on Youtube) speak on it multiple times. It kind of sews everything together and clarifies what is going on here now. Queen of Heaven. There is no such being. It is all satanic nonsense put in place to trip up humanity. In Catholicism, Mary Queen of Heaven is spoken of. Jesus, (Yeshua) called his mother woman.

The women in your thread were sinning against God, and their husbands foolishly did not restrain them.

Soloman with all his wisdom did not think with his brain and allowed his wives to sway him to building places of satanic worship for them. It is an embarrassment in Israel where the places of Idol worship were. Seeing how Soloman and even David behaved when it came to sexuality gives men hope. God still loved these men, even after they disobeyed the Lord. I would presume Soloman repented in his old age. His father surely did tell the Living God he was sorry. There is always a price to pay though.

This thread should have followed "Jeremiah in Egypt" (www.abovetopsecret.com...), which has only just been posted.