Post by Tom Green on Jan 28, 2007 0:57:41 GMT -5
Solomon's Strange Women
The most brilliant thinker of the ancient world – the man whose
prayer for wisdom was answered in the most amazing way – ended his
life in a haze of conflicting political and cultural debauchery.
Solomon, himself, was caught up in lust to the extent that he lost
all perspective. He became the literal fulfillment of his own dark
prophecies about lust and seduction. In the end, his spiritual
authority was compromised by the seductive call of the strange
woman:
"But king Solomon loved many strange women, together with the
daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites,
Zidonians, and Hittites;
"Of the nations concerning which the LORD said unto the children of
Israel, Ye shall not go in to them, neither shall they come in unto
you: for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods:
Solomon clave unto these in love.
"And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred
concubines: and his wives turned away his heart.
"For it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned
away his heart after other gods: and his heart was not perfect with
the LORD his God, as was the heart of David his father" (I Kings
11:1-4).
The (one thousand!) women mentioned here all represent political
alliances. As can be seen from the verses above, the influence of
the Solomonic rule was enormous, extending northward into the
territory of modern Turkey and southward to Egypt.
The list above begins with his first wife, the daughter of Pharaoh.
It was no doubt a political union, and it set the stage for the rest
of Solomon's life. Apparently, what began for Solomon as politics
spiraled downward into an endless procession of "love affairs."
From the biblical description of the matter, we would call it lust,
for his heart was drawn away from the love of God and the spiritual
wisdom for which he was so famous. This is exactly what he predicted
when he wrote the Proverbs. No doubt, he had ample time to reflect
upon his own words, the words of Proverbs 6:25: "Lust not after her
beauty in thine heart…"
His heart also turned from its love of the Mosaic Law and the Temple
Priesthood. Sadly, he believed that he could have it all. But the
Strange Woman turned his heart toward a "universal" religion that
honored the gods whose passions now controlled his life. Those gods
were (and are) sexually perverse and spiritually abominable.
The Ashtoreth Connection
As mentioned earlier, the Strange Woman of Proverbs is much more
than a woman of the street. She is much more than the daughter of an
oriental potentate. She is much, much more than a casual fling with
an attractive woman.
Outwardly, she is all of these. But inwardly, she is symbolic of the
fertility goddess who dominated the religious worship of the ancient
lands that surrounded Israel.
She is the mother goddess, consort of Ba'al, the lord of the ancient
religions that flourished in Mesopotamia and the surrounding lands.
Whether she is called Ishtar, Isis, Ashtoreth or Diana, she is
celebrated as the goddess of fertility. Continuing the passage
above, we find her name at the top of a list of repugnant deities
worshipped by Solomon and his wives. Not only had he followed the
Strange Woman down that dark street, he had married her, bodily and
spiritually. In other words, the Strange Woman was only a proxy for
the goddesses she represented:
"For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, and
after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites.
"And Solomon did evil in the sight of the LORD, and went not fully
after the LORD, as did David his father.
"Then did Solomon build an high place for Chemosh, the abomination
of Moab, in the hill that is before Jerusalem, and for Molech, the
abomination of the children of Ammon.
"And likewise did he for all his strange wives, which burnt incense
and sacrificed unto their gods" (I Kings 11:5-7).
The strange rites observed in the cultic groves, shrines and high
places of the goddess are too vulgar to be mentioned at length.
Suffice it to say that they placed high emphasis upon aspects of
sexuality, in which pleasure and fulfillment were transposed into
supposed blessing for the community at large. Thus, it was believed
that vines, crops and cattle would produce in abundance. Those
following the lewd practices of the goddess and her lord were
thought to bring blessing and fertility to the people.
The list of abominations given above begins with "Ashtoreth the
goddess of the Zidonians." The ancient Phoenicians were totally
devoted to Ashtoreth, consort of lord Ba'al. Their priest/kings were
the ancient sea traders, one of whom (Hiram, King of Tyre) aided
Solomon in building the great Temple. Solomon intermarried with the
daughters of these kings, assuring their continued alliance. Decades
later, this practice continued in the reign of King Ahab, who took a
wife called, "Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Zidonians,
and went and served Ba'al and worshipped him" (1 Kings 16:31). Like
many of Solomon's wives, she was a priestess. Solomon had set an
evil precedent.
Milcom is mentioned next. He was an enormous statue, probably of
bronze, who was revered by the Ammonites. Little is known of the
abominable practices of his worshippers, but he seems to be
distantly related to Molech, who demanded child sacrifice.
Chemosh, the national god of Moab, seems to have been the husband of
Ishtar, associated astrologically with the planet Venus. Their
function was probably similar to Ashtoreth and Ba'al, localized to
the cultural desires of the Moabites.
The worship of Molech is usually characterized in the taking of
infants and throwing them into an intense fire, before a howling
crowd of adoring worshippers. A bronze statue of the god would loom
over this shameful scene as living infants were seared, then flashed
into combustion and crumbled to ash in view of the worshippers. It
is a matter of historical record that just such a shrine as this
continued in Israel until the time of Josiah, some three centuries
after Solomon! It is difficult to imagine anyone, much less Solomon,
attending such practices, yet Scripture is clear on the matter. He
did. In the end, he was wholly given over to the lurid practices of
the pagan world. Perhaps the ultimate understanding of wisdom is to
be found not just in what Solomon said, but what he did.
The Strange Woman in Prophecy
Solomon's life perfectly illustrates the truth that the Strange
Woman is a great deal more than just a physical diversion. She is,
in fact, the gateway to the dark world of lost souls, where demonic
power awaits the unwary.
She began in dark antiquity as Semiramis, the goddess mother, later
called Ishtar. She gave birth to the annual fertility rituals so
prevalent among pagans of the ancient world. In The Two Babylons,
Alexander Hislop writes, "This Babylonian queen was not merely in
character coincident with the Aphrodite of Greece and the Venus of
Rome, but was, in point of fact, the historical original of that
goddess that by the ancient world was regarded as the very
embodiment of everything attractive in female form, and the
perfection of female beauty; for Sanchuniathon assures us that the
Aphrodite or Venus was identical with Astarte …" (pp. 74, 75).
Astarte is simply the Greek name for Ashtoreth, the goddess so
adored by Solomon and his wives. In all her forms, she was the
goddess of erotic love and fertility. She was celebrated in the
ancient world as the "Queen of Heaven," who loved a young fertility
god named Tammuz who was both her son and her husband. He died, and
she ventured to the underworld. Risking her own life, she
obtained "the water of life," which she brought back to Earth, along
with the resurrected Tammuz. This cycle of life and death was
repeated annually, and commemorated in pagan celebrations.
In one manifestation or another, the goddess was elevated in the
ancient world, credited with blessing and fertility. Jeremiah
prophesied against ancient Judah, telling them that if they
continued their evil worship they would be severely judged. In
return, they rebuked him:
"But 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" (Jer. 44:17,18).
What brazen arrogance! They actually defended their worship of the
goddess, claiming that their experience proved her reality. The Jews
were judged in the Babylonian Captivity, and goddess worship went on
as usual.
The Latter Days
Jesus and the Apostles walked in a world still deeply devoted to her.
In the New Testament, we find another form of the Asiatic fertility
goddess being worshipped at Ephesus. Her temple was one of the seven
wonders of the ancient world. People came from all over the Roman
Empire to worship her. When Christianity threatened their well-oiled
pagan machine, the temple guild rioted in the streets:
"Moreover ye see and hear, that not alone at Ephesus, but almost
throughout all Asia, this Paul hath persuaded and turned away much
people, saying that they be no gods, which are made with hands:
"So that not only this our craft is in danger to be set at nought;
but also that the temple of the great goddess Diana should be
despised, and her magnificence should be destroyed, whom all Asia
and the world worshippeth" (Acts 19:26,27).
Diana, of course, was the Roman name for Artemis. The details
associated with her worship rituals are too crude and debased to
discuss here. But as in Solomon's day a millennium before, they were
erotic and perverted. She was the self-fertile goddess of power and
blessing, revered by millions. Even then, she was over two thousand
years old! After all those years and a myriad of cultural variations
and names, she lured the unsuspecting into the descending path
toward hell, so eloquently described in the book of Proverbs. She is
alive and well today, operating just beyond the fringes of everyday
perception. Soon, however, she will rise as a visible horror, to
become part of an enormous system of false religion that will rise
to its full power under the Antichrist.
The Strange Woman in her full regalia is well described in
Revelation. Just as Solomon said, she wears the clothing of the
harlot:
"And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials,
and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto
thee the judgment of the great sleeper that sitteth upon many waters:
"With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and
the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of
her fornication.
"So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw
a woman sit upon a scarlet colored beast, full of names of
blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.
"And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet color, and decked
with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her
hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication:
"And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE
GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.
"And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with
the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered
with great admiration" (Rev. 17:1-6).
And the deep riddles of Proverbs have only begun to be unraveled.
The most brilliant thinker of the ancient world – the man whose
prayer for wisdom was answered in the most amazing way – ended his
life in a haze of conflicting political and cultural debauchery.
Solomon, himself, was caught up in lust to the extent that he lost
all perspective. He became the literal fulfillment of his own dark
prophecies about lust and seduction. In the end, his spiritual
authority was compromised by the seductive call of the strange
woman:
"But king Solomon loved many strange women, together with the
daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites,
Zidonians, and Hittites;
"Of the nations concerning which the LORD said unto the children of
Israel, Ye shall not go in to them, neither shall they come in unto
you: for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods:
Solomon clave unto these in love.
"And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred
concubines: and his wives turned away his heart.
"For it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned
away his heart after other gods: and his heart was not perfect with
the LORD his God, as was the heart of David his father" (I Kings
11:1-4).
The (one thousand!) women mentioned here all represent political
alliances. As can be seen from the verses above, the influence of
the Solomonic rule was enormous, extending northward into the
territory of modern Turkey and southward to Egypt.
The list above begins with his first wife, the daughter of Pharaoh.
It was no doubt a political union, and it set the stage for the rest
of Solomon's life. Apparently, what began for Solomon as politics
spiraled downward into an endless procession of "love affairs."
From the biblical description of the matter, we would call it lust,
for his heart was drawn away from the love of God and the spiritual
wisdom for which he was so famous. This is exactly what he predicted
when he wrote the Proverbs. No doubt, he had ample time to reflect
upon his own words, the words of Proverbs 6:25: "Lust not after her
beauty in thine heart…"
His heart also turned from its love of the Mosaic Law and the Temple
Priesthood. Sadly, he believed that he could have it all. But the
Strange Woman turned his heart toward a "universal" religion that
honored the gods whose passions now controlled his life. Those gods
were (and are) sexually perverse and spiritually abominable.
The Ashtoreth Connection
As mentioned earlier, the Strange Woman of Proverbs is much more
than a woman of the street. She is much more than the daughter of an
oriental potentate. She is much, much more than a casual fling with
an attractive woman.
Outwardly, she is all of these. But inwardly, she is symbolic of the
fertility goddess who dominated the religious worship of the ancient
lands that surrounded Israel.
She is the mother goddess, consort of Ba'al, the lord of the ancient
religions that flourished in Mesopotamia and the surrounding lands.
Whether she is called Ishtar, Isis, Ashtoreth or Diana, she is
celebrated as the goddess of fertility. Continuing the passage
above, we find her name at the top of a list of repugnant deities
worshipped by Solomon and his wives. Not only had he followed the
Strange Woman down that dark street, he had married her, bodily and
spiritually. In other words, the Strange Woman was only a proxy for
the goddesses she represented:
"For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, and
after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites.
"And Solomon did evil in the sight of the LORD, and went not fully
after the LORD, as did David his father.
"Then did Solomon build an high place for Chemosh, the abomination
of Moab, in the hill that is before Jerusalem, and for Molech, the
abomination of the children of Ammon.
"And likewise did he for all his strange wives, which burnt incense
and sacrificed unto their gods" (I Kings 11:5-7).
The strange rites observed in the cultic groves, shrines and high
places of the goddess are too vulgar to be mentioned at length.
Suffice it to say that they placed high emphasis upon aspects of
sexuality, in which pleasure and fulfillment were transposed into
supposed blessing for the community at large. Thus, it was believed
that vines, crops and cattle would produce in abundance. Those
following the lewd practices of the goddess and her lord were
thought to bring blessing and fertility to the people.
The list of abominations given above begins with "Ashtoreth the
goddess of the Zidonians." The ancient Phoenicians were totally
devoted to Ashtoreth, consort of lord Ba'al. Their priest/kings were
the ancient sea traders, one of whom (Hiram, King of Tyre) aided
Solomon in building the great Temple. Solomon intermarried with the
daughters of these kings, assuring their continued alliance. Decades
later, this practice continued in the reign of King Ahab, who took a
wife called, "Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Zidonians,
and went and served Ba'al and worshipped him" (1 Kings 16:31). Like
many of Solomon's wives, she was a priestess. Solomon had set an
evil precedent.
Milcom is mentioned next. He was an enormous statue, probably of
bronze, who was revered by the Ammonites. Little is known of the
abominable practices of his worshippers, but he seems to be
distantly related to Molech, who demanded child sacrifice.
Chemosh, the national god of Moab, seems to have been the husband of
Ishtar, associated astrologically with the planet Venus. Their
function was probably similar to Ashtoreth and Ba'al, localized to
the cultural desires of the Moabites.
The worship of Molech is usually characterized in the taking of
infants and throwing them into an intense fire, before a howling
crowd of adoring worshippers. A bronze statue of the god would loom
over this shameful scene as living infants were seared, then flashed
into combustion and crumbled to ash in view of the worshippers. It
is a matter of historical record that just such a shrine as this
continued in Israel until the time of Josiah, some three centuries
after Solomon! It is difficult to imagine anyone, much less Solomon,
attending such practices, yet Scripture is clear on the matter. He
did. In the end, he was wholly given over to the lurid practices of
the pagan world. Perhaps the ultimate understanding of wisdom is to
be found not just in what Solomon said, but what he did.
The Strange Woman in Prophecy
Solomon's life perfectly illustrates the truth that the Strange
Woman is a great deal more than just a physical diversion. She is,
in fact, the gateway to the dark world of lost souls, where demonic
power awaits the unwary.
She began in dark antiquity as Semiramis, the goddess mother, later
called Ishtar. She gave birth to the annual fertility rituals so
prevalent among pagans of the ancient world. In The Two Babylons,
Alexander Hislop writes, "This Babylonian queen was not merely in
character coincident with the Aphrodite of Greece and the Venus of
Rome, but was, in point of fact, the historical original of that
goddess that by the ancient world was regarded as the very
embodiment of everything attractive in female form, and the
perfection of female beauty; for Sanchuniathon assures us that the
Aphrodite or Venus was identical with Astarte …" (pp. 74, 75).
Astarte is simply the Greek name for Ashtoreth, the goddess so
adored by Solomon and his wives. In all her forms, she was the
goddess of erotic love and fertility. She was celebrated in the
ancient world as the "Queen of Heaven," who loved a young fertility
god named Tammuz who was both her son and her husband. He died, and
she ventured to the underworld. Risking her own life, she
obtained "the water of life," which she brought back to Earth, along
with the resurrected Tammuz. This cycle of life and death was
repeated annually, and commemorated in pagan celebrations.
In one manifestation or another, the goddess was elevated in the
ancient world, credited with blessing and fertility. Jeremiah
prophesied against ancient Judah, telling them that if they
continued their evil worship they would be severely judged. In
return, they rebuked him:
"But 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" (Jer. 44:17,18).
What brazen arrogance! They actually defended their worship of the
goddess, claiming that their experience proved her reality. The Jews
were judged in the Babylonian Captivity, and goddess worship went on
as usual.
The Latter Days
Jesus and the Apostles walked in a world still deeply devoted to her.
In the New Testament, we find another form of the Asiatic fertility
goddess being worshipped at Ephesus. Her temple was one of the seven
wonders of the ancient world. People came from all over the Roman
Empire to worship her. When Christianity threatened their well-oiled
pagan machine, the temple guild rioted in the streets:
"Moreover ye see and hear, that not alone at Ephesus, but almost
throughout all Asia, this Paul hath persuaded and turned away much
people, saying that they be no gods, which are made with hands:
"So that not only this our craft is in danger to be set at nought;
but also that the temple of the great goddess Diana should be
despised, and her magnificence should be destroyed, whom all Asia
and the world worshippeth" (Acts 19:26,27).
Diana, of course, was the Roman name for Artemis. The details
associated with her worship rituals are too crude and debased to
discuss here. But as in Solomon's day a millennium before, they were
erotic and perverted. She was the self-fertile goddess of power and
blessing, revered by millions. Even then, she was over two thousand
years old! After all those years and a myriad of cultural variations
and names, she lured the unsuspecting into the descending path
toward hell, so eloquently described in the book of Proverbs. She is
alive and well today, operating just beyond the fringes of everyday
perception. Soon, however, she will rise as a visible horror, to
become part of an enormous system of false religion that will rise
to its full power under the Antichrist.
The Strange Woman in her full regalia is well described in
Revelation. Just as Solomon said, she wears the clothing of the
harlot:
"And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials,
and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto
thee the judgment of the great sleeper that sitteth upon many waters:
"With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and
the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of
her fornication.
"So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw
a woman sit upon a scarlet colored beast, full of names of
blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.
"And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet color, and decked
with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her
hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication:
"And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE
GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.
"And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with
the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered
with great admiration" (Rev. 17:1-6).
And the deep riddles of Proverbs have only begun to be unraveled.