idolatry Summary and Overview

image-worship or divine honour paid to any created object. Paul describes the origin of idolatry in Rom. 1:21-25: men forsook God, and sank into ignorance and moral corruption (1:28). The forms of idolatry are, (1.) Fetishism, or the worship of trees, rivers, hills, stones, etc. (2.) Nature worship, the worship of the sun, moon, and stars, as the supposed powers of nature. (3.) Hero worship, the worship of deceased ancestors, or of heroes. In Scripture, idolatry is regarded as of heathen origin, and as being imported among the Hebrews through contact with heathen nations. The first allusion to idolatry is in the account of Rachel stealing her father's teraphim (Gen. 31:19), which were the relics of the worship of other gods by Laban's progenitors "on the other side of the river in old time" (Josh. 24:2). During their long residence in Egypt the Hebrews fell into idolatry, and it was long before they were delivered from it (Josh. 24:14; Ezek. 20:7). Many a token of God's displeasure fell upon them because of this sin. The idolatry learned in Egypt was probably rooted out from among the people during the forty years' wanderings; but when the Jews entered Israel, they came into contact with the monuments and associations of the idolatry of the old Canaanite races, and showed a constant tendency to depart from the living God and follow the idolatrous practices of those heathen nations. It was their great national sin, which was only effectually rebuked by the Babylonian exile. That exile finally purified the Jews of all idolatrous tendencies. The first and second commandments are directed against idolatry of every form. Individuals and communities were equally amenable to the rigorous code. The individual offender was devoted to destruction (Ex. 22:20). His nearest relatives were not only bound to denounce him and deliver him up to punishment (Deut. 13:20-10), but their hands were to strike the first blow when, on the evidence of two witnesses at least, he was stoned (Deut. 17:2-7). To attempt to seduce others to false worship was a crime of equal enormity (13:6-10). An idolatrous nation shared the same fate. No facts are more strongly declared in the Old Testament than that the extermination of the Canaanites was the punishment of their idolatry (Ex. 34:15, 16; Deut. 7; 12:29-31; 20:17), and that the calamities of the Israelites were due to the same cause (Jer. 2:17). "A city guilty of idolatry was looked upon as a cancer in the state; it was considered to be in rebellion, and treated according to the laws of war. Its inhabitants and all their cattle were put to death." Jehovah was the theocratic King of Israel, the civil Head of the commonwealth, and therefore to an Israelite idolatry was a state offence (1 Sam. 15:23), high treason. On taking possession of the land, the Jews were commanded to destroy all traces of every kind of the existing idolatry of the Canaanites (Ex. 23:24, 32; 34:13; Deut. 7:5, 25; 12:1-3). In the New Testament the term idolatry is used to designate covetousness (Matt. 6:24; Luke 16:13; Col. 3:5; Eph. 5:5).

strictly speaking denotes the worship of deity in a visible form, whether the images to which homage is paid are symbolical representations of the true God or of the false divinities which have been made the objects of worship in his stead. I. History of idolatry among the Jews. --The first undoubted allusion to idolatry or idolatrous customs in the Bible is in the account of Rachel's stealing her father's teraphim. #Ge 31:19| During their long residence in Egypt the Israelites defiled themselves with the idols of the land, and it was long before the taint was removed. #Jos 24:14; Eze 20:7| In the wilderness they clamored for some visible shape in which they might worship the God who had brought them out of Egypt. #Ex 32:1| ... until Aaron made the calf, the embodiment of Apis and emblem of the productive power of nature. During the lives of Joshua and the elders who outlived him they kept true to their allegiance; but the generation following who knew not Jehovah nor the works he had done for Israel, swerved from the plain path of their fathers and were caught in the toils of the foreigner. #Jud 2:1| ... From this time forth their history becomes little more than a chronicle of the inevitable sequence of offence and punishment. #Jud 2:12,14| By turns each conquering nation strove to establish the worship of its national God. In later times the practice of secret idolatry was carried to greater lengths. Images were set up on the corn-floors, in the wine-vats, and behind the doors of private houses, #Isa 57:8; Ho 9:1,2| and to check this tendency the statute in #De 27:15| was originally promulgated. Under Samuel's administration idolatry was publicly renounced, #1Sa 7:3-6| but in the reign of Solomon all this was forgotten, even Solomon's own heart being turned after other gods. #1Ki 11:14| Rehoboam perpetuated the worst features of Solomon's idolatry. #1Ki 14:22-24| erected golden calves at Beth-el and at Dan, and by this crafty state' policy severed forever the kingdoms of Judah and Israel. #1Ki 12:26-33| The successors of Jeroboam followed in his steps, till Ahab. The conquest of the ten tribes by Shalmaneser was for them the last scene Of the drama of abominations which had been enacted uninterruptedly for upwards of 250 years. Under Hezekiah a great reform was inaugurated, that was not confined to Judah and Benjamin, but spread throughout Ephraim and Manasseh. #2Ch 31:1| and to all external appearances idolatry was extirpated. But the reform extended little below the surface. #Isa 29:13| With the death of Josiah ended the last effort to revive among the people a purer ritual. If not a purer faith. The lamp of David, which had long shed but a struggling ray, flickered for a while and then went out in the darkness of Babylonian Captivity. Though the conquests of Alexander caused Greek influence to be felt, yet after the captivity better condition of things prevailed, and the Jews never again fell into idolatry. The erection of synagogues had been assigned as a reason for the comparative purity of the Jewish worship after the captivity, while another cause has been discovered in the hatred for images acquired by the Jews in their intercourse with the Persians. II. Objects of idolatry.--The sun and moon were early selected as outward symbols of all-pervading power, and the worship of the heavenly bodies was not only the most ancient but the most prevalent system of idolatry. Taking its rise in the plains of Chaldea, it spread through Egypt, Greece, Scythia, and even Mexico and Ceylon. Comp. #De 4:19; 17:3; Job 31:20-28| In the later times of the monarchy, the planets or the zodiacal signs received, next to the sun and moon, their share of popular adoration. #2Ki 23:5| Beast-worship, as exemplified in the calves of Jeroboam, has already been alluded to of pure hero-worship among the Semitic races we find no trace. The singular reverence with which trees have been honored is not without example in the history of the Hebrew. The terebinth (oak) at Mamre, beneath which Abraham built an altar, #Ge 12:7; 13:18| and the memorial grove planted by him at Beersheba, #Ge 21:33| were intimately connected with patriarchal worship. Mountains and high places were chosen spots for offering sacrifice and incense to idols, #1Ki 11:7; 14:23| and the retirement of gardens and the thick shade of woods offered great attractions to their worshippers. #2Ki 16:4; Isa 1:29; Ho 4:13| The host of heaven was worshipped on the house-top. #2Ki 23:12; Jer 19:3; 32:29; Zep 1:5| (The modern objects of idolatry are less gross than the ancient, but are none the less idols. Whatever of wealth or honor or pleasure is loved and sought before God and righteousness becomes an object of idolatry. --ED.) III. Punishment of idolatry. --Idolatry to an Israelite was a state offence, #1Sa 15:23| a political crime of the greatest character, high treason against the majesty of his king. The first and second commandments are directed against idolatry of every form. Individuals and communities were equally amenable to the rigorous code. The individual offender was devoted to destruction, #Ex 22:20| his nearest relatives were not only bound to denounce him and deliver him up to punishment, #De 13:2-10| but their hands were to strike the first blow, when, on the evidence of two witnesses at least, he was stoned. #De 17:2-5| To attempt to seduce others to false worship was a crime of equal enormity. #De 13:6-10| IV. Attractions of idolatry. --Many have wondered why the Israelites were so easily led away from the true God, into the worship of idols. (1) Visible, outward signs, with shows, pageants, parades, have an attraction to the natural heart, which often fail to perceive the unseen spiritual realities. (2) But the greatest attraction seems to have been in licentious revelries and obscene orgies with which the worship of the Oriental idols was observed. This worship, appealing to every sensual passion, joined with the attractions of wealth and fashion and luxury, naturally was a great temptation to a simple, restrained, agricultural people, whose worship and law demands the greatest purity of heart and of life.--ED.)

IDOL or IDOLATRY Whatever receives the worship which is due only to God is an idol. In a figurative sense, the word denotes anything which draws the affections from God, Col 3:5, and in a restricted sense, it denotes any visible image or figure which is consecrated to religious worship, Deut 29:17. Idolatry consists (1) in worshipping as the true God some created object, as stars or animals or men; (2) in worshipping the Deity through the medium of symbolical representations, as pictures and statues. It is the greatest sin, and strictly forbidden in the first and second commandments. Ex 20:3-4; Deut 5:7; Deut 6:14-15; Deut 8:19-20; Jer 44:3-8. The origin of idolatry is involved in obscurity, and goes back to the remotest antiquity. All the heathen are idolaters, and they embrace two-thirds of the human race. The ancient Chaldaeans worshipped the forces and phenomena of nature, as the sun and the moon and the stellar luminaries; the ancient Egyptians all sorts of animals, as bulls, beetles, even cats, monkeys, and crocodiles. The ancient Greeks and Romans worshipped men and women representing all human virtues and vices. Some degraded nations have made the devil himself an object of worship, and made images of the spirit of evil for purposes of devotion. St. Paul gives the best description of the progress of idolatry, with its attending immorality, in Rom 1:18 ff. The Israelites showed a constant tendency to relapse into the idolatry of the surrounding nations. The principal heathen gods mentioned in the O.T. are Dagon, Molech, Baal, and Ashteroth. History of Idolatry among the Hebrews. -- The first definite allusion to idols in the Bible is in Gen 31:19, where Rachel is said to have stolen her father's household gods, the teraphim. To what extent Laban worshipped them it is difficult to say, for he also seems to have acknowledged the true God of Abraham. Gen 31:53. The Israelites became tainted with idolatry in Egypt. Josh 24:14. In the wilderness, so potent was the inclination in this direction that the people clamored till they induced Aaron, in imitation of the Egyptian Apis-worship, to make the golden calf, which is expressly termed an idol by Stephen, Acts 7:41. In the days of Joshua the worship of the true God seems to have been universal, but during the period of the Judges there was a vacillation between the worship of Jehovah and idolatry. Altars to Baal were erected, and, upon the whole, the people leaned toward the abominations of the neighboring nations, from which they were recalled only by special visitations. During the lifetime of Samuel and David a purer worship prevailed, but in the reign of Solomon idolatry was prominent. Solomon's own heart was turned away after other gods, 1 Kgs 11:4, and his wives had their own special heathen altars. By polygamy and idolatry the wisest man became the greatest fool, and left the world the sad lesson, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." The subsequent history of the divided kingdom is the history of a contest between idol-worship and the worship of the true God. At the time of Elijah the whole kingdom of the Ten Tribes seemed to have bowed the knee to Baal, and there were only 7000 exceptions. After the Babylonish captivity the people were more steadfast, and despite the influence of the Greek religion remained true to the worship of Jehovah. The causes of this vacillation and falling away into idolatry are not far to seek. To Israel alone were committed the oracles of God. The other nations had only the light of natural religion, and were, for the most part, grossly idolatrous. Constant contact with these peoples, the intermarriage of the common people and their kings with "strange women," 1 Kgs 11:4-5, and an innate propensity of depraved human nature for idolatry, sufficiently explain the frequent defections of the Hebrew nation from the worship of the one God. It may well be expected, among a people one of the chief designs of whose existence was to conserve the doctrine of God's unity and spirituality, that idolatry would be visited with severe punishments. The first two commandments of the Decalogue forbid it. The individual offender was devoted to destruction. Ex 22:20. Idolatry was a criminal offence against the state and treason against Jehovah. A favorite figure of speech in the O.T. represents the Israelitish people as sustaining a relation of marriage with Jehovah, and idolatry is represented by the later prophets as a state of whoredom or conjugal infidelity. Hos 2:2, Hab 2:4, etc.: Eze 16:28; Jer 3:3. Whenever a good and God-fearing king came to the throne, as Josiah, Asa, Hezekiah, he considered it his first duty to wage a war against the altars, images, and pillars of idolatrous worship. The Canaanites are frequently referred to as meriting national extermination on account of their idolatry. Deut 12:29-31; Ex 34:15-16, etc. The prophets speak of idolatry as defiling and polluting in its influences, Eze 20:7, etc., and Isaiah ridicules the idea of divinity in false gods and idols by a reference to a piece of wood of which a part is thrown into the fire and a part shaped into an image. Isa 44:15-17. The rites of idolatry were often obscene and licentious. When the people assembled around the golden calf in the wilderness for worship, they went about naked, or unruly, as some translate. Ex 32:25. Feasting and revelry were frequently connected with this worship. The Christian Church is exposed to the same peril of falling into the sin of idolatry as was the Jewish Church, although it assumes more refined forms, such as worship of saints, images, and relics, of wealth, glory and pleasure. Paul calls covetousness, or the worship of mammon, "idolatry." Col 3:5. The last verse in the First Epistle of John is the warning, "Little children, keep yourselves from idols."

Of the 19 Hebrew words for it and IMAGE many express the abhorrence which idolatry deserves and the shame and sorrow of the idolater. (1) Awen, "vanity," "nothingness," "wickedness," "sorrow" (Isaiah 66:3; Isaiah 41:29; Deuteronomy 32:21; 1 Kings 16:13; Psalm 31:6; Jeremiah 8:19; Jeremiah 10:8; Zechariah 10:2; 1 Samuel 15:23). "Beth-el," the house of God, is named "Beth-aven," house of vanity, because of the calf worship. (2) Eliyl, either a contemptuous diminutive of Eel, God, godling; or from al "not," a "thing of naught." There is a designed contrast between the contemptible liliym and the Divine Elohim (Psalm 97:7; Isaiah 19:3, "non-entities" margin Ezekiel 30:13). (3) emah, "terror," (Jeremiah 1:38) "they are mad after their idols," hideous forms more fitted to frighten than to attract, bugbears to frighten children with. (4) miphletseth, "a fright": Maachah's idol which Asa cut down (1 Kings 15:13; 2 Chronicles 15:16); the phallus, symbol of the generative organ, the nature goddess Asherah's productive power. Jeremiah 10:2-5 graphically describes the making of an idol and its impotence. (5) bosheth, "shame": not merely shameful, but the essence of shame, bringing shame on its votaries and especially expressing the obscenity of Baal's and Baal Peor's worship (Jeremiah 11:13; Hosea 9:10). (6) gillulim, from gal "a heap of stones" (Gesenius): Ezekiel 30:13; Ezekiel 16:36; Deuteronomy 29:17, "dungy gods" margin (7) shiquts, ceremonial "uncleanness" (Ezekiel 37:23). The worshippers "became loathsome like their love," for men never rise above their object of worship; "they that make them are like unto them, so is everyone that trusteth in them" (Psalm 115:4-8). (8) ceemel, a "likeness" (Deuteronomy 4:16). (9) tselem, from tseel "a shadow" (Daniel 3:1; 1 Samuel 6:5), "the image" as distinguished from the demuth, "likeness," the exact counterpart (Greek eikoon; Colossians 1:15; Genesis 1:27). The "image" presupposes a prototype. "Likeness" (Greek homoiosis) implies mere resemblance, not the exact counterpart and derivation, hence the Son is never called the "likeness" of the Father but the "Image" (1 Corinthians 11:7; John 1:18; John 14:9; 2 Corinthians 4:4; 1 Timothy 3:16; 1 Timothy 6:16; Hebrews 1:3). The idol is supposed to be an "image" exactly representing some person or object. (10) timahuh "similitude," "form "(Deuteronomy 4:12-19, where Moses forbids successively the several forms of Gentile idolatry: ancestor worship, as that of Terah (Joshua 24:2), Laban (Genesis 31:19; Genesis 31:30; Genesis 31:32), and Jacob's household (Genesis 35:2-4), to guard against which Moses' sepulchre was hidden; hero worship and relic worship (Judges 8:27; Judges 17:4; 2 Kings 18:4); nature worship, whether of the lower animals as in Egypt, or of the heavenly bodies, the sun, moon, and stars, as among the Persians). (11) atzab, etzeb, otzeb, "a figure," from aatzab "to fashion"; with the additional idea of sorrowful labour (Isaiah 48:5; Psalm 139:24), "see if there be any wicked way (way of pain, way of an idol, Isaiah 48:5) in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." The way of idolatry, however refined, proves to be a way of pain, and shuts out from the way everlasting (1 John 5:21; Revelation 21:8; 1 Corinthians 10:20-21). Tacitus, the Roman historian (Hist. 5:4), notices the contrast between Judaism and the whole pagan world, which disproves the notion that it borrowed from the latter and consecrated several of their rites. "The Jews conceive the Divinity as One, and to be understood only by the mind; they deem those profane who form any image of the gods, of perishable materials and after the likeness of men; the Divinity they describe as supreme, eternal, unchangeable, imperishable; hence there are no images in their cities or their temples, with these they would not flatter kings nor honour Caesars." (12) tsiyr, "a pang," also "a mould" or "shape" (Isaiah 45:16). (13) matseebah, a "statue" set up (Jeremiah 43:13, margin). Obelisks to the sun god at the city (house) of the sun, as Beth-shemesh or Heliopolis mean; "On" in Genesis 41:45; 2 Kings 3:2; 2 Kings 10:26-27 margin. The "images" or standing columns of wood (subordinate gods worshipped at the same altar with Baal) are distinct from the standing column of stone or "image" of Baal himself, i.e. a conical stone sacred to him. The Phoenicians anointed stones (often aerolites, as that "which fell down from Jupiter," sacred to Diana of Ephesus, Acts 19:35) to various gods, like the stone anointed by Jacob (Genesis 28:18; Genesis 28:22) at Bethel, called therefore Baetylia (compare also Genesis 31:45). The black pyramidal stone in Juggernaut's temple, that of Cybele at Pessinus in Galatia, the black stone in the Kaaba at Mecca reported to have been brought from heaven by the angel Gabriel, all illustrate the wide diffusion of this form of idolatry. So the Lingams in daily use in the worship of Siva in Bengal, and the black stone daily anointed with perfumed oil in Benares. (14) chammanim, "sun images." The Arabic Chunnas is the planet Mercury or Venus. The symbol of the Persian sun god was the sacred fire, Amanus or Omanus, Sanskrit homa (2 Chronicles 34:4; 2 Chronicles 34:7; 2 Chronicles 14:3; 2 Chronicles 14:5). Chamman, is a synonym of Baal the sun god in the Phoenician and Palmyrene inscriptions, and so is applied to his statues or lofty, obelisk like, columns (Isaiah 17:8; Isaiah 27:9 margin). These "statues" are associated with the Asherim ("groves" KJV), just as Baal is associated with Asherah or Astarte (1 Kings 14:23, margin 2 Kings 23:14). The Palmyrene inscription at Oxford is, "this chammana the sons of Malchu have dedicated to the sun." Ezekiel 6:4; Ezekiel 6:6; sun worship and Sabeanism or worship of the heavenly hosts (tsebaowt) was the oldest idolatry. Job, one of the oldest books in the Bible, alludes to it (Job 31:26), "if I beheld the sun when it shined or the moon ... and my heart hath been secretly enticed, or my mouth hath kissed my hand, this were an iniquity," etc. In opposition to this error God is called "Lord God of Sabaoth." The tower of Babel was probably built so that its top should be sacred to the heavens (not that its top should reach heaven, Genesis 11:4), the common temple and idolatrous center of union. The dispersion defeated the purpose of the builders, but still they carried with them the idolatrous tendency, attributing their harvests, etc., to the visible material causes, the sun, moon, air, etc. (Jeremiah 44:17). Soon a further step was deifying men, or else attributing every human vice, lust, and passion to the gods. Cicero ridicules this groveling anthropomorphic worship, yet was himself a priest and worshipper! These sun columns towering high above Baal's altars (2 Chronicles 34:4; 2 Chronicles 34:7) were sometimes of wood, which could be "cut down" (Leviticus 26:30). The Phoenician Adon or Adonis, the Ammonite Moloch or Milcom, the Moabite Chemosh, the Assyrian and Babylonian Bel, and the Syrian Hadad, the Egyptian Ra, are essentially the same sun god. Adrammelech was the male, and Anammelech the female, power of the sun. Gad was the sun, or Jupiter, representing fortune, Meni the moon or Venus, representing fate (Isaiah 65:11). As the sun represents the active, so the moon the passive powers of nature. The two combined are represented as at once male and female, from whence in the Septuagint Baal occurs with masculine and feminine articles, and men worshipped in women's clothes, and women in men's clothes, which explains the prohibition Deuteronomy 22:5. Magic influences were attributed to sowing mingled seed in a field and to wearing garments of mixed material; hence the prohibition Leviticus 19:19. In Ezekiel 8:17, "they put the branch to their nose" alludes to the idolatrous usage of holding up a branch of tamarisk (called barsom) to the nose at daybreak while they sang hymns to the rising sun (Strabo, 15, section 733). Baal or sun worship appears indicated in the names Bethshemesh, Baal Hermon, Mount Heres ("sun"), Belshazzar, Hadadezer, Hadad Rimmon (the Syrian god). (15) maskiyt (Leviticus 26:1; Numbers 33:52): "devices"; with eben "stones of device," namely, with figures or hieroglyphics sacred to the several deities on them; "effigied stones" (Minucius Felix, 3). Like "the chambers of imagery" or priests' chambers with idolatrous, pictures on the walls as seen in vision (Ezekiel 8:12), answering to their own perverse imaginations. Gesenius, "a stone with an idol's image, Baal or Astarte." (16) teraphim. (See TERAPHIM.) (17) pecel. The process by which stone, metal, or wood was made into a graven or carved image (literally, one trimmed into shape and having had the finishing stroke) is described Isaiah 44:10-20. It was overlaid with gold or silver, and adorned with chains of silver (worn lavishly by rich orientals) and embroidered robes (Jeremiah 10:8-9). "Fastened with nails that it should not be moved" (Isaiah 41:7), to keep the god steady! and that his influence might be secured to the spot (Isaiah 40:19-20; Isaiah 45:20; Ezekiel 16:16-18; margin Judges 3:19; Judges 3:26 (See EGLON, (See EHUD); Deuteronomy 7:25). (18) pecilim. (19) nesek, masecah (Isaiah 41:29). "Molten images" (Deuteronomy 27:15). In Exodus 32:4 "Aaron fashioned it with a graying tool (cheret) after he had made it a golden calf." The sense is, he formed it first of a wooden center, then covered it with a coating of gold, the image so formed being called masecah. The mode of its destruction shows this; the wooden center was first-burnt, then the golden covering was beaten or rubbed to pieces (Deuteronomy 9:20; Deuteronomy 9:21). So Septuagint, Keil, etc. The rendering "he bound it (the gold) up in a bag" is less probable. In Genesis 35:2, Jacob's charge to "his household and to all that were with him Put away the strange gods ('the gods of the foreigner,' the Canaanites) among you, and be clean and change your raiment," it seems surprising that idols should have had place in his household. The explanation is gathered from what went before, but the connection is so little obvious that it can only be the result of truth not contrivance. Rachel had stolen Laban's images (teraphim) without Jacob's knowledge (Genesis 31:32); perhaps not for worship but for their gold and silver, to balance what was withheld by him from her. Laban had divined by them, as Genesis 30:27, "I have learned by experience," ought to be translated "I have learned by divination" literally, I have hissed, "I have divined by omens from serpents." Moreover the sons of Jacob had just before (Genesis 30:34) carried away all the spoils of Shechem's city, and among them doubtless their gold and silver idols. The words "all that were with him" point to the captured wives and women, etc. "Change your raiment" was a charge needed for all who had taken part in the slaughter, and so were ceremonially defiled. There are two degrees in idolatry. Against the worst, that of having other gods besides Jehovah the one only God, the first commandment is directed. Against the less flagrant degree, worshipping the true God under the form of an image or symbolic likeness, representing any of His attributes, the second is directed. The Baal and Asheerah ("groves") worship violated the first command. meat; Aaron's calf worship and Jeroboam's violated the second. Compare 1 Kings 16:30; 2 Kings 10:26-28; 2 Kings 10:31; 2 Kings 17:7-23. So the Roman and Greek universals violate the second commandment in the adoration of the eucharistic mass, the bowing before images, etc., and go perilously near violating the first in the divine titles wherewith they invoke the Virgin Mary. Jeroboam's calves paved the way for Baal worship. See Exodus 20:3, "thou shalt have no other gods before My face." Polytheism ancient and modern is willing to grant Jehovah the first place among deities; but He will have none "in His presence" which is everywhere (Psalm 139:7). Again no outward form can image God, it only debases instead of helping the worshipper. The principle involved is stated by Paul on Mars' hill, surrounded by the choicest works of genius representing deity (Acts 17:29), "forasmuch as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device." Once that the first visible representation of God is made, or adopted, it entails another and another endlessly, no one or more idols or symbols ever adequately representing all the countless attributes of God. Hence a female deity was added to the male; an Apollo, Venus, Mercury, Diana, etc., etc., must be added to Jupiter; and, instead of one omnipresent God, deities whose power was restricted to localities were worshipped (1 Kings 20:23; 1 Kings 20:28; 2 Kings 17:26). Like all deviations from truth, the first lie necessitates countless others. "The express image of the Father's person" is the incarnate God Jesus. He alone (not visible images and pictures of Him), as represented in the written word, is the appointed revealer of the unseen God (John 1:18). Israel was God's representative and "peculiar treasure above all people, a kingdom of priests and an holy nation"; the same relation Christ's church now holds (1 Peter 2:5; 1 Peter 2:9). Israel's kings (when Israel had chosen a visible head instead of the invisible King alone) were under God as their feudal superior (1 Kings 3:14; 1 Kings 11:11). The penalty of overt, idolatry, as being treason against the divine King, was death. The offender's nearest relatives must denounce him, and even be first to stone him (Exodus 22:20; Deuteronomy 13:2-10; Deuteronomy 17:2-5). Especially Moloch's worship with human sacrifices and passing through the fire entailed death as the penalty. The Canaanites were exterminated for it (Exodus 34:15-16; Deuteronomy 7; Deuteronomy 12:29-31; Deuteronomy 20:17). Israel's disasters were the punishment of their idolatry (Jeremiah 2:17). Saul lost his throne, Achan his life, and Hiel his family, for retaining or restoring anything of a people doomed for idolatry (1 Samuel 15; Joshua 7; 1 Kings 16:34). God works out His ends, even His judgments, in the way of natural consequence. The calves of Jeroboam and Baal's groves were the sin. The disgust of all godly Israelites, intestine divisions, a perpetual conflict between the Mosaic law, still in force, and the established national idolatry, and the immorality which results from idolatry, were the natural and penal consequence, bringing ruin finally on the state. Israel, foremost in the offense under Jeroboam and then Ahab, is first to have prophets sent as censors and seers to counteract the evil, but proving refractory is the first to be carried into captivity. Judah, following the bad example in her turn, has prophets sent whom she rejects and even kills, and at nearly the same interval between the sin and the punishment follows Israel into captivity. Idolatry on the part of the Old Testament Israel, and the spiritual Israel, is high treason against the heavenly King (1 Samuel 8:7) whose direct subjects we avowedly are. The punishments were then temporal (Deuteronomy 17:2-13). Israel's original contract of government is in Exodus 19:3-8; Exodus 20:2-5; Deuteronomy 28, 29, 30. Often Israel fell from the covenant, and at intervals renewed it. The remarkable confirmation of the divine authority of the law is, it was only in prosperity Israel neglected it, in distress they always cried to God and returned to the law, and invariably received deliverance (Judges 10:10; 2 Chronicles 15:12-13); especially at the return from Babylon (Nehemiah 9:38). Israel's idolatry was not merely an abomination in God's sight, as that of the Gentiles, but spiritual "adultery" against Jehovah her Husband (Isaiah 54:5; Jeremiah 3:14; Ezekiel 16). Hosea 2:16-17; "thou shalt call Me Ishi (my Husband, the term of affection), no more Baali" (my Lord, the term of rule, defiled by its application to Baal, whose name ought never to be on their lips: Exodus 23:13; Zechariah 13:2), etc. Fornication formed part of the abominable worship of the idols, especially Baal Peor and Ashtoreth or Astarte, who represented nature's generative powers and (Numbers 25:1-2) to whom qideeshim and qedeeshot public male and female prostitutes, were "consecrated" (as the Hebrew means: Deuteronomy 23:17, etc.; 2 Kings 23:7; Hosea 4:14), "separated with whores (withdrawn from the assembly of worshippers for carnal connection with them) ... sacrifice with the harlots" (so Hebrew) (Herodotus i. 199). This horrid consecrated pollution prevailed in Phoenicia, Syria, Phrygia, Assyria, and Babylonia, and still in Hindu idolatry. Man making lust a sacred duty! This is the force of the phrase, "Israel joined himself unto Baal Peor," as appears in 1 Corinthians 6:16-17, "He which ... is joined to an harlot is one body; for two, saith He, shall be one flesh. But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit." God chose Egypt as Israel's place of training, though an idolatrous country, but took every precaution, if they would only have heeded Him, to save them from the contagion. He placed them in a separate province; as shepherds they were an abomination to Egyptians, and sacrificed to God the very animals Egypt worshipped (Exodus 8:26). Finally, the Egyptians bitterly oppressed them. Yet the fascinations of idolatry spellbound Israel during their long stay in Egypt (Joshua 24:14; Ezekiel 20:7), and led them to relapse into the sin from which Abram had been rescued by his call from Ur. God by Moses smote the symbols of Egyptian idolatry with the ten plagues, "executing judgment against all the gods of Egypt" (Exodus 12:12), the river, the wind bringing locusts, the dust of the earth, the cattle, the symbol of Apis (Numbers 33:4). (See EGYPT.) Yet Israel in all their history showed a continual tendency to adopt the idols of the neighbouring nations; in the desert they "sacrificed unto devils" (saeer, a shaggy goat, worshipped with the foulest rites at Mendes in Lower Egypt. Speaker's Commentary translated "to the evil spirits of the desert": Leviticus 17:7, compare Isaiah 13:21; Isaiah 34:14; 2 Chronicles 11:15). Behind the idols, though nonentities in themselves, lurk real demons, to whom consciously or unconsciously the worship is paid, as inspiration declares (Deuteronomy 32:17), "devils" lasheedim, "destroyers"; as Satan's name Apollyon means; slavish fear being the prompting motive, not love, the idol feaster has his fellowship with demons (1 Corinthians 10:20), even as the communicant in the Lord's supper has by faith real fellowship with the Lord's body once for all sacrificed, and now exalted as the Head of redeemed mankind. In the northern kingdom of Israel, from Jeroboam down to Hoshea whom Shalmaneser dethroned, no one royal reformer appeared. In Judah several arose, Asa, Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, Josiah. The Babylonian captivity almost thoroughly purged the Jews from their proneness to idols (Jeremiah 44:17-18, contrast Hosea 3:4). But traces appeared still in their partially adopting Greek idolatry and usages for worldly compromise, just before Antiochus Epiphanes' attempt to overthrow Jehovah's worship (1 Maccabees 1:43-54). The heroic resistance of the Maccabees, besides their contact with the Persians who rejected images, and especially the erection of synagogues and the reading the law every sabbath in them, gave them the abhorrence of idols which now characterizes them. In the Christian church "the deadly wound" that was given to "the beast" (the God-opposed world) by Christianity (Minucius Felix, A.D. 180, and Arnobius adv. Gent. 4:1, mention that the Romans were shocked to find among Christians "no altars, no temples, no images") was speedily "healed" by image worship being revived in the Roman and Greek churches (Daniel 7:8; Daniel 7:11-24; Daniel 7:25; 1 Timothy 4:1-3), so that "the beast that was, and is not (during the brief continuance of the deadly wound), yet is" (Revelation 17:8); and in spite of God's judicial plagues men repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold and silver and brass and stone and wood, which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk" (Revelation 9:20). The deadly wound is healed also by the prevalenee of "covetousness which is idolatry" (Ephesians 5:5; Colossians 3:5) in all Christendom, reformed and unreformed, and the "form of godliness without the power"; culminating in the willful king of the third kingdom (Daniel 8:11-12; Daniel 11:36; 2 Timothy 3:1-9 describes the hotbed from which the last anti-Christianity shall spring). Probably the second beast is the same, the false prophet who causes an image to be made to the first beast (Daniel 7:8-26), and all who will not worship it to be killed, after the harlot has been unseated and judged (Revelation 13:14-18; Revelation 16:13-16; Revelation 16:17). The Lord will come "utterly to abolish the idols," and all "idolaters shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone" (Revelation 21:8; Isaiah 2:18-19; Zechariah 13:2-3). Self idolatry, self will, and self sufficiency must be subdued, if God is to be our God. 1 Samuel 15:23 implies that "conscious disobedience is idolatry, because it makes self will, the human I, into a god" (Keil).