The Worship of Baal and Ashtoreth
50%International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jul 16, 1885
FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 27.
Read the full editionThe Worship of Baal and Ashtoreth
- "And went and served Baal and worshiped him." Baal and Ashtoreth, or Astarte,—whence our word star,—were the chief Phœnician deities, male and female respectively. They correspond to the Assyrian Bel and Ishtar. The sun was regarded as the emblem of Baal, and the moon, or the planet Venus, as that of Ashtoreth. Hence the worship was connected with that of heavenly bodies. Ashtoreth was to the Phœnicians what the goddess Venus was to the Greeks. Hence the worship of these imaginary deities was associated with fierce 1 (1 Kings 18 : 28), and at the same time the most licentious and infamous rites. Consequently it was productive of the greatest profligacy and wickedness, and was especially abhorrent to the God of infinite purity and truth.