The system of Idolatry founded on a perversion of the Doctrine
of Mediation--References to the Worshippers of Baal, Israelite
and Pagan.
This system of idolatry was founded on the doctrine of mediation, which
was the basis of the revealed system of true religion. But in the
application of that doctrine, idolatry exhibited an entire perversion,
ascribing the mediatorial office and relations, not to Messiah, the
Messenger Jehovah, the one only Mediator between God and man, but to his
adversary, antagonist, and competitor, who emphatically in this respect,
and as creator and administrator of providence, arrogated the office,
prerogatives, relations and works of Jehovah, the delegated Personal
Word.
This consideration alone affords a clue to any intelligent understanding
of the system in its details, or of the succeeding history of the
antagonism; of the enormity and turpitude of idolatry as a crime; and of
the amazing retributions and judgments which it called down upon the
Canaanites and other nations devoted to the worship of Baal, and upon
the Israelites on their apostatizing to that worship.
The doctrine of mediation and of one Divine Mediator, as it involved the
relations of men to the Creator, moral and providential Ruler and
Redeemer, was the basis and prime element in the patriarchal and
Levitical economies, which prescribed a religion not merely for
dependent, but for fallen, guilty creatures, no acts of whom, whether
of obedience in performing ordinary duties, or of religious homage,
sacrifices, prayers or offerings, could be accepted unless rendered in
the exercise of faith in the appointed Mediator, and a consciousness of
entire dependence on his merits, and the efficacy of his mediation, as
the only ground of acceptance, and of the bestowment of blessings on
them. Hence the typical sacrifices, and all the rites, ordinances, and
prescriptions of that system.
But from the nature of the case, and the consciousness of dependence,
helplessness and misery in those who turned away from the true worship,
a sense of the necessity of mediation and a mediator must naturally have
been felt by them, as well as by those of the other party. Without a
sense of that necessity they would neither have projected nor adopted
any religion whatever. It is the sole basis of all false religions.
Those who have it not, must be classed with atheists or deists. The Jews
who nominally reject the doctrine, and really reject the true Mediator,
palpably contradict and pervert the religion which they profess, and
virtually assign to their rites and forms the office of mediation.
Nothing can be more unlikely or more absurd than the supposition that
nations, tribes, or individuals should contrive or adopt or persevere in
the practice of a false religion, without a notion more or less correct,
and a conviction more or less strong and effective, of the existence of
a Supreme Being, to whose will the striking events of providence, the
vicissitudes in their own experience, their acts, their prayers, their
fears and hopes, had a real, though it might be a mysterious and
incomprehensible, reference. But with such conviction, their false
religion, naturally in theory, and necessarily in order to such effect
upon their hopes and fears as to induce their perseverance in it,
refers ultimately to that mysterious, unseen, and, without intermediate
agencies and instruments of mediation, inaccessible Being. Such fears
and such conviction, coupled with the uncertainties of the future, and
with impending or foreboded evils, are, like instincts, deep seated, in
the very nature of man. And hence, with reference to the false system
under consideration, the facility, on the one hand, with which
imposture, delusion, and desperate infatuation might take effect; and
the absurdity, on the other hand, of supposing that Baal, whose
tabernacle in the sun, and whose manifestations in fire, light, air or
water were ever visibly or sensibly present and familiar; or that any of
the animals consecrated to him, or of the representative material images
of animate or inanimate, rational or irrational forms, called idols,
were ever mistaken by any of his worshippers for that Being whom they
regarded as supreme, ever invisible, and far removed from immediate
intercourse and familiarity with mortals. Such a mistake would argue
that the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Asiatics, Polynesians, Mexicans, and
all other pagans, as well as the devotees of Popery, were more senseless
than the animals, or even the material forms and figures, before which
they bowed themselves down, and presented their gifts and offerings.
But not to waste words on so plain a matter, let it be illustrated by
reference to Scripture. The Israelites were so terrified by the thunders
and lightnings at the giving of the Law, when Jehovah spoke to them
directly, that "they removed and stood afar off; and they said unto
Moses: Speak thou with us, and we will hear, but let not Elohim speak
with us, lest we die. And Moses said unto the people, Fear not, for
(the) Elohim has come to prove you, and that his fear may be before
your faces, that ye sin not." Ex. xx. Moses, referring to this, Deut.
v., says: "Jehovah," that is, the Messenger Jehovah, "talked with you
face to face in the mount out of the midst of the fire, (I stood between
Jehovah and you at that time, to show you the word of Jehovah: for ye
were afraid by reason of the fire, and went not up into the mount;)
saying, I am Jehovah thy Elohe, which brought thee out of the land of
Egypt, from the house of bondage. Thou shalt have none other Elohim
before me. Thou shalt not make thee any graven image, nor any likeness
of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath,
or that is in the waters under the earth; thou shalt not bow down
thyself unto them, nor serve them: For I, Jehovah thy Elohe, am a
jealous El," &c. Shortly after this, Moses, Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and
seventy of the elders of Israel were called up into the mount, and "they
saw the Elohe of Israel." Then Aaron and the others returned to the
people, except Moses, who was called up into the cloud on the mount, and
remained there forty days and forty nights. In the meantime, "the sight
of the glory of Jehovah was like devouring fire on the top of the mount,
in the eyes of the children of Israel." The appalling terrors of this
sight, from which they were, at the announcement of the Law, so anxious
to be relieved, being thus prolonged from week to week, and despairing
of the return of their chosen interlocutor between Jehovah and them, the
minds of the people reverted to the image representative of Baal, and
with other images and idolized objects familiarly called Elohim, with
which their sojourn in Egypt had made them acquainted: and they said to
Aaron, "Up, make us Elohim which shall go before us; for as for this
Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not
what is become of him." Aaron accordingly made a molten calf, "and they
said, _This is thy Elohe_, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the
land of Egypt:" plainly meaning, This image represents, is a visible
representative of thy Elohe, and stands between him and us, as Moses,
the man that brought us out of Egypt, stood between Jehovah and us at
the giving of the Law. They wanted and deemed that they had in this
molten image a visible representative of the Elohe of Israel. But no one
can suppose that Aaron, after having witnessed the wonders in Egypt, and
assisted Moses as an instrument of them, and, with the elders, "seen the
Elohe of Israel" in the mount, could mistake and ascribe to the brute
image the power and prerogatives of that Being; neither did the people
imagine any thing to that effect. The crime of which they were guilty,
and for which they were punished, was that of breaking a positive
command; doing what was expressly forbidden; making a graven image;
worshipping it as a representative emblem of Jehovah, and medium of
their homage of him; placing it _before him_, between them and him, in
imitation of the Egyptians, who made and worshipped similar images as
the immediate, local, visible, familiar objects or media through which
they offered their sacrifices and prayers to Baal. There is no
intimation that they intended on this occasion to ascribe their
deliverance from Egypt to Baal. On the contrary, they had witnessed the
most amazing demonstrations in the plagues and at the Red Sea, that
their deliverance was effected by the high hand and outstretched arm of
Jehovah, in opposition to that adversary. They were required by
sacrifices and prayers to worship the Elohe of Israel directly in spirit
and in truth, conformably to the letter of their ritual, the divine
doctrine of mediation, and his relations as the only Mediator between
the invisible God and men. The introduction of a representative image or
deified object between him and them, and offering burnt offerings in
that relation, as Aaron did, was not only wholly inconsistent with the
nature, theory, and ritual of their religion, and a flagrant act of
disobedience; but was calculated to lead them, as it afterwards did, to
renounce Jehovah, and turn away to the exclusive worship of Baal through
the medium of idols. Against this tendency they were often cautioned and
warned; and were commanded to destroy the images and altars of Baal
wherever they encountered them. They were forbidden to inquire after the
idol gods, or how the idolatrous nations served them, and were commanded
to put to death members of their families, false prophets and others who
should endeavor to entice them to idolatry, and utterly to destroy those
who were enticed, with their families and all their effects. Deut. xii.,
xiii., &c.
The first public defection of any of the Israelites, or any considerable
number of them, took place nearly forty years after the Exodus, when, in
their forty-second journey, they entered the plain of Moab, and were
seduced by the Moabites to attend "the sacrifices of their gods; and the
people did eat, and bowed down to their gods, and Israel joined himself
unto Baal-peor"--that is, Baal, as worshipped on the eminence called
Peor, where the vilest abominations were practised. Twenty-four thousand
of the people were slain in rebuke of this apostasy. Under the Judges,
after the death of Joshua, the children of Israel "forsook Jehovah, and
served Baal and Ashtaroth," Judges ii. 3, 6; and again in the reign of
Ahab, who, having married Jezebel, a heathen woman and zealous devotee
of that idolatry, built a house or temple of Baal in Samaria, erected
an altar for him, and served and worshipped him.
In the meantime, however, there continued generally among the Israelites
a restless propensity for such visible and familiar images as were
common in Egypt and other nations, and which, notwithstanding the
prohibition in the Decalogue, and the wrath incurred for the violation
under Aaron, and in the plain of Moab, they seem to have deemed
consistent with their religion, provided the worship offered through
them was directed to Jehovah and not to Baal. Thus, in the narrative of
Micah, Judges xvii., it appears that silver which had been dedicated to
Jehovah was wrought into a graven image, not for any purpose of secret
or heathenish idolatry, but as an instrument to be employed in his daily
domestic worship of Jehovah. He accordingly engaged a Levite to
officiate as priest, who, on the arrival of a company of Danites in
search of a place to dwell in, made no secret of his occupation. Micah,
on engaging him, said, "Now know I that Jehovah will do me good, seeing
I have a Levite to my priest;" which plainly implies that he professed
to worship Jehovah, and to expect benefits only from him. An
illustration to the like effect is furnished in the history of Gideon, a
true worshipper of Jehovah, to whom the Messenger Jehovah appeared, and
who, in obedience to his command, destroyed the altar of Baal; and yet,
after having been the instrument, with three hundred men, of the
destruction of the kings of Midian, and of an army of one hundred and
twenty thousand, took of the spoils of gold, and made an ephod and put
it in his city; an imitation no doubt of that prescribed to Moses, but
intended, at a distance from the tabernacle, as an instrument of
worshipping and consulting Jehovah; but which, as naturally as if it
had been a graven image, became a snare to him and to the people.
Another illustration occurs in the history of Jeroboam, late a refugee
and perhaps idolater in Egypt, who, fearing that if the people of the
ten tribes, and the Levites who dwelt among them, should continue to go
up to Jerusalem to worship Jehovah in the temple, their hearts would be
turned from him to Rehoboam as their rightful king, "made two calves of
gold, and said unto the people, It is too much for you to go up to
Jerusalem; behold thy Elohe, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the
land of Egypt. And he set the one in Bethel, and the other put he in
Dan. And this thing became a sin." Doubtless the people regarded these
graven images in the same light as that made under the direction of
Aaron; for, with the exception of the priests and Levites, they
acquiesced in the change, though a week before they were ready, as
subjects of the legitimate successor of Solomon, to continue in the
established worship of Jehovah in the temple. The priests and Levites
were expelled as too closely connected with the service in Jerusalem;
new priests were appointed, and the same rites were observed before the
images as before Jehovah in the temple. And when Jehu, in his zeal for
Jehovah, slew all the partisans of Baal, he still adhered to the golden
calves in Dan and Bethel, as not in his view inconsistent with the true
worship. 2 Kings x.
In the same class of acts, in point of turpitude, and in respect to the
apparent intention of the actors and the tendency of their acts, may be
included that of Nadab and Abihu, in "offering _strange fire_ before
Jehovah, which he commanded them not. And there went out fire from
Jehovah and devoured them, and they died before Jehovah;" and that of
Korah and his company, who usurped the priests' office and burned
incense, and were destroyed with their families and fourteen thousand of
their adherents.
These illustrations show that the worship rendered to images did not
terminate in them as its object, but referred to an unseen Intelligence
beyond them, who was supposed to be cognizant of their circumstances and
their acts, and to be able to protect them and grant their requests. It
proceeded on the assumption that the visible emblem, the graven image,
or whatever was selected by individuals or canonized by the priests, and
worshipped as an idol--the proper signification of which is, a figure,
likeness, or representation--was a medium of intercourse with the Being
worshipped.
This was the case, not merely with the Israelites in their use of images
in the real or pretended worship of Jehovah, but equally of the devoted
worshippers of Baal. A few references out of many which might be made,
will show that their prayers and offerings were directed to the unseen
object of their homage. Thus, in the formal controversy between Elijah,
as prophet of Jehovah, and the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal,
to demonstrate by fire, to Ahab and the people, which was supreme,
whether Jehovah or _the_ Baal was _the_ Elohim to be worshipped and
obeyed; Elijah proposed that each party should offer a sacrifice of
animals, and let it be seen which would be miraculously consumed, and
said: "Call ye on the name of your Elohe,"--rendered here and elsewhere
erroneously _gods_ in the plural, as if there were more than one
Baal,--"and I will call on the name of Jehovah; and _the_ Elohim that
answereth by fire, let him be the Elohim. And all the people answered
and said, It is well spoken. And Elijah said unto the prophets of _the_
Baal, Choose you one bullock for yourselves, and dress it first, for ye
are many, and call on your Elohe; but put no fire under. And they took
the bullock which was given them, and they dressed it, and called on the
name of _the_ Baal from morning even until noon, saying, O _the_ Baal,
hear us! But there was no voice, nor any that answered. And they leaped
upon the altar that was made. And it came to pass at noon, that Elijah
mocked them, and said, Cry aloud, for he is an Elohim; either he is
talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he
sleepeth, and must be awaked. And they cried aloud, and cut themselves,
after their manner, with knives and lancets, till the blood gushed out
upon them. And they prophesied until the time of the offering of the
evening sacrifice, and there was neither voice, nor any to answer, nor
any that regarded." 1 Kings xviii.
In this case there does not appear to have been any intervening image or
idol. The priests called on the name of the absent, invisible Baal, but
he answered not. He could not assist them by working a real miracle, and
under the circumstances they could not counterfeit one; and with the
approbation of the people, who saw that they were impostors, they were
all slain.
That the real object of their worship was distinct from their images, is
implied in their selecting high places for their religious rites, and
erecting lofty towers for that purpose, where the sun could be earliest
seen at rising, and where the stars or host of heaven could be most
advantageously observed; and in burning their children as sacrifices,
making them pass through the fire to Baal or Moloch. Thus, in the reign
of Ahaz, 2 Kings xvii., "They made them molten images, even two calves,
and made a grove, and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served
Baal. And they caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the
fire." Manasseh made his son pass through the fire; and in Josiah's
reformation he put down the idolatrous priests "that burned incense unto
Baal, to the sun [literally, to Baal, the sun] and to the moon, and to
the planets, and to all the host of heaven." 2 Kings xxiii. Jeremiah
says: "They have built also the high places of Baal, to burn their sons
with fire for burnt offerings unto Baal." Chap. xix. 5. Again: "And they
built the high places of Baal, to cause their sons and their daughters
_to pass through the fire_ unto Moloch." Jer. xxxii. 35. And of Josiah
it is said, that he defiled Tophet--"that no man might make his son or
his daughter _to pass through the fire_ to Moloch." 2 Kings xxiii. 10.
Their idea evidently was, that by sacrificing in this way the most
valued offering they could make, that of their children, they would pass
in and through that element to Baal, whose residence was conceived to be
in the solar orb.
The term Moloch--variously written Melech, Moloch, Malcom, Milcom--as a
designation, refers to the same being as Baal; the literal import of the
latter being the same as that of _the Lord_, as the sun is lord of the
day; and that of the former, the same as _the king_, as the sun is king
of the day. The molten images, representative of Moloch, in the heated
chest or arms of which, children offered in sacrifice were burnt, are
somewhat variously described, but generally as having the head of a calf
and the body of a man, with an opening in the chest, into which, when
heated from below, the victims were cast alive; and to drown their
cries, as in the burning of widows in India, under the same general
notion, drums were beaten.
It appears evident from the passages in which they occur in the
Scriptures, that the terms Bel, Baal, and Baalim, are personal
designations of the intelligence worshipped by the Chaldeans, and other
idolaters, as their god, and by the Israelites in opposition to Jehovah.
Thus, Jer. l. 2: "Declare ye among the nations, ... Babylon is taken,
Bel is confounded, Merodach is broken in pieces;" and li. 44: "I will
punish Bel in Babylon.... The nations shall not flow together any more
to him." That is, by the destruction of Babylon, Bel, the god of their
idolatry, is confounded, punishment is inflicted on him; Merodach, the
chief idol representative of Bel, is broken in pieces.
In most of the instances in which the same designation is rendered
_Baal_, it has the article, making the personal reference emphatic.
"Throw down the altar of _the_ Baal that thy father hath, and out down
the grove [statue of wood, or pillar carved statue or image-like] that
is by it: and build an altar unto Jehovah thy Elohe.... And when the men
of the city arose in the morning, behold, the altar of _the_ Baal was
east down, &c.... If he be an Elohim, let _him_ plead for _himself_....
Let _the_ Baal plead against Gideon, because he hath thrown down _his_
altar." Judges vi. 25, 26, &c.
Ahab "went and served _the_ Baal, and worshipped _him_. And he reared up
an altar for Baal in the house of _the_ Baal which he had built in
Samaria." 1 Kings xiv. 31, 32.
"And Elijah said, If Jehovah be _the_ Elohim, follow him: but if _the_
Baal, then follow him." 1 Kings xviii. 21.
So in the narrative of the destruction of the house, and the prophets,
priests, and worshippers of _the_ Baal, by Jehu, 2 Kings x. 18-28, the
article occurs with the name in the successive verses. And chap. xi.
18: "All the people of the land went into the house of _the_ Baal and
brake it down; _his_ altars and _his images_ brake they in pieces."
It is manifest from these and other like passages, that while the
statues and images of Baal were many and various, in all countries and
places, _the_ Baal, the real object of worship, represented by them, was
one. To him, under another of his designations, that of _Moloch_, human
victims offered in sacrifice were supposed to pass through the element
of fire.
Nor does this conclusion appear to be invalidated by the occurrence of
the designation in a plural form, rendered Baalim. The usage in this
respect seems analogous to that of the word Elohim. In both cases the
article is often prefixed; and the reference is to one agent only. Thus,
Judges viii. 33: "The children of Israel turned again ... after _the_
Baalim, and made Baal-berith their Elohim." Again, chap. x. 10-16, the
children of Israel said: "We have forsaken our Elohe, and also served
_the_ Baalim. And Jehovah said, ... Ye have forsaken me, and served
other Elohim.... Go and cry unto the Elohim which ye have chosen.... And
they put away the strange Elohe from among them, and served Jehovah."
The terms, _Baal-berith_, signify _the god of the covenant_, _i. e._, of
the covenant between Baal and his worshippers; as _Melach Berith_, Mal.
iii. 2, signifies _the Messenger of the Covenant_ of grace.
It is thus presumed to be evident beyond a doubt, that the whole system
was based upon a theory and a sense of the necessity of mediation; and
whether the earlier or later idolaters, the instructed or the ignorant,
referred in their worship to a being beyond or superior to Baal,
regarding him as created by that superior being, and yet himself as
creator of the world, or whether their homage terminated in him, does
not affect the question under consideration.
Mosheim, in his Commentaries on the three first centuries of the
Christian era, observes, with respect to the costly and sumptuous
buildings of the pagans, called temples, fanes, &c., and dedicated to
the worship of their gods, that internally "they were ornamented with
images of the gods, and furnished with altars," &c. "The statues were
supposed to be animated by the deities whom they _represented_; for
though the worshippers of gods like those above described must, in a
great measure, have turned their backs upon every dictate of reason,
they were yet by no means willing to appear so wholly destitute of
common sense as to pay their adoration _to a mere idol of metal_,
_wood_, _or stone_; but always maintained that the statues, when
properly consecrated, were filled with the presence of those divinities
whose forms they bore." Vol. i. 16.