IDOLATRY of the Israelites. The Hebrews had no Idolatry or Gods peculiar to themselves; they imitated the superstition of other people, but do not appear to have been inventors in matters of Religion. In Egypt they worshipped the Egyptian Deities; in the Wilderness, the Gods of the Canaanites, Egyptians, Ammonites, and Moabites; in the Land of Promise, the Gods of the Phœnicians, Syrians, and other people round about them.
Rachel in all probability adored Idols at her father Laban’s, since she carried off his Gen. xxxi. 30.Teraphims. Jacob, some time after his return from Mesopotamia, required his people to throw away the strange Gods that were among them, to purify themselves, and prepare to go with him to Bethel, there to offer sacrifices unto the Lord. He received their strange Gods Gen. xxxv. 2, 3, 4.from them, and the superstitious pendants which were worn by them at their ears, and hid them under a turpentine-tree near Sichem. Leah was not free from the guilt of this superstitious worship, since she called one of her sons Gad, which is the name of the God of Good-fortune.Gen. xxx. 11.
Jacob kept his Family to the worship of God as long as he lived; but after his death, part of his sons gave themselves up to the worship of the Egyptian Deities: Put away the Gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood and in Egypt, said Joshua to the Israelites. Amos informs us, that during their sojourning in the wilderness, they carried Amos v. 25, 26. Acts vii. 42.with them the niches of their Gods, the tabernacle of Moloch, and the image of their Idols. St. Stephen, in the Acts, reproaches them with the same practice. The golden Calf which the Hebrews worshipped at the foot of mount Sinai, was in imitation of the God Apis, whom Exod. xxvii. 4, 5.they had adored in Egypt. When Moses was sent by God to deliver his people out of this country, he said to them, Cast ye away every man the abominations of his eyes, and defile not your selves with the Idols of Egypt.
Ezek. xx. 6, 7, 8, 9.Under the Government of the Judges, they fell often into infidelity; and God, to punish them, gave them to the people who were their enemies. Gideon, after he had been favoured by God in so particular a manner, made an Ephod, and laid snares for the Israelites, in order to engage them in an unlawful worship. Micah’s Teraphims are well known, and the worship of them continued in Israel till the dispersion of the people. Lastly, the Scripture shews expressly, that the Hebrews forsook the Lord, adored strange Gods, and performed their worship to Baal and Ashtaroth. The children of Israel Judg. ii. 11, 12, 13.did evil in the sight of the Lord, and served Baalim. They forsook the Lord God of their fathers, and followed other Gods: of the Gods of the people that were round about them; and bowed themselves unto them: and they forsook the Lord, and served Baal and Ashtaroth.
Under the Government of Samuel, Saul, and David, the worship of God seemed to have been very pure in Palestine. There was corruption and irregularity visible in their manners, but little or no Idolatry. Solomon, (who would believe it ?) is the first King of God’s people, who, out of complaisance to the strange women whom he had married, caused Temples to be erected in honour of their Gods, and was so impiously complying with them, as himself to offer incense to these false Deities, 1 Kings xi. 5, 6, 7. He adored Ashtaroth the Goddess of the Phœnicians, Moloch the God of the Ammonites, and Chemosh the God of the Moabites. Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who succeeded him in the largest part of his dominions, set up golden Calves at Dan and Bethel, and made Israel to sin. Hereupon the people being no longer under any restraint from their apprehensions of the Royal Authority, gave themselves up without reserve or limitation to every evil inclination of their hearts, and worshipped not only the golden Calf, but likewise all the Deities of the Phœnicians, Syrians, Ammonites, and Moabites.
Particularly under the reign of Ahab this disorder was at its height; the impious Jezebel did what she could to extinguish quite the worship of the Lord, driving away and persecuting his Prophets, who were as it were a barrier, which still retained some part of the people in the true Religion. God therefore being incensed at the Sins and Idolatry of the ten Tribes, at last abandoned them to the Kings of Assyria and Chaldæa, who transplanted them beyond the Euphrates.
The people of Judah were almost as much corrupted. The description which the Prophets give of their Irregularities and Idolatry, of the abominations and lasciviousness committed on the High-Places, and in Woods consecrated to Idols; this description, I say, strikes us with horror, and discovers all 1 Macc. i, 12, &c.the corruption of the Judg. viii. 27. Judg. xvii. 5. xviii. 30, 31.heart of man when under the power of his passions. Judah was led into captivity at several times, and did not return till after seventy years absence. After their return, we do not find that they were any more reproached, as before they had been, with Idolatry. They expressed zeal enough for the worship of God, and except some transgressors, who obeyed the orders of Antiochus Epiphanes, the rest of the people kept themselves clear of those impieties which had drawn so many calamities upon their forefathers.
Concerning the origin of Idolatry, the Reader may see Isaac Vossius’s great work on this subject, and our Dissertation prefixed to the book of Wisdom; Seldenus de Diis Syris, &c.