LESSONS FROM JEREMIAH – PART 29 – WHO IS THE QUEEN OF HEAVEN THAT IS WORSHIPPED?
PART 29 - Jeremiah 7:16-19
CHAPTER 7
[A]. JEREMIAH IS FORBIDDEN TO INTERCEDE FOR THE PEOPLE FOR THEY ARE TOO WICKED.
{{Jeremiah 7:16 As for you, DO NOT PRAY FOR THIS PEOPLE, and do not offer a cry or a prayer for them, and do not intercede with Me, for I do not hear you.
Jeremiah 7:17 Do you not see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and IN THE STREETS of Jerusalem?
Jeremiah 7:18 The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead dough to make cakes for THE QUEEN OF HEAVEN, and they pour out libations to other gods IN ORDER TO SPITE ME.
Jeremiah 7:19 DO THEY SPITE ME?” declares the LORD. “Is it not themselves they spite, to their own shame?”}}
[1]. VERSE 16 – THE MATTER IS SETTLED; DO NOT PLEAD FOR THE PEOPLE – TOO LATE!
God speaks directly to Jeremiah and puts prohibitions on him. The nation is so corrupted that God has closed the book on them and the path ahead is only destruction. Therefore He will not hear any pleading on their behalf. There would be no prayer for them for God’s determination is settled.
In this case most prayer would be for intercession that God would both pardon them and spare them, but most of all, that they might repent and serve God yet again. Jeremiah is known as the weeping prophet and I am certain he wept over the spiritual position of Judah and that weeping automatically leads to intercession, but he was forbidden even to intercede, and if he did, then God would ignore what was pleaded.
It was too late for them as they had sold themselves into deep satanic evil. They had given themselves into the hands of demonic practices derived from Babylon. Abraham interceded for Sodom, and Moses for the Israelites and God heard them, but not any more. Judah had many chances, many, many chances, with warning from prophet after prophet, but they ignored, persecuted, and killed their prophets.
{{Hebrews 11:36-38 “and others experienced mockings and scourgings, yes, also chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were tempted, they were put to death with the sword. They went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated (men of whom the world was not worthy), wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground.”}}
The time will always come when God says, “Enough!” and His hand of judgement falls. He who persists in sin and shuts out conviction and God’s pleading, will one day find that heaven has been tarred over and God’s voice is no longer heard. People all their lives may reject God and as they get older then it seems they have shut the door to repentance and no longer have the Holy Spirit convicting them. They shut themselves out from God’s kingdom. {{Ecclesiastes 12:1 “Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near when you will say, “I have no delight in them”}}
[2]. VERSE 17 – GO AND OBSERVE WHAT HAPPENS IN THE STREETS
The reason for all this is given to the prophet and becomes God’s case against Judah. God appealed to Jeremiah’s sense of sight when walking the streets of Jerusalem, but the prophet would have been aware of this abominable practice God mentions, the worship of the queen of heaven, which he exposes in more detail in a later chapter. God drew attention to what happened in the cities and on the streets in verse 2. The horrible practices associated with the queen of heaven (maybe “the regency of heaven”) were in every city and on public display in the streets, especially in Jerusalem.
[3]. VERSE 18 - THE WHOLE FAMILY IS INVOLVED IN IDOLATROUS WORSHIP
This one verse charges them of the most horrible crime that involves even the children who gathered combustible material for the fires used by the women to make the cakes for the queen of heaven. In addition, they offer and pour out sacrifices and libations (offerings, drinks, sacrifice) to other gods. What is significant is God saying THEY DID THAT TO SPITE HIM. That showed a callous indifference on their behalf to Jehovah and they probably thought they were very clever and able to stand up against God.
In my opinion people who disregard God, including the atheistic deniers, are spiting God. They may not stand on a platform and cry aloud, “I am spiting God,” but it amounts to the same thing. God is not mocked. Those who would do that anyway publicly denouncing the Lord are only given licence and not zapped because of the forbearance of God. Regarding the queen of heaven, shortly I want to write on that.
[4]. VERSE 19 – WHO DO THEY SPITE IN THE END – GOD OR THEMSELVES?
In this 19th verse, God declares it is not Him they are spiting, but actually themselves, and as a result we know they lost everything and ended up in a shameful defeat and personal shame, slaves in Babylon, having lost their homeland. That most serious charge is a deliberate snubbing of God, a wilful trampling over all that God stands for. The arrogance of the people’s sins had reached to the heights of rejection of Israel's God, in the antagonism shown to Jehovah.
Day follows day and the earth keep revolving around the sun. The uniformity of God’s creation causes slumber in the God-rejecters, as if all will continue as it is without any personal consequence, but history has shown civilisations rise and fall; movements come and go. People neglect God, thinking all is according some defined patters that excuses their behaviour. I keep using a word over and over again – ACCOUNTABILITY. One day the books will be opened and the inhabitants of the earth will be judged, particularly those unsaved because their books of condemnation are opened at the great white throne described in Revelation 20.
[5]. AN EXPLORATION OF THE QUEEN OF HEAVEN CULT
We explore this queen of heaven cult, before moving to the next section of Chapter 7, and in doing so we look into Jeremiah chapter 44 and do that portion now. Here are the relevant verses –
[6]. QUEEN OF HEAVEN – IRRESPONSIBLE MEN AND SINFUL PEOPLE
{{Jeremiah 44:15-17 Then all the men who were aware that their wives were burning sacrifices to other gods, along with all the women who were standing by, as a large assembly, including all the people who were living in Pathros in the land of Egypt, responded to Jeremiah, saying, “As for the message that you have spoken to us in the name of the LORD, we are not going to listen to you, but rather we will certainly carry out every word that has proceeded from our mouths, by burning sacrifices to the queen of heaven and pouring out libations to her, JUST AS WE OURSELVES, OUR FOREFATHERS, OUR KINGS AND OUR PRINCES DID IN THE CITIES OF JUDAH AND IN THE STREETS OF JERUSALEM, for then we had plenty of food, and were well off, and saw no misfortune.”}}
Here is a disgrace, especially from the men. They were overcome so much by this iniquitous practice that they were blinded to all reason. This happens when a person is sold out to Satan, and these people were. The men knew what their wives were doing but they were complicit in the whole thing, and they promoted it as well.
Evil men silence the voice of God and these men did just that. They shut Jeremiah up. Defiantly, they refused to listen. The people here were the ones who fled from the Bablonian invasion and rule, going to Egypt against God’s strict command. Once they sinned initially, it is easy to keep sinning, and sin degrades to worse and worse levels. These at Egypt were on the lowest level for this Babylonian cult was the worst.
Verse 17 is most important as it reveals that this evil practice was happening in Judah before the destruction came. Jeremiah does not reveal that wicked practice was happening until this verse. The practice was so vile that God had to overthrow the nation and he did.
[7]. THE QUEEN OF HEAVEN BACKGROUND
There is much information on the queen of heaven but I have selected three sources to quote rather than present parallel findings of my own. The first is from ZONDERVAN:
[[ Judges 10:6 condemns the worship of “Baalim and Ashtaroth” (the plural of “Baal and Ashtoreth”). These terms sometimes reference specific gods (e.g., “Ashtoreth of the Sidonians”),
The Queen of Heaven might refer to the Mesopotamian goddess ISHTAR. The Hebrew name for the cake baked for the Queen of Heaven, “kawwan”, may be related to the Akkadian “kamanu”, which is described in several Mesopotamian texts as a cake made for Ishtar. Ishtar is also widely recognised as the “Queen of Heaven and Earth” in Mesopotamian royal hymns and cult songs. Further evidence can be found in Jeremiah 44:19, where women explain that they made cakes for the Queen of Heaven “marked with her image.” Some scholars have suggested this image may relate to clay and stone moulds of a nude standing female discovered throughout the Levant over the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages.
The Queen of Heaven might also refer to ASHTORETH, or ASTARTE, a goddess who is strongly hated in the Hebrew Bible. Astarte and another Levantine goddess, ANAT, were imported into Egypt and worshipped as Queens of Heaven in association with New Kingdom pharaohs and as consorts to major gods like Ptah and Re. Astarte is also generally recognised by scholars as the Levantine counterpart of Mesopotamian Ishtar. However, King Josiah, under whose reign Jeremiah was active, destroyed the high places built for “Ashtoreth the abomination of the Sidonians” (2Kings 23:13).
The Queen of Heaven may also refer to ISIS, a popular Egyptian goddess, or ASHERAH, the consort of Yahweh in biblical and extrabiblical texts. Asherah may be related to the Bronze Age goddess ATHIRAT, queen of the Ugaritic pantheon. She too was equated in the Hebrew Bible with hated foreign deities. (end of quote) ]]
What we can see from that is that the idea of “queen of heaven” passed into many cultures, so therefore it had a beginning. The beginning goes right back to Babel and the time of Nimrod. The queen of heaven was related to the mother-child deity that was worshipped. The most researched book I have ever encountered, full of citations, is that by Alexander Hislop called “The Two Babylons” and he traces the mother-child cult associated with the queen of heaven through all cultures. It is impossible in this limited time to outline the findings and history, but I might give two takes on it from two who are citing Hislop –
(1). ((From (user name) Mi Shad Ow:)) [[ According to Hislop's "The Two Babylons" which quotes 260 sources, the ancient Babylonian cult, started by Nimrod and his queen, Semiramis, spread among all nations, The objects of worship were the Supreme Father, the Incarnate Female, or Queen of Heaven, and her Son. The cult claimed the highest wisdom and the most divine secrets.
Besides confession to priests there were many mysterious rites. Julius Caesar became head of the Roman branch of the Babylonian Cult in 63 B.C.
Other emperors held the office until 376 A.D. when the emperor Gratian, for Christian reasons refused it because he saw that Babyonianism was idolatrous. Demasus, bishop of the Christian church at Rome, was elected to the headship in 378 A.D. and from here on, Babylonianism and organised Christianity became one. The rites of Babylon were soon introduced into the Christian church. Heathen temples were restored, beautified, and their rituals encouraged. Worship and veneration of images, saints, relics, private confessions, penances, scourgings, pilgrimages, sign of the cross, Christmas, Lady Day, Easter, Lent, and other pagan rites and festivals, little by little, became a part of Christian worship.” ]]
(2). ((From Steven Best)) [[ Artemis, Diana, Isis… even the name Columbia have been given to her. So many names and so many cultures over so many eons of time, but always representing fertility, beauty, liberty, sometimes war and, ultimately, that unique qualifier ascribed to her as the Queen of Heaven - seems to be none other than Semiramis, wife of Nimrod, leader of the first great rebellion against God. Her story arose in Sumeria among the Chaldees, embellished in the so-called mythologies of the Greeks and Romans, then seemingly dead with the rise of the church in Rome, yet somehow went on secretly heralded through time via the activities of certain societies and their members.
Is she still worshiped today? It depends on how you define worship, I suppose. America's highest officers have been found carrying on occult rituals at the Bohemian Grove, and most are Freemasons, whose rituals are obviously based upon the ancient worship of Horus, Isis, and Osiris. Many Protestant leaders have indicted the worship of Mary, (proclaimed the Queen of Heaven by the Roman Catholic Church), as yet another extension of this.
Ezekiel 8:9-18 provides a clear picture of the things being practised in that prophet's day. Albeit those practices were in secret, but God saw them and judged them as abominations, each worse than the other. These included Israel's leadership worshipping the creatures of the earth and celestial bodies, while burning incense, women weeping for Tammuz, and men bowing down toward the east. These were all characteristics of the religion of Nimrod and his wife Semiramis's day, and ultimately became known as Baal worship to the Jews. However, we should understand this as all ancient forms of Sun God worship, including Jupiter, Zeus, Mithra, Osiris, Isis, Artemis, Diana, etc.” ]]
That was a very brief coverage of the Queen of Heaven. Just for the record, Mary is NOT the queen of heaven, but simply one redeemed sinner just like every other member of the Church. We will continue with the rest of chapter 44 on this topic.
[8]. DELUSION CLOUDS THE MIND AND UNDERSTANDING
{{Jeremiah 44:18-19 But since we stopped burning sacrifices to the queen of heaven and pouring out libations to her, we have lacked everything and have met our end by the sword and by famine. “And,” said the women, “when we were BURNING SACRIFICES TO THE QUEEN OF HEAVEN, and were pouring out libations to her, was it without our husbands that we made for her sacrificial cakes in her image and poured out libations to her?”}}
This is amazing but the association of ideas is corrupted by false logic. They attributed their sad situation to their failure to continue this evil worship of the queen of heaven. Their sin against Jehovah was the cause of their judgement, but twisted hearts who are God’s enemies, can never reason the truth. It was not just a misplaced faith; it was being numbered in Satan’s camp.
They were in gross disobedience as well. God told Jeremiah the people were to remain in Judah and not go to Egypt, but a leader, a thug forced them to go. One sin compounds another.
[9]. THE EXPLANATION FOR THEIR TROUBLE – STRAIGHT FROM GOD
Jeremiah 44:20-23 Then Jeremiah said to all the people, to the men and women - even to all the people who were giving him such an answer - “As for the smoking sacrifices that you burned in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, you and your forefathers, your kings and your princes, and the people of the land, DID NOT THE LORD REMEMBER THEM, and did not all this come into His mind? So THE LORD WAS NO LONGER ABLE TO ENDURE IT, because of the evil of your deeds, because of the abominations which you have committed. Thus your land has become a ruin, an object of horror and a curse, without an inhabitant, as it is this day. Because you have burned sacrifices and have SINNED against the LORD and NOT OBEYED the voice of the LORD or walked in His law, His statutes or His testimonies, therefore this calamity has befallen you, as it has this day.”}}
Yes, the reason is their departure from the LORD through their multiplied sins. That is why the longsuffering hand of God eventually fell on them in destruction. This queen of heaven worship is even worse than Baal because it is Babylonian and very satanic. Judah did not learn from the overthrow of Israel. God had enough of their idolatry and brought the Assyrians against them, yet Judah persisted in the same thing. Sin and deception cause blindness.
[10]. DOUBLE JUDGEMENT AGAINST ENTRENCHED IDOLATRY
{{Jeremiah 44:24-27 Then Jeremiah said to all the people, including all the women, “Hear the word of the LORD, all Judah who are in the land of Egypt, thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, as follows: ‘As for you and your wives, you have spoken with your mouths and fulfilled it with your hands, saying, “We will certainly perform our vows that we have vowed, to BURN SACRIFICES TO THE QUEEN OF HEAVEN and pour out libations to her.” Go ahead and confirm your vows, and certainly perform your vows.’ Nevertheless hear the word of the LORD, all Judah who are living in the land of Egypt, ‘Behold, I have sworn by My great name,’ says the LORD, ‘never shall My name be invoked again by the mouth of any man of Judah in all the land of Egypt, saying, “As the Lord GOD lives.” ‘Behold, I AM WATCHING OVER THEM FOR HARM AND NOT FOR GOOD, and all THE MEN OF JUDAH WHO ARE IN THE LAND OF EGYPT WILL MEET THEIR END by the sword and by famine until they are completely gone.”}}
Jeremiah had been rejected; twice the people refused to listen. They did not stay in Judah and they hankered after the queen of heaven. Certain judgement this time meant none of them, would survive. You don’t play around with God. The LORD did not take the great action of destruction against Judah before warning them over and over what would happen if they rejected God’s voice. The day of His mercy came to an end with Nebuchednezzar and now in Egypt, the judgement will be completed.
