1 Kings 11:5

Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians Ashtoreth was the chief female divinity of the Phœnicians, as Baal was their chief male deity. As Baal has been identified with the sun, so Ashtoreth has by some been thought to be the moon. Recent investigations have however connected the name of Ashtoreth with the planet Venus, and by some it is thought that the name was applied in some parts of the Phœnician settlements to Venus, in others to the moon. Ashtoreth is identified with the Greek Ἀστάρτη, and the name of an ancient city (Genesis 14:5) Ashteroth-Karnaim, i.e. Ashteroth of the two horns, seems to point to the crescent moon. This is accepted by Milton (Par. L. I. 438).

-Ashtoreth, whom the Phœnicians called

Astartè, queen of heaven, with crescent horns

To whose bright image, nightly by the moon

Sidonian virgins paid their vows and songs."

The worship of Ashtoreth was very widespread, as might be expected from the wide commercial relations, and distant colonies, of the Phœnicians. Why Ashtoreth is here named -goddess" while the other deities are called -abominations" may be due to the greater intercourse between Sidon and the Holy Land than existed with other countries. The Phœnician workmen at the Temple had perhaps caused the Israelites to become more accustomed to the name and worship of Ashtoreth.

Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites This is the same divinity who is called below (1 Kings 11:7) Molech, and in Zephaniah 1:5 Malcham. Molech was a fire god, and was worshipped with human sacrifices. The root of the word is the same as that of the Hebrew word for -king." Hence some think -their king" in 2 Samuel 12:30 means Molech, the god of the Ammonites. There are numerous allusions in the Old Test. to the worship of this god, the phrase most common being -to make their children to pass through the fire to Molech." See 2 Kings 23:10; 2 Kings 23:13. Some have explained this not as actual burning of the children to death, but as a passing of them between two fires for an ordeal of purification. But in 2 Chronicles 28:3 it is said of Ahaz, -He burnt incense in the valley of the son of Hinnom, and burnthis children in the fire, after the abominations of the nations whom Jehovah had driven out." And the actual burning of the children thus offered is alluded to very plainly in Jeremiah 7:31, -They have built the high places of Tophet, … to burntheir sons and their daughters in the fire." The tradition is that the statue of Molech was of brass and the hands so arranged that the victim slipped from them into a fire which burnt underneath. It may be because there were no such sacrifices offered to Ashtoreth, that she is not spoken of as -an abomination."