The ‘Queen of Heaven’
God pronounced severe judgment on the people of Judah and Jerusalem because they worshiped “the queen of heaven” (Jer. 7:17–20; 44:15–19). Who or what was the queen of heaven, and how did the people of Israel get involved in worship of her?
As early as the twenty-fifth century B.C., people of Ur of the Chaldees in Sumeria worshiped a mother-goddess named Ishtar.1 Around the same time the Minoans of Crete had a mother-goddess portrayed with “her divine child Velchanos” in her arms.2 Later, the people of Cyprus revered a goddess who appears to have been patterned after the Sumerian Ishtar and later adopted by the Greeks as Aphrodite,3 or Astarte.4
The Babylonians, who conquered Sumeria around the twenty-second century B.C.,5 related their religious beliefs to the heavenly bodies. They regarded the planets as gods and goddesses and equated the planet Venus with the Sumerian mother-goddess Ishtar.6
The Babylonians worshiped Ishtar as “The Virgin,” “The Holy Virgin,” “The Virgin Mother,” “Goddess of Goddesses,”7 and “Queen of Heaven and Earth.”8 They exclaimed, “Ishtar is great! Ishtar is Queen! My Lady is exalted, my Lady is Queen. . . . There is none like unto her.”9
They called her “Shining light of heaven, light of the world, enlightener of all the places where men dwell, who gatherest together the hosts of the nations”; and they claimed, “Where thou glancest, the dead come to life, and the sick rise and walk; the mind of the diseased is healed when it looks upon thy face.”10
In Babylonian mythology Ishtar wore a crown and was related to Tammuz, who sometimes was portrayed as her son and other times as her lover.11
It appears that the Sumerian-Babylonian Ishtar was the counterpart of the Egyptian Isis and the model for the Grecian Aphrodite, Roman Venus, Assyrian Nina, Phrygian and Roman Cybele, Phoenician Astarte,12 and Astarte of Syria.13 In essence they were the same mother-goddess.14
The Egyptians called Isis “the Great Mother” and “the Mother of God.”15 Isis worship spread to Italy by the second century and then throughout the entire Roman Empire. There the goddess was portrayed with her “divine child Horus” in her arms and widely acclaimed as “Queen of Heaven” and “Mother of God.”16
The people of Phoenicia worshiped Baal. Baalism included the worship of Molech with fiery sacrifices of children and the worship of Astarte, the Phoenician Ishtar Queen of Heaven.17
When the Phoenician princess Jezebel became the wife of King Ahab of the northern Kingdom of Israel, she influenced him to fully establish Baal worship in his realm (1 Ki. 16:29–33; 21:25–26). This move entangled the people of Israel in Queen-of-Heaven worship. As a result, God judged them with the Assyrian Captivity (2 Ki. 17:5–7, 16–18).
Athaliah, daughter of Ahab and Jezebel, became the wife of King Jehoram of the Kingdom of Judah. She influenced him to do what her father had done—fully establish Baal worship in his kingdom (2 Ki. 8:16–18). Her son, Ahaziah, the next king of Judah, did the same (2 Ki. 8:25–27), as did King Manasseh (2 Ki. 21:1–6). These actions would have entangled the people of Judah in Queen-of-Heaven worship. Thus God judged them with the Babylonian Captivity (2 Ki. 21:12–14).
ENDNOTES
- Will Durant, Our Oriental Heritage (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1954), 123–24, 1045.
- Will Durant, The Life of Greece (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1939), 13.
- Ibid., 33–34.
- Durant, Our Oriental Heritage, 235.
- Ibid., 219.
- Ibid., 256.
- Ibid., 235.
- Ibid., 236.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid., 238–39.
- Ibid., 235, 266, 288, 294–95.
- Durant, The Life of Greece, 178.
- Ibid.
- Durant, Our Oriental Heritage, 200.
- Will Durant, Caesar and Christ (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1944), 523.
- Durant, Our Oriental Heritage, 294–95, and Caesar and Christ, 41.
WOW, thank you for this article, I grew up catholic. I have been asking God to reveal the truth to me about the Virgin Mary. This world is so deceiving. The enemy is very tricky. My eyes are being open to the truth. Please Forgive us God for we do not know what we are doing.
keep searching for truth, for, as Jesus said, “the truth will set you free.” much has been passed down to us that is nothing more than man’s traditions, which Christ said of this, “in vain they do worship, teaching for commandments of God, the traditions of men.” this system of false worship also claims to have a “mark” of ecclesiastical authority, one in which there is no scriptural authority for, and she says so. is not a “mark” the same as a “sign” or “seal?” a sign or seal of authority contains three items, the name, the title, and the territory over which he resides. the seal of the US contains the name of the president, his title (president) and the USA (the territory he resides over). the law of God contains His seal, His sign, His mark. find it and then search for who, when, how it was changed. look also for “council of Laodicea, 363/364 AD cannon 29. also Constatine’s decree of 321 AD regarding “Venerable day of the sun.” always, continue the search for truth.
Roman Catholic church is the mother of harlots and it’s a demonic institution on planet Earth
But, Mystery Babylon isn’t JUST the RCC – It’s many other entities and secret societies and even indoctrinated sold out mainstream denominations and churches. They will soon combine all including Islam and Judaism to form the One World Religious System.
JESUS IS GOD and GOD IS still in control!
Amen!!!
Modern day Mystery Babylon worshipping the ancient deities (Anunaki) shrouded in Christian parlance.
I could not help noticing how many names for the ancient Queen of Heaven in Jeremiah that are used today by the Roman Catholic Church as listed in this excellent article.
Fabulous information, thank you so much. It’s also so easy to read and understand. Apologies but it’s made me question various theological issues. I think it’s Jeremiah who complains the women of Judah were baking cakes to the Queen of Heaven, and somewhere it says they said they were better off when they worshipped her. Also Abraham came from Ur of the Chaldees, ready to sacrifice his son.
But during times like the Crusades and the Pogroms and Holocaust they were worshiping Adonai, so how were they better cared for? On the cross Jesus is said to have cried to El not to Adonai, and of course the name Israel, is not a Yah name but an El name. Catholocism stil worships the Queen of Heaven. Apart from the Baal Molech sacrifices, Adonoi said Leviticus 1:17
NKJV – 17 Then he shall split it at its wings, but shall not divide it completely; and the priest shall burn it on the altar, on the wood that is on the fire. It is a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire, a sweet aroma to the LORD.
So is El the male half of the godhead and the Queen of heaven the other, or is only YHVH God?
Very interesting. I’ve been intrigued by the queen of heaven. When I was 4, I had a dream with a triangular Virgin in opposition to a naked woman with a serpent coiled around her inside a glass case. The Virgin told me her name and lots more which I can’t remember. Never paid attention until lately. I found an apocrypha book which said God places two spirits in each one of us and it’s up to us to decide who we want to walk with. The Virgin was the first Virgin to arrive to America with the conquistadors and the naked woman was lilith, a Sumerian demon. Among other things I found out is the name Mary is of Hebrew origin, מִרְיָם, Miriam. The original form is clearly Mír-yam. An ancient etymology, collected by ecclesiastical writers, links the name with the Hebrew words mir, “light”, and yam, “sea”; Míriam would then be “light of the sea”, hence the Latin appellation – collected by the litanies (Catholic) – Stella Maris, “Star of the Sea.”
Soul’s etymology:
Sometimes said to mean originally “coming from or belonging to the sea,” because that was supposed to be the stopping place of the soul before birth or after death from Proto-Germanic *saiwaz (see sea). Klein explains this as “from the lake,” as a dwelling-place of souls in ancient northern Europe.”
Also in Revelation 12 there’s a woman and she has her seed or offspring, followers of Christ. Similar to Eve, we r her children. In fact God put enmity between her and the serpent. Noticed didn’t say Adam’s offspring. It’s always the woman. Eve’s name in Hebrew is hawwah or havah and I find it similar to the last three letters of the name of God YHWH. The Hebrew word for queen of heaven is haShamayim in which heaven is Shamayim (Hebrew: שָׁמַיִם šāmayīm) but Shamayim has mayim which means water. Water from the sea or lake as in souls?
Idk. I believe the ancients named them for a reason. It’s possible, satan, the master of deception did his part in order to confuse people and ended up worshiping demons like baal.
Thank you. I hope many people will read your website.So few understand that what the Israelites were doing that eventually cost them captivity and eventually their nation of Israel was what we today would call The Green New Deal or “earth and nature worship”.
Trying to put all the different peoples of the Bible and a different gods they worshiped into one coherent picture is extremely difficult. Different Names used for the same gods and the chronology of of when they changed though out time and adopted by different cultures is so mentally exhausting.
This Dr. puts all of it into perspective in a short read. Pretty cool when you want to know all this but rather spend time study what God wants a you to know instead of figuring out these gods.