c. Two idols, Gad or Fortune, and Menee or Fate, from run, he or it divided, assigned, numbered,' are spoken of in a single passage in the later part of Isaiah (lxv. II). Gesenius, depend ing upon the theory of the post-Isaian authorship of the later chapters of the prophet, makes these idols worshipped by the Jews in l3abylonia, but it must be remarked that their names are not trace able in Babylonian and Assyrian mythology. Gesenius has, however following Pococke (Spec. Hist. Arabum, p. 93), compared Menee with Manah 3a.,, a goddess of the pagan Arabs, wor shipped in the form of a stone between Mek hell and El-Medeeneh by tbe tribes of Hudheyl and Khuza'ah. But El-Beyclawee, though deriv ing the name of this idol from the root manh.
he cut,' supposes it was thus called be cause victims were slain upon it (Com. irt Coran. ed. Fleischer, p. 293). This meaning certainly seems to disturb the idea that the two idols were identical, but the mention of the sword and slaughter as punishments of the idolaters who worshipped Gad and Menee is not to be forgotten. Gad may have been a Canaanite form of Baal, if we are to judge from the geographical name Baal gad of a place at the foot of Mount Hermon Gosh. xi. 17 ; xii. 7 ; xiii. 5). Perhaps the gram matical form of Menee may throw some light upon the origin of this• idolatry. The worship of both idols resembles that of the cosmic divinities of the later kings of Judah.
d. In Ezekiel's vision of the idolatries of Jerusa. lem he beheld a chamber of imagery in the temple itself, having every form of creeping things, and abominable beasts, and [or even1 all the idols of the house of Israel, portrayed upon the wall round about,' and seventy Israelite elders offering incense (Ezek. viii. 7-12). This is so exact a description of an Egyptian sanctuary, with the idols depicted upon its walls, dimly-lighted, and filled with incense-offering priests, that we cannot for a moment doubt that these jeWS derived from Egypt their fetishism, for such this special worship appears mainly if not wholly to have been.
e. In the same vision the prophet saw women weeping for Tammuz (ver. 13, 4), known to be the same as Adonis, and from whom the fourth month of the Syrian year was named. This wor ship was probably introduced by Ahaz from Syria.
f: The image of jealousy,' nts;*::, ntr, spoken of in the same passage, which was placed in the temple, has not been satisfactorily explained. The
meaning- may only be that it was an image of a false god, or there may be a play in the second part of the appellation upon the proper name. We cannot, however, suggest any name that might be thus intended.
g. The brazen serpent, having become ern object of idolatrous worship, was destroyed by Hezekiah (2 Kings xviii. 4).
h. Molech-worship was not only celebrated at the high place Solomon had made, but at Topheth, in the Valley of the sons of Hinnom, where chil dren were made to pass through the fire to the Ammonite abomination. This place, as well as Solomon's altars, Josiah defiled, and we read of no later worship of Molech, Chemosh, and Ashto reth.
The new population placed by the king of Assyria in the cities of Samaria adopted a strange mixture of religions. Terrified at the destruction by lions of some of their number, they petitioned the king of Assyria, and an Israelite priest was sent to them. They then adopted the old worship at high places, and still served their own idols. The people of Babylon made Succoth-benoth, the Cuthites, Nergal, the Hamathites, Ashima, the Avites, Nibhaz and Tartak, and the people of Sepharvaim burnt their children to their native gods, Adrammelech and Anammelech. Nergal is a well-known Babylonian idol, anti the occurrence of the element melech' (king) in the names of the Molechs of Sepharvaim is very remarkable (2 Kings xvii. 24-40 The Babylonian Exile seems to have purified the Jews from their idolatrous tendencies. The people that returned did indeed in many cases marry strange wives, and so were in danger of falling into idolatry. The post-exilian prophets speak of it as an evil of the past, Zechariah foretelling the time when the very names of the false gods will be for gotten (xiii. 2). In Malachi we see that a cold formalism was already the national sin. How this great change was wrought does not appear. Partly no doubt it was due to the pious examples of Ezra and Nehemiah, partly perhaps to the Persian con tempt for the lower kinds of idolatry, which insured a respect for the Hebrew religion on the part of the government, partly to the sight of the fulfil tneut of God's predicted judgments upon the ido latrous nations which the Jews had either sought as allies or feared as enemies.