Ashtoreth

Ashtoreth is the Sidonian goddess named again and again in the historical books as the rival Israel cannot stop running after. She appears under two forms: the singular Ashtoreth, "the goddess of the Sidonians" (1 Ki 11:5; 1 Ki 11:33), and the plural Ashtaroth, paired with the Baalim as the standing shorthand for the gods Israel served when it forsook Yahweh (Jud 2:13; Jud 10:6). The same cult is plausibly the one Jeremiah denounces under the title "queen of heaven," to whom women in Judah baked cakes and poured out drink-offerings (Jer 7:18).

The Goddess of the Sidonians

The verses that name Ashtoreth directly tie her to Sidon. Solomon, in his old age, "went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the detestable thing of the Ammonites" (1 Ki 11:5). When Yahweh announces the tearing of the kingdom from Solomon's house, the indictment is the same: "they have forsaken me, and have worshiped Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, Chemosh the god of Moab, and Milcom the god of the sons of Ammon" (1 Ki 11:33). Three centuries later Josiah finds her shrines still standing on the ridge east of Jerusalem — "the high places that were before Jerusalem, which were on the right hand of the Mount of Olives, which Solomon the king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the detestable thing of the Sidonians, and for Chemosh the detestable thing of Moab, and for Milcom the disgusting thing of the sons of Ammon, the king defiled" (2 Ki 23:13).

Ashtaroth and the Baalim

Outside the Solomon and Josiah notices, the goddess almost always appears in the plural — "the Ashtaroth" — paired with "the Baalim." The pairing is the Judges-era refrain for apostasy: "And they forsook Yahweh, and served Baal and the Ashtaroth" (Jud 2:13). The cycle widens in Jud 10:6: "And the sons of Israel again did that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh, and served the Baalim, and the Ashtaroth, and the gods of Syria, and the gods of Sidon, and the gods of Moab, and the gods of the sons of Ammon, and the gods of the Philistines; and they forsook Yahweh, and didn't serve him." Samuel's later recitation of Israel's confession uses the same language: "We have sinned, because we have forsaken Yahweh, and have served the Baalim and the Ashtaroth" (1 Sa 12:10).

The Mizpah Reform

The first turning back from Ashtaroth comes through Samuel. He sets the condition plainly: "If you⁺ are returning to Yahweh with all your⁺ heart, then put away the foreign gods and the Ashtaroth from among you⁺, and direct your⁺ hearts to Yahweh, and serve him only; and he will deliver you⁺ out of the hand of the Philistines" (1 Sa 7:3). The people obey — "Then the sons of Israel put away the Baalim and the Ashtaroth, and served Yahweh only" (1 Sa 7:4) — and the Philistine pressure breaks. The pattern that follows the Ashtaroth in scripture is this one: serving them is forsaking Yahweh, and putting them away is the precondition of deliverance.

The Temple of the Ashtaroth

The Philistines, who otherwise share the worship, also keep a temple to the goddess. After Saul's death on Mount Gilboa, "they put his armor in the house of the Ashtaroth; and they fastened his body to the wall of Beth-shan" (1 Sa 31:10). The trophy-display marks the only direct mention of an Ashtaroth temple in the historical books — a Philistine, not an Israelite, sanctuary, used to celebrate the death of Yahweh's king.

Queen of Heaven

The Jeremiah material does not use the name Ashtoreth, but it describes a goddess-cult of the same general shape — household-scale, female-centered, offered cakes and libations. "The sons gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead the dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink-offerings to other gods, that they may provoke me to anger" (Jer 7:18). The Judean refugees in Egypt defend the practice in almost ritual terms: "we will certainly perform every word that has gone forth out of our mouth, to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink-offerings to her, as we have done, we and our fathers, our kings and our princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem; for then had we plenty of victuals, and were well, and saw no evil" (Jer 44:17). They read the post-reform suffering as evidence the goddess was right: "But since we left off burning incense to the queen of heaven, and pouring out drink-offerings to her, we have wanted all things, and have been consumed by the sword and by the famine" (Jer 44:18).

High Places Defiled

The cult's institutional footprint outlasts every reform until Josiah. From Solomon's construction of high places for "Ashtoreth the detestable thing of the Sidonians" on the Mount of Olives (2 Ki 23:13) to Josiah's defilement of the same sites, the goddess has the longest physical presence of any of the imported gods named in 1-2 Kings — built into Jerusalem's skyline by the king who built the temple, and finally pulled down only at the end of the monarchy.