Chapter 2: The Idols of All Nations Worshipped by the Israelites

The idols of all nations worshipped by the Israelites — A brief survey of ancient Israelite geography — Which nations were known to them — Chaldea — Mesopotamia — Egypt — Arabia — Phoenicia — Syria — Canaan — The idols of those nations — The superstitious modes and means of worship. I. God most frequently complains through the prophets that His people wickedly worshipped the gods of all the nations everywhere, setting Him aside. It is evident, moreover, that this must be understood of the nations known to them; and the Holy Spirit Himself thus explains His meaning (2 Kings 17:15): "They followed," He says, "the nations that were round about them." It is fitting to set forth briefly in advance what those nations were, and how far the most ancient sacred geography extended. Abraham was originally from Ur of the Chaldeans. Chaldea has to the north Mesopotamia reaching to the Euphrates, to the east Susiana up to the Tigris, to the south the Persian Gulf, and to the west the Arabian Desert. There was no region they knew more thoroughly, especially since it was the capital of the Assyrian empire.

II. From Chaldea, after crossing the river at God's command, the same Abraham withdrew to Aram Naharaim, that is, Mesopotamia. The region was most well-known by its situation between the most celebrated rivers, and was familiar to the Israelites for many reasons. From there Jacob had once taken his wives; and accordingly that people was the other branch of the nation's stock, to whose very borders the dominions of the Davidic empire once extended. They called Egypt Mitsraim, from the son of Ham, who occupied that land immediately after the Babylonian dispersion. A long servitude, while the nation was being formed, did not allow them to be ignorant of Ham; nor afterwards did the proximity of empire or commerce.

III. They called Arabia in general Ereb; the Desert Arabia Kedar, Arabia Felix Seba, Arabia Petraea Aram Soba. In it the Ammonites, Moabites, Midianites, Edomites, from their common ancestry, and the other inhabitants by reason of proximity and the wars waged against them, were well known to the Israelites. The Mediterranean Sea was to them the great sea; the western sea, and whatever lands lay beyond it, they called Tarshish, although the Seventy render that word variously, and in particular at (Isaiah 23:1) as Carthage.

IV. In the land of Canaan, knowledge of all the nations — both those that were either subjugated or destroyed by them in war, and those that survived that destruction and retained their own

right — was most familiar to them. That all of Phoenicia, together with that part of Syria which borders on Arabia and is called Coele-Syria, which they scarcely distinguished from Arabia Petraea, became known to them is evident from the sacred

histories. They did not come to know the Persians, or Elamites, until late, and that only very obscurely. Since, moreover, intercourse with the nations was forbidden to them, and they made use of navigation only very sparingly and for a century or two at most, it is no wonder that the remaining regions of the earth were unknown to them — just as they themselves were unknown to most peoples. They perhaps designated Eastern India by the name Ophir, all of Europe as Cethim, Greece as Phobel, Ionia as Javan, Media as Madai, Lydia as Lud, Africa as Put, Ethiopia as Lud, Spain as Cepharad, and Gaul as Sarphath. But of all these regions only a thin and obscure rumor reached them, so that what manner of life those peoples lived and what gods they worshipped remained entirely hidden from them. Therefore, being ignorant of Hellenism, that is, the superstition of Europe, they chose for themselves to worship and serve the gods, or idols, of the Eastern nations, as far as they knew them. For the Chaldeans were the originators of the cult of the Sun; the Teraphim came from Mesopotamia; they owed the Calves to Egypt. They were drawn into the wickedness of Baal-peor by the counsels of the Moabites and Midianites. Molech was the idol of the Ammonites. The Tyrians taught them the manifold worship of Baal; together with the Philistines they rendered religious honor to Beelzebub; ensnared by the wiles of the Syrians they learned the rites of Ashtaroth, or the queen of heaven; King Ahaz sacrificed to the unnamed gods of Damascus; and together with the Persians or others they began to mourn for Tammuz. And these things bring to light the true sense of very many passages in the prophets — especially Jeremiah, Hosea, Amos, and Ezekiel — in which God complains that His people had defiled themselves with all the nations by spiritual adultery.

V. Furthermore: they adopted all the superstitious rites which those nations employed in the worship of idols — however ridiculous, shameful, filthy, and abominable beyond what can be said or imagined — slavishly serving those very idols. They sacrificed horses to the Sun together with the Chaldeans and Persians; they worshipped the Hermetic Calf with dances and feasts, exactly as the Egyptians worshipped Apis. They imitated the Ammonites and Tyrians in the immolation of sons and daughters. They reproduced the Syrian libations made to Ashtaroth, with the wine and cakes which they offered to the queen of heaven. In a word: there was nothing so foolish or ridiculous, nothing so unspeakable or wicked, nothing so obscene or filthy that had ever been devised anywhere by the most senseless and accursed idolaters — or rather suggested to them by the prince of darkness — that they did not prefer it to the most holy and most pure worship of the living God.