fear or worship Jehovah after the manner of the land. This explains the state of divine worship in the land as described in 2Ki 17:29. “Every separate nation (גּוי גּוי: see Ewald, §313, a.) made itself its own gods, and set them up in the houses of the high places (הבּמות בּית: see at 1Ki 12:31, and for the singular בּית, Ewald, §270, c.) which the Samaritans (השּׁמרנים, not the colonists sent thither by Esarhaddon, but the former inhabitants of the kingdom of Israel, who are so called from the capital Samaria) had made (built); every nation in the cities where they dwelt.”
Verse 30
The people of Babel made themselves בּנות סכּות, daughters’ booths. Selden (de Diis Syr. ii. 7), Münter (Relig. der Babyl. pp. 74, 75), and others understand by these the temples consecrated to Mylitta or Astarte, the καμάραι, or covered little carriages, or tents for prostitution (Herod. i. 199); but Beyer (Addit. ad Seld. p. 297) has very properly objected to this, that according to the context the reference is to idols or objects of idolatrous worship, which were set up in the בּמות בּית. It is more natural to suppose that small tent-temples are meant, which were set up as idols in the houses of the high places along with the images which they contained, since according to 2Ki 23:7 women wove בּתּים, little temples, for the Asherah, and Ezekiel speaks of patch-work Bamoth, i.e., of small temples made of cloth. It is possible, however, that there is more truth than is generally supposed in the view held by the Rabbins, that בּנות סכּות signifies an image of the “hen,” or rather the constellation of “the clucking-hen” (Gluckhenne), the Pleiades, - simulacrum gallinae coelestis in signo Tauri nidulantis, as a symbolum Veneris coelestis, as the other idols are all connected with animal symbolism. In any case the explanation given by Movers, involucra seu secreta mulierum, female lingams, which were handed by the hierodulae to their paramours instead of the Mylitta-money (Phöniz. i. p. 596), is to be rejected, because it is at variance with the usage of speech and the context, and because the existence of female lingams has first of all to be proved. For the different views, see Ges. thes. p. 952, and Leyrer in Herzog’s Cycl. - The Cuthaeans made themselves as a god, נרגּל, Nergal, i.e., according to Winer, Gesenius, Stuhr, and others, the planet Mars, which the Zabians call nerîg, Nerig, as the god of war (Codex Nasar, i. 212, 224), the Arabs mrrîx, Mirrig; whereas older commentators identified Nergal with the sun-god Bel,
