Q is for QUEEN OF HEAVEN

[This is the MILLERWRITES contribution to the 2012 Blogging A to Z April Challenge  Here is my INTRODUCTION to this particular series, and an opportunity for you to influence which alphabetically aligned weird words I will comment on this month.  THANK YOU for stopping by!]

Did you know that the moon was referred to by the Assyrians as the QUEEN OF HEAVEN?  Me neither.
It's one thing for an 'unchosen' people to consider mere creatures of nature like the sun and the moon; or deaf, dumb and mute objects like carved stone or chunks of wood as if they were gods.  But here Jeremiah points out (as God's prophet) that even the enlightened of Israel were deliberately choosing idolatry in his time.

Do you not see what they are doing in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?  The children gather wood, the fathers light the fire, and the women knead the dough and make cakes to offer to the QUEEN OF HEAVEN. They pour out drink offerings to other gods to arouse my anger.  But am I the one they are provoking? declares the Lord. Are they not rather harming themselves, to their own shame?  Jeremiah 7:17-19

At least they made it a family activity!  I appreciate that God very clearly points out here, that His commandments are not simply arbitrary tools that He might use to make us 'provoke' Him!  Violating His instructions harms US!  Your children don't like your rules do they?  But name one rule that you ever instigated for YOUR own good, and not theirs.

Here Job demonstrates the caution needed to avoid our easy tendency toward simple idol worship.

if I have regarded the sun in its radiance
or the moon moving in splendor,
 so that my heart was secretly enticed
and my hand offered them a kiss of homage,
 then these also would be sins to be judged,
for I would have been unfaithful to God on high.  Job 31:26-28

But here I've copied the beautiful Psalm 8, where David demonstrates a good response to our wonder at God's creative work in nature.

Psalm 8
For the director of music. According to gittith. A psalm of David.

1 Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!

You have set your glory
in the heavens.
2 Through the praise of children and infants
you have established a stronghold against your enemies,
to silence the foe and the avenger.
3 When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,
4 what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
human beings that you care for them?


5 You have made them a little lower than the angels
and crowned them with glory and honor.
6 You made them rulers over the works of your hands;
you put everything under their feet:
7 all flocks and herds,
and the animals of the wild,
8 the birds in the sky,
and the fish in the sea,
all that swim the paths of the seas.

9 Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
(emphasis added)

More emphasis?  I've always liked verse 2, and thought of it every time, years ago, when my 'children and infants' praised God through their innocent voicings!  Now my Grandchildren do the same thing!





BY THE WAY...

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