1 Kings 11:5

And Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians,.... Enticed by the Zidonian women, or woman, he had, 1 Kings 11:1.

For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites.

Solomon went after Ashtoreth, in manner explained in the former verse. Milcom, called also Molech; of which see .

1 Kings 11:5 For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites.Ver. 5. For Solomon went after Ashtoreth,] i.e., Venus, as some will have it, or Juno, as others. And after Milcom,] i.e., Saturn, as it is thought. Hinc patet Solomonem vere coluisse idola, saith A Lapide: hence it appeareth that Solomon did indeed worship idols: yea, Pineda and Salianus say, that he sacrificed his sons to this Milcom or Moloch. But I cannot be of that mind. He gave way, indeed, to those idolatries, and built temples for those dunghill deities, &c., atque ita obnubilabat gloriae multiplices cursus, as Marcellinus saith of Julian, and thereby be much dishonoured and endangered himself; carnal love drowning his zeal to God.

(5) Ashtoreth (or, Astarte).—The goddess of the Zidonians, and possibly the Hittites, corresponding to Baal, the great Tyrian god, and representing the receptive and productive, as Baal the active and originative, power in Nature. As usual in all phases of Natureworship, Ashtoreth is variously represented, sometimes by the moon, sometimes by the planet Venus (like the Assyrian Ishtar, which seems a form of the same name)—in either case regarded as “the queen of heaven.” (See Jeremiah 44:17; Jeremiah 44:25). There seems, indeed, some reason to believe that the name itself is derived from a root which is found both in Syriac and Persian, and which became aster in the Greek and astrum in Latin, and has thence passed into modern European languages, signifying a “star,” or luminary of heaven. With this agrees the ancient name, Ashterôth-Karnaîm (or, “the horned Ashteroth”)of a city in Bashan (Genesis 14:5; Deuteronomy 1:4; Joshua 13:12). This place is the first in which the name Ashtoreth is used in the singular number, and expressly limited to the “goddess of the Ziaonians.” In the earlier history we hear not unfrequently of the worship of the “Ashtaroth,” that is, of the “Ashtoreths,” found with the like plural Baalim, as prevalent in Canaan, and adopted by Israel in evil times (see Judges 2:13; Judges 10:6; 1 Samuel 7:3; 1 Samuel 12:10; 1 Samuel 31:10); and the worship of the Asherah (rendered “groves” in the Authorised version), may perhaps refer to emblems of Astarte. In these cases, however, it seems not unlikely that the phrase, “Baalim and Ashtaroth,” may be used generally of the gods and goddesses of various kinds of idolatry. The worship of the Tyrian Ashtoreth, as might be supposed from the idea which she was supposed to represent, was one of chartered license and impurity.Milcom, the abomination of the Ammonites.—The name Milcom (like the Malcham of Jer 49:1; Jeremiah 49:3) is probably only a variety of the well-known Molech, which is actually used for it in 1 Kings 11:7. The name “Molech” (though here connected expressly with the Ammonite idolatry) is a general title, signifying only “king” (as Baal signifies “lord”), and might be applied to the supreme god of any idolatrous system. Thus the worship of “Molech,” with its horrible sacrifice of children “passing through the fire,” is forbidden in Leviticus 18:21; Leviticus 20:2, evidently as prevailing among the Canaanite races (comp. Psalms 106:37-38). Again, we know historically that similar sacrifice of children, by the same horrible rite, was practised by the Carthaginians in times of great national calamity—the god being in that case identified with Saturn, the star of malign influence. By comparison of Jer 7:31; Jeremiah 19:5-6, it is very evident that this human sacrifice to Molech is also called “a burnt-offering to Baal;” and if Molech was the “fire-god,” and Baal the “sun-god,” the two deities might easily be regarded as cognate, if not identical.

5. Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians] Ashtoreth was the chief female divinity of the Ph�nicians, as Baal was their chief male deity. As Baal has been identified with the sun, so Ashtoreth has by some been thought to be the moon. Recent investigations have however connected the name of Ashtoreth with the planet Venus, and by some it is thought that the name was applied in some parts of the Ph�nician settlements to Venus, in others to the moon. Ashtoreth is identified with the Greek Ἀστάρτη, and the name of an ancient city (Genesis 14:5) Ashteroth-Karnaim, i.e. Ashteroth of the two horns, seems to point to the crescent moon. This is accepted by Milton (Par. L. I. 438). ‘Ashtoreth, whom the Ph�nicians called Astartθ, queen of heaven, with crescent horns To whose bright image, nightly by the moon Sidonian virgins paid their vows and songs.’ The worship of Ashtoreth was very widespread, as might be expected from the wide commercial relations, and distant colonies, of the Ph�nicians. Why Ashtoreth is here named ‘goddess’ while the other deities are called ‘abominations’ may be due to the greater intercourse between Sidon and the Holy Land than existed with other countries. The Ph�nician workmen at the Temple had perhaps caused the Israelites to become more accustomed to the name and worship of Ashtoreth. Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites] This is the same divinity who is called below (1 Kings 11:7) Molech, and in Zephaniah 1:5 Malcham. Molech was a fire god, and was worshipped with human sacrifices. The root of the word is the same as that of the Hebrew word for ‘king.’ Hence some think ‘their king’ in 2 Samuel 12:30 means Molech, the god of the Ammonites. There are numerous allusions in the Old Test. to the worship of this god, the phrase most common being ‘to make their children to pass through the fire to Molech.’ See 2 Kings 23:10; 2 Kings 23:13. Some have explained this not as actual burning of the children to death, but as a passing of them between two fires for an ordeal of purification. But in 2 Chronicles 28:3 it is said of Ahaz, ‘He burnt incense in the valley of the son of Hinnom, and burnt his children in the fire, after the abominations of the nations whom Jehovah had driven out.’ And the actual burning of the children thus offered is alluded to very plainly in Jeremiah 7:31, ‘They have built the high places of Tophet, … to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire.’ The tradition is that the statue of Molech was of brass and the hands so arranged that the victim slipped from them into a fire which burnt underneath. It may be because there were no such sacrifices offered to Ashtoreth, that she is not spoken of as ‘an abomination.’

Went after - This expression is common in the Pentateuch, and always signifies actual idolatry (see Deuteronomy 11:28; Deuteronomy 13:2; Deuteronomy 28:14, etc.).

5. Went after — This expression seems to show that Solomon was actually guilty of idolatry. Compare Deuteronomy 11:28; Deuteronomy 13:2; Deuteronomy 28:14. Yet the exact extent to which he went into idolatry is left uncertain.