We know what the "similitude" of the sun and the moon were like among the surrounding nations. We see their "hieroglyphs" on numberless seals and images from the ruins of Nineveh or Babylon. That of the sun was first a rayed star or disc, later a figure, rayed and winged. That of the moon was a crescent, one lying on its back, like a bowl or cup, the actual attitude of the new moon at the beginning of the new year. Just such moon similitudes did the soldiers of Gideon take from off the camels of Zebah and Zalmunna; just such were the "round tires like the moon" that Isaiah condemns among the bravery of the daughters of Zion. The similitude or token of Ashtoreth, the paramount goddess of the Zidonians, was the _ashera_, the "grove" of the Authorized Version, probably in most cases merely a wooden pillar. This goddess, "the abomination of the Zidonians," was a moon-goddess, concerning whom Eusebius preserves a statement by the Phœnician historian, Sanchoniathon, that her images had the head of an ox. In the wars in the days of Abraham we find Chedorlaomer, and the kings that were with him, smiting the Rephaim in Ashteroth Karnaim, that is, in the Ashtoreths "of the horns." It is impossible to decide at this date whether the horns which gave the distinctive title to this shrine of Ashtoreth owed their origin to the horns of the animal merged in the goddess, or to the horns of the crescent moon, with which she was to some extent identified. Possibly there was always a confusion between the two in the minds of her worshippers. The cult of Ashtoreth was spread not only among the Hebrews, but throughout the whole plain of Mesopotamia. In the times of the Judges, and in the days of Samuel, we find continually the statement that the people "served Baalim and Ashtaroth"--the plurals of Baal and Ashtoreth--these representing the sun and moon, and reigning as king and queen in heaven. When the Philistines fought with Saul at Mount Gilboa, and he was slain, they stripped off his armour and put it "in the house of Ashtaroth." Yet later we find that Solomon loved strange women of the Zidonians, who turned his heart after Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Zidonians, and he built a high place for her on the right hand of the Mount of Olives, which remained for some three and a half centuries, until Josiah, the king, defiled it. Nevertheless, the worship of Ashtoreth continued, and the prophet Jeremiah describes her cult:-- "The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven." This was done in the cities of Judah and streets of Jerusalem, but the Jews carried the cult with them even when they fled into Egypt, and whilst there they answered Jeremiah--