Hebrew Word Study – The Queen of Heaven – Meleketh Hashamayim –  מְלֶ֧כֶת הַשָּׁמַ֛יִם  Mem Lamed Kap Taw    Hei Shin Mem Yod Mem 

Jeremiah 44:18-19: “But since we stopped burning sacrifices to the queen of heaven and pouring our libations to her, we have lacked everything and have met our end by the sword and by famine. And when we were burning sacrifices to the queen of heaven and pouring out drink offerings unto her, did we not make cakes to worship her and pour out drink offerings unto her without our men?

People all over the world, all throughout History, worship God or gods for one specific reason.  They want something and if there was a higher power out there that could give it to them, then they would try to figure out just what would please this higher power and hopefully persuade this higher power to bless them with something they were unable to give themselves. 

In ancient times people lived from year to year.  They were an agricultural society and their survival depended upon what they would produce from the ground and from livestock.  This, of course, all hinged on how much water they could get. Today, we cannot produce rain and without it, nothing would grow and if nothing would grow we would all starve to death.  We use II Chronicles 7:14 as I cry to prayer as a nation that God would heal our land.  “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” By healing our land we mean to restore our country to following Godly principles and indeed I believe this is a secondary meaning of this passage.  Put me on the platform during the day of prayer and I will quote this passage.  However, we are still taking this passage out of its context.  The word heaven is in a plural form with a definite article before it and it should read: “…hear from the heavens.”   This is a reference to bringing rain.  The word land refers to the literal ground and soil which was parched and barren from lack of water, not a reference to the nation.  In other words, this verse really is speaking of God sending rain so the people will not die of starvation and thirst. 

My point is, that people worship higher powers because they need help for what they cannot do for themselves.  II Chronicles 7:14 does not condemn this but as we read throughout the Old Testament and on into the New Testament we find a greater and higher purpose to worship God.  This is a purpose that is not practiced by other religions that worship other gods. Most people still worship their gods because they want a better quality of life and a life after they die. 

Needless to say, that is the purpose of worship by many Christians, they want a better quality of life and a home in heaven.  As a result, they will go through meaningless rituals such as reciting prayers, attending church services, and paying a tithe because they want something in return. God calls this vain oblation in Isaiah 1:13 in other words meaningless offerings.  God is seeking our offerings and worship but not to bribe Him into blessing us.  He is only seeking our love.  It is worship that expresses this love we have for  Him just as a husband and wife are intimate with each other as a way to express and release their love and devotion for each other.  If a man expresses a physical intimacy with his wife but does so out of lustful desires and no love at all for his wife then she is nothing more than a prostitute.  So to if we seek intimacy with God, a worship with God without any love, then we place God on the level of any other pagan god and He is nothing more than a prostitute to us. That is the state of Israel during the time of Jeremiah.

The economy of Judah was in ruin, people lost everything and were starving.  Did people finally turn to God?  You bet they did. They gave up their pagan worship and started worshipping only God Jehovah.  Unfortunately, their fortunes were not restored.  Things only got worse.  They finally cried out to Jeremiah who was pleading with them to return to God and said:  “Look, our fathers and grandfathers worship the queen of heaven and they never went without. They always had plenty of food and saw no misfortune.  But we stopped doing such foolish things, we stopped worshipping the queen of heaven and now look at us, we lack everything, we have met our end by the sword and by famine.”

That sounds like a legitimate complaint. After all what good is religion if it doesn’t improve your way of life?  They worshipped the queen of heaven and things were great, they started worshipping God and things really went South.  Which God or goddess would you worship?  I fear many Christians today would turn to the queen of heaven. 

Did you ever notice that whenever you start to really search the heart of God, you go on a season of fasting and prayer, you go through a period of repentance and things just seem to get worse rather than better?  Maybe that is not your story but it sure is mine.  I find myself getting a little apprehensive when God calls me to a season of fasting and prayer. Past experience dictates that rough weather is ahead.   We tend to follow this course of logic:  God is a God who blesses us. If we sin, he will not bless us.  If we are not blessed, we are in sin. That logic makes a lot of sense in the natural, but it is not entirely Scriptural.  Scripture seems to be quite clear that God does not always strip away His blessings when you cross some line. Sometimes He does, sometimes He doesn’t.  Along the same line, God does not always bless those who walk the narrow way.  Sometimes He will, sometimes He won’t. 

For generations, the people of Judah worshipped the queen of heaven.  This goddess was believed to be the provider of their prosperity.   Along comes a Godly king named Josiah who forces the people to get in line spiritually and what happened a few years after his death, the nation collapses.  Some good their worship of God did. So the people decided to go back to their worship of the queen of heaven, at least that worked a lot better than this orthodox religion. 

I have heard people say: “Yeah, I tried to become a Christian, I accepted Jesus, but it just didn’t work.”  What didn’t work?  Your sins were not forgiven, you were not redeemed?  Most likely the person was not looking for redemption, but a winning lottery ticket. This was the case with the people of Judah.  They did not worship God to seek His heart, they worship Him only because they felt they would get better pay.

“Did we not make cakes to ‘worship’ her?”  The word worship is very interesting.  Practically every translation has its own take on that word.  The word in Hebrew is ezev.   This word basically means sadness, suffering, pain, or grief.   It also means to serve out of fear or for gain.  In fact, if you read the word backward you have veze which means unjust gain.   There are two types of worship.  There is “ezev”  and there is shachah. Shachah is to worship God in the sense of joining with him as one, of knowing His heart.  Ezev is to worship with the expectation of some form of payment. 

I received an email from a friend who said that his father gave up everything material to serve God in Haiti.  When he died all he owned was a pocket knife and a Casio watch.  His son followed in his father’s footsteps and has spent the last thirty years serving God in Communist China, serving the underground church. He earned a PhD and built many schools in China and is a pastor and teacher to countless thousands of Chinese pastors.  Yet, he does not own a home and has few possessions. He is virtually unknown in the United States and in churches.  I have another friend who said: “It would be an honor to sit at his feet and learn.”  Learn what?  Financial planning, how to get rich, how to pay off your debts?  You won’t learn that from this guy.  You will learn shacah, not ‘ezev.

Next time you seek to worship God, ask yourself, are you like the people of Israel?  Are you seeking God only because he can pay really well?  Do you worship Him because you need something?  Is your worship ezev?   Or do you worship Him so you can discover the depths of His heart, to know Him?  To just love Him?  Is your worship truly shachah?

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