So I just want to throw this out to tantalize and perhaps tease a little bit because we don't have the time to go through all the Ark of the Covenant passages, but there's a great deal of exciting and, I think, impressive evidence from the literary artistry of Hebrew narrative as it prepared the way for the Davidic kingdom being fulfilled with the Son of David, Jesus Christ, and his Queen Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary.
What do I mean by this Queen Mother stuff? Now we will take a look at a key passage. Let's turn now to 1st Kings, chapter 1. This, I believe, is the missing link. I really am convinced that this is the most important exegetical Biblical piece of evidence that we have to go on. It was one of the best-known institutions in ancient Israel's monarchy or after the Civil War ancient Juda's monarchy and in fact, the idea of the Queen Mother was ubiquitous. You don't find ancient monarchies in the Near East or the Middle East that don't have Queen Mothers. I'll refer you to a key article written by N.A. Andrieson in Catholic Biblical Quarterly in 1983, pages 179 through 194. It's entitled, "The Role of the Queen Mother in Israelite Society." This note card, incidentally, comes from about six years ago because it was right after the article came out that I was beginning to do some Old Testament research and opening my mind up to some Catholic ideas. Even though I had been very anti-Catholic I had already begun to accumulate some evidence for this Queen Mother tradition, but it was all piece- meal and scattered.
When I read this article, it was like a thunderclap striking me. I knew I had to really pay close attention to the evidence. What evidence? Well, this is known as the gebirah. The gebirah is the Hebrew term for the Queen Mother. I found in another book, The Graphic History of the Jewish Heritage, that the gebirah, the Queen Mother "occupied a unique and powerful position" throughout the history of ancient Israel's monarchy. He gives as an example Bathsheba, Solomon's mother, who was enthroned, which we will look at in just a moment.
Also, another example, Maacah, in 1st Kings 15:13; Jezebel, who is the only Queen Mother in the rebellious northern kingdom of Israel. In fact, the northern kingdom of Israel is conspicuous because it lacked the Queen Mother. Father DeVoe, one of the greatest Old Testament scholars of the century said, "This was due to a lack of dynastic stability." They kept getting overthrown up north. They didn't have the Davidic covenant to anchor the claims of these potential kings. That's in 2nd Kings 10:13. And then Athaliah, the very cruel and wicked queen who ruled for six years, trying to suppress the cult of Yahweh in the Temple. Mehushta over Johoachin in Jeremiah 13:18. Another scholar in Scandinavia, Ostrum says, "The Queen Mother's position was essentially cultic in nature," that is she actually had a position or a role to play in worship. It wasn't priestly but it was important and it was cultic. It's still left undefined.
In the ancient Near East it goes on talking about how, "The Queen Mother throughout all these ancient Near Eastern monarchies sat beside the king on a throne, survived the death without being deposed. If the king died, the Queen Mother continued to reign without being deposed. There was a cultic role for her in leading the songs and so on in worship but also she had an essential role in political, military and economic affairs of court. In fact there are records of where the Queen Mother could oppose the king on issues of state. This is found in the Eplah tablets and Uhr Hittite records, Egypt Marri tablets, Assyria and other Arabian documents, as well. And the Queen Mother usually began her reign, just as an interesting incidental detail, after menopause.
What's really interesting from Andreason's perspective is that even after the prophets are sent by God to purify the Jerusalem cult and the kingdom of all of these pagan encrustations, the institution of the gebirah continues with reforms by Hezekiah and Josiah. The fertility cults are suppressed and these ashora poles and so on are torn down, including sacred snakes, you know the nahushta and so on, but never the Queen Mother, that's allowed to remain. The central role for Andreason's research is that she was to be the king's wisdom counselor. Lady Wisdom in the Book of Proverbs is sort of like a personification of the Queen Mother, or visa versa.
It goes on listing several other examples. I won't bother you with all these examples but of the sixteen Queen Mothers named, seven explicitly seem to be Jerusalemites. It just runs throughout the whole gamut, the whole historical span of the monarchy and actually, the only chapter of the Bible that we know was written by a woman, Proverbs 31, was written by a Queen Mother as instruction for her son before he accedes to the throne and finds himself a wife, she says, "This is the kind you've got to find." Andreason concludes that "This is the theological paradigm for Mary's Queenship. Jesus is the Son of David and the genealogy in Matthew links Mary to the Davidic line. Being the Son of David makes her the Queen Mother." There are some other works too, The Nature of the Queenship of Mary, published in 1973, The Royal Son of God, published in 1979 and so on. But I can share these sources with you , if you are interested, afterwards.
Let's take a look at an example of the function and authority of the Queen Mother in 1st Kings. In chapter 1 there is an intense fraternal rivalry between Solomon or Jedidiah, whose throne name is Peace, Solomon, and his half-brother, Adonijah, who by the way is older and was born to one of David's wives whom he had married before Bathsheba. So Adonijah seemed to have a kind of prima facia claim to the throne before Solomon, except that Bathsheba had exacted from David an oath to the effect that her son would get the throne. You can get it in Psalm 110 especially. So, anyway, Adonijah approaches Bathsheba in order to approach Solomon. We're going to see how this goes. But first of all we see King David asking Bathsheba, verse 17, " What is it you want the king asked? She said to him, 'My Lord, you yourself swore to me your servant by the Lord your God, Solomon your son shall be king after me and he will sit on my throne. But now Adonijah has become king and you my Lord, the king, do not know about it.'" And it goes on talking about this palace coup attempt.
Then King David says over in verse 28 and 29 calling Bathsheba. "So she came into the king's presence and stood before him. The king then took an oath, 'as surely as the Lord lives,'" and he goes on promising and swearing that "Solomon, your son, shall be king after me and he will sit on my throne in my place," even though the majority of the people were going after Adonijah at the time, several key priests, as well. And so she rejoices.
Now turn over to 1st Kings 2. There's where David gives his royal charge to Solomon and Solomon asks for wisdom, but just browse and just go through that as quickly as you can and just see what is going on here because it is very unusual. Let's take a look in particular at verse 13. "Now Adonijah, the son of Haggith, went to Bathsheba, Solomon's mother. Bathsheba asked him, 'Do you come peacefully?' He answered, 'Yes, peacefully,' then he added, 'I have something to say to you.' 'You may say it, she replied.' 'As you know,' he said, 'the kingdom was mine. All Israel looked to me as their king. But then things changed and the kingdom has gone to my brother for it has come to him from the Lord. Now I have just one request to make of you. Do not refuse me.' 'You may make it she said. So he continued, 'Please ask King Solomon, he won't refuse you, to give me Abishag, the Shunamite as my wife.'" If you understood palace politics, you'd see what this was. "Very well," Bathsheba replied. "I will speak to the king for you."
Abishag happened to be David's last lover and wife. She was the one young woman who kept him warm in his old age, sleeping next to him at all times. To have David's last wife would be to have official claim to the throne. This is why Absolom publicly slept with David's concubines after he threw his father out of Jerusalem, because if I have the Queen Mothers, if I have the king's wives, who do you see as your king? Solomon is no fool. When Bathsheba went to King Solomon to speak to him for Adonijah, look what happens. The king of Israel, the son of David, the supreme head of God's covenant people in the whole world, according to Psalm 2 stood up to meet her, bowed down to her and sat down on his throne and he had a throne brought for the king's mother and she sat down at his right hand. "Sit at my right hand," Psalm 110. That's the position of authority. I have one small request to make of you. She goes on and makes the request. Solomon sees through it. Says no, of course, and executes Adonijah.
But look at the beginning of the institution of the gebirah. It's something that continues. When the Queen Mother walks in, the king, because he is her son, pays filial homage to her and establishes her at his right hand, upon a throne as Queen Mother. If I am the father of the family of this kingdom, if I am the shepherd of this flock, that makes you the mother. Not only my mother but the grandmother of us all. That institution persisted down through the ages of the Judaite monarchy. There is no evidence of it ever being suppressed by the prophets or criticized by Yahweh or ever falling into hard times and being replaced because it was seen as something that was meaningless.
So what? So the Jews who had been waiting and waiting and waiting for five hundred years for the Davidic line to be reestablished at the time of Christ's coming knew all this. They knew it like the back of their hand. We don't. Many Biblical scholars aren't even aware of it. But every Jew did. I mean Joe Six-pack or Joe Sixpackstein, they all knew it. They all knew that God had sworn an oath that there would always be a Davidic king and that the kingdom of David would be restored in its former glory, and in fact, greater glory.
But the last time we hear about the Davidic kingdom, it's fallen upon hard times. We won't go through all the passages in Chronicles and Kings but when the Babylonians conquered Jerusalem in 586 and even prior to that, they had captured the king. They had killed all of his sons before his eyes, they drilled out his eyes and they sent him into captivity in chains. From there on the fortunes of the Davidic dynasty only went down and for hundreds and hundreds of years, for decades at a time, the Jews wondered, "Is there even a Davidic descendent?" I mean sure the Hasmonians claim some Davidic dynastic relations and so on, but never was it sure and whenever any claimant to Davidic authority would rise up, what would happen? Like Jerubabaal in coming back from Babylonian captivity, he went straight to Jerusalem and the High Priest is there and all the people were saying, "At last the Davidic throne is going to be restored." Only what happens? He's recalled to Persia and we never hear from him again. The Davidic kingdom is not restored.
So for centuries and centuries the Jewish people keep reading Psalm 2, keep reading Psalm 89, keep reading Psalm 110, keep reading Psalm 132 and all these other Davidic Messianic psalms that promised an ongoing, unbroken line of Davidic succession and glorious, glorious power. It would be sort of like if all of us took a refresher course on the promise that Jesus gave to Peter about the rock and the keys and the gates of Hades not prevailing and we reminded ourselves and we reinforced our conviction that the papal line would always be unbroken. Then all of a sudden we hear that the Pope has been assassinated and all the Bishops have been rounded up and assassinated as well.
What would happen? I'll bet you some people's faith would be shaken. I'll bet you mine would be, and if yours isn't, I don't understand. I mean that's an oath that Jesus swore, in effect. It was an oath that God swore in effect. Is there a Davidic line? Has God forgotten? Has he fallen asleep at the wheel? What is going on? Turn with me now to Matthew 1.
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Now all of a sudden, it gets really exciting, maybe not for us but for those Jews who were expecting the Messiah, the poor, the humble, the faithful who were no longer out for political power or economic prosperity. They were allowing themselves to be impoverished and oppressed because they knew the Messiah would come and establish justice not by force and violence but by an incredible act of self- sacrifice as both suffering servant and son of man. Then, all of a sudden, in Matthew 1 we read what for the Jews is the most exciting passage of the New Testament, perhaps and what for us is by far the most boring. Oh, no! The begats, the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the Jews gasped, "What? Can you prove that?" The son of Abraham, double gasp." Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob." I'm not going to read the whole thing, I promise you, okay?
But notice a few things. For instance, notice in verse 3, Tamar. Notice in verse 5, Rahab. Notice in verse 5, Ruth and notice in verse 6 "David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah. Four women are mentioned in this genealogy which is very unusual to have women mentioned at all. But what do all four women have in common? Tamar had sex with her father-in-law, Rahab was a harlot. Ruth was a foreigner, a Moabitist, and the wife of Uriah was just that, the wife of Uriah, before the wife of David, before he committed adultery and then committed murder to get rid of Uriah.
In other words Matthew is reminding the Jews of the legacy of David's line. Why? Because what was the scuttlebutt about this young 13-year-old Jewess named Mary getting pregnant before she was married? Messing around, right? Whenever you see in the New Testament, Jesus called "the son of Mary," that's derogatory. Why? It was an illegitimate birth in the eyes of the townspeople, probably. What's Matthew doing? What's new? The appearance of sexual immorality or even the reality of infidelity has never thwarted God's purposes. In the case of sex with the father-in-law, and in the case of a harlot, in the case of a foreign woman and in the case of an adulteress. I mean what more is left?
In other words if God's purposes had been fulfilled through the Davidic monarchy up until now and he didn't complain about David coming from such women and there was Solomon, then this seeming scandal should not throw you too far off. And it goes on, verse 11, "Josiah the father of Jechoniah and his brothers at the time of the deportation of Babylon." And now all of a sudden some very good information that we never really had absolute certainty about anywhere in the Old Testament, "After the deportation of Babylon, Jechoniah, Shealtiel, Zerubbabel," well, we know him. We don't know what happened after him, Abiud, Azor, Zadok, Achim, Eliud, Eleazar, Natthan, Jacob, "Joseph, the husband of Mary of whom Jesus was born who is called the Christ." In other words, we have now the proof that they didn't lose the line. It didn't fizzle out. God didn't forget.
But what was happening? I mean if you were in the Davidic line and you realize it, you stood up and said, "Hey, I'm Davidic!" What would happen? The Babylonians would go squash or the Persians would go squash or the Greeks or the Romans. Why? Because you are a pretender to the throne. Don't give us this Davidic promise, this Davidic authority stuff. Your line is over. So if you have royal blood, not just any old royal blood, but I mean divine right royal blood flowing through your veins, what had you better do? Zip up. Right? You better shut up.
What happens as soon as the word gets out that the Messiah is born? What does King Herod do? "Oh gosh, gee willickers, I've got to go worship." What a stinking liar. He ends up slaughtering dozens and maybe hundreds of infant males to do anything, no matter how diabolical, to put an end to the Davidic line. And Mary knew it all along. And you could actually see a Davidic line as far as she is concerned as you correlate the Mathian and the Lukan genealogies. Now we, I think, understand a little bit better how important and perhaps exciting this must have been to those faithful, humble, poor Jews who had been waiting and waiting and waiting for hundreds and hundreds of years, wondering if God had forgotten. He hasn't. Verse 18, "Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph before they came together, she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit. And her husband Joseph being a just man not wanting to put her to shame resolved to divorce her quietly. But then the angel appears to him in a dream, 'Joseph, son of David,'" in other words, I want you to begin to figure things out here, Joe. Remember who you are? You're a son of David. Weird things happen to Davidic sons. Okay? "'Joseph, son of David, don't fear to take Mary for your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus for he will save his people from their sins.' All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: 'Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son and his name shall be called, God with us, Emanuel.'"
Joseph probably knew this as well as he knew any verse in the Old Testament because this is one of those few key texts, those few key prophecies on which the anawim hung their hopes. "So he knew her not until she had born a son and he called his name Jesus." And here we go on and we discover that the Magi are sent by God. Now, three Wise Men, it doesn't say they were Wise Men. It calls them the Magi. What are Magi? They are Eastern Sorcerers, probably Persian. There's an old Rabbinic maxim, "If anybody learns anything from a Magi, one of the Magi, let him be accursed." Because they were the practitioners in the Black Arts and some of the tools of their trade, according to Brown and some other scholars, is that they use gold for all their magical pages on which the incantations were written. They used frankincense and they also used myrrh.
These were some of the basic tools of the trade as practitioners in the black art did it. And when they give the stuff up to our Lord in the manger, what are they doing? They are renouncing it. They have followed the light, they have found the truth. But what of the Jews? What about the most knowledgeable of the Jews? The most powerful Jews, the priests in Jerusalem who are in cohoots with Herod, giving him all that he needs to track down the Messiah? Now maybe they didn't know about Herod. Yeah. Maybe they didn't know about Herod. Sure, the guy who kills his mother, kills his brothers, his cousins, murdered 35 members of the Sanhedrin? You trust a jerk like him? Something's wrong.
The Magi and the shepherds, we discover of course, in Luke that the shepherds come to visit. Do you know that the shepherds were looked down upon as the lowest of the low in Hebrew society? Women and shepherds were not allowed to give testimony in a courtroom, but especially shepherds. They were dishonest and they were perverted according to Rabinic sayings. It would be sort of like having a baby and then, all of a sudden your neighbors look out the window as they see the whores and the junkies and the pushers come to your front door. What's going on? You know, property values are decreasing! God has taken the humble and the sinners, those who are in most need of your mercy, and giving mercy and insight and wisdom and so much more. In a sense turning upside down the wisdom and the power of this age and this world.
It goes on, "And Mary is pondering all these things." I mean Magi from Persia, shepherds. God, what are you doing? Well we don't have to go very far to learn. Let's take a look at Luke, chapter 1. We could have lots of fun, by the way, going through the rest of Matthew. You know, chapter 2, we didn't even touch upon all that really - their flight down into Egypt and coming out of Egypt as well. But, let's turn now to Luke, chapter 1. I know we don't have that much time but let's just focus here for a moment.
Here we have Luke who is much less Jewish in his intentions than Matthew. Matthew is writing the gospel for the Jews and the Jewish Christians. Luke is the only Gentile author of a New Testament book. A trained physician, a rather skilled historian, scholars tell us. He is writing all about Jesus, the Son of Man, the son of Adam. Not so much like Matthew, the son of David. He's concerned in his genealogy to take Jesus all the way back to David? No. Abraham? No. Adam - to show that this man is the one who is to redeem the whole world, all nations! After all, Luke's not a Jew.
So it goes on talking about in verse 5, the birth of John the Baptist foretold. We have here the annunciation to Zechariah. And then we have, after the birth of John the Baptist is recorded, the birth of Jesus foretold in the annunciation in verse 26, "In the sixth month, the Angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David, and the virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, 'Hail, full of grace.'" Now that Greek term is translated in various ways. Oh highly favored one, but the grace of God in the New Testament develops and it becomes a kind of substance and not just an attitude; that when God gives favor, it isn't just a feeling. It isn't just a thought. It isn't just a subjective posture or attitude. It's God's own life. So that when God favors you, he didn't just stand back and say, "Eeh, I like ya." He gives himself to you.
So when she is full of God's favor, she is full of God's life and that's the term grace as it develops in the New Testament. So, "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you," an absolutely unique address. Never before has an angel addressed somebody almost naming them full of grace. It doesn't say, "Hail, Mary, full of grace." It says, "Hail, full of grace," and it says it almost like a title. Scholars have torn this apart to show the distinctiveness and uniqueness of the address. "The Lord is with you." We could do so much with that, but we have to move on. "She was greatly troubled at this saying and considered in her mind what sort of greeting this might be. 'Don't be afraid, Mary,' the angel said to her, 'for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.'" It goes on, "'He will be great and will be called the son of the Most High and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever and of his kingdom there will be no end.'"
"Mary said to the angel, 'How shall this be since I have no husband?' And the angel said to her. 'The Holy Spirit will come upon you,'" or literally it goes on, "'the Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.'" This is what we are going to develop in the 1:30 talk, but I'll mention it now. That word "overshadow" is a rare verb. It's used to describe what the Holy Spirit does over the top of the Ark of the Covenant. And so it doesn't take much scholarship to see the connection that is probably intended by Luke as he recounts this.
The Ark of the Covenant was so sacred because the tablets were in the Ark and the tablets were the decalogue, the word of God, the ten words of God. Now why is Mary the Ark? Because the word has been made flesh and is dwelling among us, but within her. She is the true Ark, the true Ark of the Covenant, the New Covenant. "Therefore, the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God." And then some more and she replies, "'Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. Let it be done unto me according to your word.' And the angel departed from her." And she makes haste to go visit cousin Elizabeth. And as she walks into the house, John the Baptist, it says, "leaps for joy." And look at 43, "Why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?"
People protest about the phrase theotokos "mother of God." They should see it's got a Biblical precedent in verse 43, "the mother of my Lord. For behold when the voice of your greeting came to my ears, the babe in my womb leaped for joy and blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord." And then, the song of Mary, the magnificent Magnificat! I want you to listen to this like you never heard it before. "My soul magnifies the Lord." All right it's built upon Hannah's song, but it goes far beyond that song in 1st Samuel. "My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior. For he has regarded the low estate of his handmaiden. For henceforth, behold all generations will call me Blessed."
Now just stop a second. It I stood up and said to you, "My soul magnifies the Lord. My spirit rejoices in God, my Savior. For he has regarded the low estate of his manservant and henceforth all generations shall call me blessed." Wouldn't you wretch? You'd say, "What's this guy come off. Who is this guy to stand up here and say, 'Henceforth all generations shall call me, not us, me - get that - blessed.'" Now we usually think of Mary as just being humble and poor and faithful and so on - and she is. Humility and modesty do not consist in making yourself into a doormat or disowning God's graces and privileges. It means, in fact, owning them as God's graces and privileges that are given to you to serve others and him.
But with false modesty you say, "Awe, gosh, shucks, gee willickers, I did nothing. I'm just a doormat. Walk on me, you know?" Not Mary. "Henceforth, all generations shall call me Blessed." Who do you think you are, woman? You really want to know? The Queen Mother of the Son of David, because I have been so humble and poor before the Lord. On my own I've got nothing, but the Lord has filled me with everything. I am full of grace, but it's grace that I'm full of. It's not personal power and Anthony Robbin's "Secrets to Success." It's God's grace. It's all a gift. It's icing. It's gravy, but it's now mine and so all generations shall call me blessed.
That's what we do in the rosary, isn't it? We just echo the angel, "Hail Mary," which means gift, "full of grace. The Lord is with you." And then we say, "You are blessed amongst all women and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus. For behold henceforth all generations will call me blessed, for he who is mighty has done great things for me and holy is his name." Why? Because he has done great things for me. I am a humble, lowly handmaiden and we're thinking, "Yeah, if you don't say so yourself, you know? Tooting your own horn. Patting your own back. Come on, give other people a chance."
Well, that's what the Church has had for 2000 years, a chance to toot her horn and to pat her back. But she starts it off. "His mercy is on those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm. He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts." Now you may be thinking that she is being proud in her imagination, but she is just being downright honest. "So he has put down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of low degree. He has filled the hungry with good things and the rich he has sent empty away." We could spend an hour on every phrase. It's just so packed! "He has helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy."
Take a look at chapter 2, verse 22, "And when the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord. As it is written in the law of the Lord, every male that opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord and offer sacrifice according to what is said in the law of the Lord a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons," which was the sacrifice for childbirth that was incumbent upon the poorest of the poor, for those who could not afford a real sacrifice. It suggests that Mary really was a handmaiden and so was Joseph humble and poor.
"Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon and this man was righteous and devout, looking for the consolation of Israel and the Holy Spirit was upon him." It goes on, "And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ, the Lord's Messiah." This shows than anybody full of the Spirit, meditating upon the Old Testament would be expectant, waiting for a Messiah. This is Messianism. "And inspired by the Spirit, he came into the temple. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him according to the custom of the law, he took him up in his arms and blessed God and said, 'Lord, now letest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word for mine eyes have seen the salvation which thou hast prepared in the presence of all peoples. A light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to thy people Israel. And his father and his mother marveled at what was said about him." I love him. "And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother, 'Behold this child is set for the fall and the rising of many in Israel.'"
It isn't just unmitigated blessings. If you go back to the prophecy about the 77s in Daniel 9, you realize that the temple will be reconsecrated. A strong covenant will be made. Sacrifices shall cease and the holy city will be completely destroyed and desolate. And so at the same time that Christ comes after 490 years to reconsecrate the temple, there is a doom pronounced upon those who have accumulated in Jerusalem all kinds of wealth and political power and have corrupted the temple, because whose temple is it? Is it Solomon's? No. Is it the second temple that Ezra and Nehemiah helped rebuild? No. It's Herod's temple. A half-Jew Edomite who was murdering half his family. The downfall of those who wanted power and prosperity and wealth more than faith and love and grace and justice. "A sign of contradiction and a sword will pierce through your own soul also that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed."
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This is supposed to be a POSITIVE affirmation in FAVOR of the QUEEN MOTHER SCHTICK? Where in Scripture is any HINT of such a QUEEN MOTHER being a GODLY, POSITIVE INFLUENCE. Perhaps I'm forgetting such an example.
The only ones I can imagine/faintly "remember?" are very negative ones.
v For the author to put forward such a NEGATIVE bit of evidence to SUPPORT a positive view of THE QUEEN OF HEAVEN is absolutely mind bogglingly PREPOSTEROUS.
I KI 15:3 Maachah, his mother, even her he removed from being queen because she had made an idol in a grove; and Asa destroyed her idol and burned it by the brook Kidron.
From Jer 7:18 "Ashtoreth--an idol of the Philitines--probably identical with the "QUEEN OF HEAVEN" . . . has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to reccommend the QUEEN OF HEAVEN to truly God fearing, God loving people.
NAVE'S TOPICAL INDEX EXAMPLE OF SUPERSTITION ON THE PART OF THE ISRAELIS:
The Jews attributed their calamities to having ceased offering sacrifices to the QUEEN OF HEAVEN. Jer 44:17-19
It continues to boggle my mind that anyone would grasp so VAINLY at the SMELL of straws to support ANY NOTION of a POSITIVE QUEEN OF HEAVEN when the whole counsel of quite a number of Scriptures is VERY FIERCELY HOSTILE to such a DEMONICALLY PAGAN idea.
JEREMIAH:
20-23Then Jeremiah spoke up, confronting the men and the women, all the people who had answered so insolently. He said, “The sacrifices that you and your parents, your kings, your government officials, and the common people of the land offered up in the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem—don’t you think God noticed? He noticed, all right. And he got fed up. Finally, he couldn’t take your evil behavior and your disgusting acts any longer. Your land became a wasteland, a death valley, a horror story, a ghost town. And it continues to be just that. This doom has come upon you because you kept offering all those sacrifices, and you sinned against God! You refused to listen to him, wouldn’t live the way he directed, ignored the covenant conditions.”
JEREMIAH:
24-25Jeremiah kept going, but now zeroed in on the women: “Listen, all you who are from Judah and living in Egypt—please, listen to God’s Word. God-of-the-Angel-Armies, the God of Israel, says: ‘You women! You said it and then you did it. You said, “We’re going to keep the vows we made to sacrifice to the Queen of Heaven and pour out offerings to her, and nobody’s going to stop us!”’
25-27”Well, go ahead. Keep your vows. Do it up big. But also listen to what God has to say about it, all you who are from Judah but live in Egypt: ‘I swear by my great name, backed by everything I am—this is God speaking!—that never again shall my name be used in vows, such as “As sure as the Master, God, lives!” by anyone in the whole country of Egypt. I’ve targeted each one of you for doom. The good is gone for good.
27-28”’All the Judeans in Egypt will die off by massacre or starvation until they’re wiped out. The few who get out of Egypt alive and back to Judah will be very few, hardly worth counting. Then that ragtag bunch that left Judah to live in Egypt will know who had the last word.