[176] MELEKHETH HASHSHAMAYIM. The Masoretic pointing seems to indicate a rendering "service" or work of heaven, probably in the sense of "host of heaven," i.e. the stars, מְלֶכֶת being written defectively for מְלֶאכֶת, but this translation is now pretty generally abandoned. Cf. C. J. Ball, Giesebrecht, Orelli, Cheyne, etc., on vii. 18, and especially Kuenen's treatise on the Queen of Heaven—in the Gesammelte Abhandlungen, translated by Budde—to which this section is largely indebted.
[177] Ezek. viii.
[178] The worship of Tammuz and of "creeping things and abominable beasts" etc.
[179] Kuenen, 208.
[180] Schrader (Whitehouse's translation), ii. 207.
[181] Kuenen, 206.
[182] Sayce, Higher Criticism, etc., 80.
[183] So Giesebrecht on vii. 18. Kuenen argues for the identification of the Queen of Heaven with the planet Venus.
[184] Kuenen, 211.
[185] Doubts however have been raised as to whether any of the sections about Babylon are by Isaiah himself.