After the death of Solomon, the ten tribes separated themselves from Judah and Benjamin, and under the kingship, and by the direction, of Jeroboam, established a false worship through the two golden calves copied from Egypt, one of which was placed in Bethel and the other in Dan. Each of the successors of Jeroboam walked in the way of Jeroboam "and in his sin wherewith he made Israel to sin," unto the time of Omri, who in this wicked way "did worse than all that were before him." "And Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the Lord above all that were before him. And it came to pass as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, that he took to wife Jezebel, the daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Zidonians, and went and served Baal, and worshiped him. And he reared up an altar for Baal in the house of Baal, which he had built in Samaria. And Ahab made a grove; and Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him." 1 Kings 16:30-33.
From this it is evident that as corrupt and degrading as was the worship established by Jeroboam, that of the sun was far worse. Ethbaal was a priest of Baal and Astarte, who assassinated the king and made himself king in his stead. Jezebel brought with her into Israel the worship of Baal and Astarte,—the male and female sun,—and established it to such an extent that in a few years there were four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and four hundred of Astarte, and only seven thousand people in all Israel who had not joined in the wicked worship. Elijah began a reformation, but the worship and the gods introduced by Jezebel remained in some measure till the reign of Jehu, who gathered every worshiper of Baal to a general assembly in honor of Baal, and slew them all. "And they brought forth the images out of the house of Baal, and burned them. And they brake down the image of Baal, and brake down the house of Baal, and made it a draught house unto this day. Thus Jehu destroyed Baal out of Israel. Howbeit from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin, Jehu departed not from after them, to wit, the golden calves that were in Bethel and that were in Dan." 2 Kings 10:26-29
Athaliah, the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel, married Jehoram, the son of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, and with her, sun worship through Baal and Ashtaroth was introduced into the kingdom of Judah; for Jehoram "walked in the way of the kings of Israel, as did the house of Ahab; for the daughter of Ahab was his wife: and he did evil in the sight of the Lord." 2 Kings 8:18. This worship of Baalim continued till the time of Hezekiah, who "brake the images in pieces, and cut down the groves (Asheras, representations of Ashtaroth), and threw-down the high places and the altars out of all Judah and Benjamin." 2 Chronicles 31:1. By Manasseh, however, this worship was all restored in its fullest extent; "for he built again the high places which Hezekiah his father had broken down, and he reared up altars for Baalim, and made groves, and worshiped all the host of heaven, and served them. Also he built altars in the house of the Lord whereof the Lord had said, In Jerusalem shall my name be forever. And he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord. And he caused his children to pass through the fire in the valley of the son of Hinnom: also he observed times and used enchantments, and used witchcraft, and dealt with a familiar spirit, and with wizards: he wrought much evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke him to anger. And he set a carved image, the idol which he had made in the house of God of which God had said to David and to Solomon his son, In this house and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen before all the tribes of Israel, will I put my name forever." 2 Chronicles 33:3-7.
This image which he set in the house of the Lord was rather a double image of Baal and Ashtaroth, which he put up above the altars of Baal in the house of the Lord. The cloisters about the temple were used as stables for the horses which were dedicated to the sun. By the side of the temple he built houses for the priests and priestesses of the Baalim, where the women wove hangings for the figures of Astarte.
Happily, Manasseh was succeeded by Josiah, who annihilated this whole system. "For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet young, he began to seek after the God of David his father: and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem from the high places, and the groves, and the carved images, and the molten images. And they brake down the altars of Baalim in his presence; and the images that were on high above them he cut down; and the groves, and the carved images, and the molten images he brake in pieces and made dust of them, and strewed it upon the graves of them that had sacrificed unto them."
"And he brake down the houses of the sodomites, that were by the house of the Lord, where the women wove hangings for the grove. And he brought all the priests out of the cities of Judah and defiled the high places where the priests had burned incense, from Geba to Beer-sheba, and brake down the high places of the gates that were in the entering in of the gate of Joshua, the governor of the city, which were on a man's left hand at the gate of the city.... And he defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of the children of Hinnom, that no man might make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire to Molech. And he took away the horses that the kings of Judah had given to the sun, at the entering in of the house of the Lord, by the chamber of Nathan-melech the chamberlain, which was in the suburbs, and burned the chariots of the sun with fire. And the altars that were on the top of the upper chamber of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars which Manasseh had made in the two courts of the house of the Lord, did the king beat down, and brake them down from thence, and cast the dust of them into the brook Kidron." 2 Chronicles 34:3, 4; 2 Kings 23:7-12.
Yet by the time that Zedekiah reigned, there was again a serious lapse not only into certain forms of sun worship, but into the open worship of the literal sun. Ezekiel was among the captives in Babylonia, and by the Spirit of God he was taken in a vision to Jerusalem, and was caused to see the abominations that were being practiced there. First, he was caused to see the image of Jealousy in the very entry way to the altar of sacrifice, before the house of the Lord.
He was told to turn, and he would see greater abominations than this. He then saw, "and behold every form of creeping things, and abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel, portrayed upon the wall round about. And there stood before them seventy men of the ancients of the house of Israel, and in the midst of them stood Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan, with every man his censer in his hand; and a thick cloud of incense went up."
Again he was told to turn, and he would see yet greater abominations than this that they were doing. He was then brought "to the door of the gate of the Lord's house which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz."
And he was told to turn yet again, and he should see greater abominations even than this. "And he brought me into the inner court of the Lord's house, and, behold, at the door of the temple of the Lord, between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of the Lord, and their faces toward the east, and they worshiped the sun toward the east." Ezekiel 8:16.
All that is meant in this we cannot tell; but this much is certain, that, in the estimate of Jehovah, as bad as was the worship of Astarte, and however much it provoked to jealousy; as bad as was the worship of all manner of abominable beasts; as bad as was the worship of Tammuz; yet worse than all these, even though in them were embodied some forms of sun worship—more abominable than all these was the setting of the face toward the east, in the worship of the sun itself. This was to turn the back upon the Lord; to leave him and his worship behind; and, in worshiping the visible sun, to choose all that was included in all the forms of its worship that might be known. This was open apostasy—the renunciation of all that was good and the acceptance of all that was bad.
Now, aside from the lascivious rites of Bacchus and Hercules, and beyond the fearful orgies of Cybele, this very form of worship prevailed in the Roman empire. The worship of the sun itself was the principal worship of the Romans in the time of Constantine. The sun, as represented in Apollo, was the chief and patron divinity recognized by Augustus. "Apollo was the patron of the spot which had given a name to his great victory of Actium; Apollo himself, it was proclaimed, had fought for Rome and for Octavius on that auspicious day; the same Apollo, the sun-god, had shuddered in his bright career at the murder of the dictator, and had terrified the nations by the eclipse of his divine countenance... . Besides building a splendid temple to Apollo on the Palatine Hill, the emperor sought to honor him by transplanting to the Circus Maximus, the sports of which were under his special protection, an obelisk from Heliopolis city of the sun in Egypt. This flame-shaped column was a symbol of the sun, and originally bore a blazing orb upon its summit."— Merivale. 14