Star Worship

Dani Roth

If there is found in your midst in one of your cities which Hashem your God has given you, a man or a woman that has performed the evil in the eyes of Hashem your God to transgress His covenant, and went and served other gods and bowed to them, to the sun or to the moon, or to any of the stars  that I have not commanded (Deut. 17:3).

Dani Roth: Why does God say, “that I have not commanded”? Of course God won’t command one to commit idolatry. Ibn Ezra comments on “other gods” as referring to man-made idols, and he comments on “The sun, the moon or any of the host of heaven” as referring to the work of God. When God says “that I have not commanded,” Ibn Ezra might be saying, “Certainly man-made idols must not be worshiped, but perhaps things God made might deserve man's worship.” Of course, this is not so, but this might be man's faulty elevation of God’s creations over man's creations. Nonetheless, God says even of His own works, “I have not commanded” man to worship.

Rabbi Moshe Ben-Chaim: Dani, you made an astute distinction between idols, and between the sun, moon and stars: idols are replicas, while the sun, moon and stars are the real thing. Again, one might feel “real” things are more worthy of esteem. Here, we make recourse to more verses:  

Don’t act wickedly and make for yourselves a sculptured image in any likeness whatever: the form of a man or a woman, the form of any beast on earth, the form of any winged bird that flies in the sky, the form of anything that creeps on the ground, the form of any fish that is in the waters below the earth. And when you look up to the sky and behold the sun and the moon and the stars, the whole heavenly host, you must not be lured into bowing down to them or serving them. These your God allotted to other peoples everywhere under heaven (Deut. 4:16-19).

Dani, you are correct: God does not say “the likenesses of the sun, moon or stars”  but the actual entities themselves are prohibited. There is a distinction: man makes replicas of earthly creatures, but not necessarily replicas of heavenly spheres. However, this grouping above of replicas in Deut. 4:16-19 along with the sun, moon and stars indicates that the idolatrous crime is equal: whether worshiping replicas (idols), or the physical entities themselves (sun, moon, stars), man is blamed for worshiping anything but God. When discussing this with Dani, we noted that God made creations called angels which do have will.  As this is so, one might assume the sun, moon and stars to equally have will, like angels. But here, God clarifies this is not the case; these inanimate heavenly entities deserve no esteem. Sforno shares this view: “That I have not commanded”—which I had not appointed to act independently.”

Thank you Dani for your question and good insights.