Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Dora Smith" <villandra AT austin.rr.com>]

What is meant by "sodomite" (or word translated thereas) in the following
passage on Josiah's eviction of Baal from the LORDs temple in
Jerusalem?

"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." (2 Kings 23.7).

One thing it does not appear to mean is homosexuality.   It is a place where
women wore hangings for the grove - where Yahweh's wife Asherah was
worshipped.

But it clearly also is not a reference to a failure to show hospitality to
strangers, as appears to be the case in other Old Testmament references to
the term sodomite.

St. Paul seems to have thought that homosexuality was closely tied to the
practice of idolatry - is this a clue to what was actually going on in the
minds of the authors of Kings?

Yours,
Dora Smith
Austin, Texas
villandra AT austin.rr.com