Asherah (Hastings' Dictionary)

1. A PlnLiiiiian andCanaan- ite j,'udiie?» (Ex 34" KVin) (a) the same as or (6) dibtiiK't from Ashtfiretli. The name occurs (1) in two I'hoen. inscriptions, one from Kition, ZDMG zxxv. 424, the other from Ma'sub, Rev, Arrhfo- Ivgiqut (1885), v. 380. In the tirst, as read by Schroder, one 'Abdosir dedicates a statue to ' the Mother 'Asli^rah.' The second speaks of ''Ash- toreth in the 'Asli6rah' ; (2) in the Tel elAmarna inscriptions (RP '2nd Ser. ii. G7, iii. 71, v. 97, vi. 50). In these mention is made of one Abad- 'Ashrat, i.e. Servant of 'Ashnii, and the latter word is said to be emphasized as a divine name (Schrader, ZeiUih. fur Ass>/r. iii. [1888] 304) ; (3) in the OT, Jg 3' ' the children of Israel . . . served the Baalim and the Asheroth ' ; 1 K li5" = 2 Ch I.')'" ' -Maacah . . . made an abominable image for an A.-herah ' ; IK IS" ' the propliets of the Asherah ' ; 2 K 21' Mana.sseh ' set the graven image of Asherah ' in the temple ; 23' ' vessels that were made for Baal and for the Asherah ' ; 2;) Josiah 'brought out the Asherah from the house of tlie Lord ' ; 2;J' ' the women wove hang- ings for the Asherah.' (For Asherah as a goddess, see Kucnen, Rcl. uf Israel, ii. 88 ; Movers, Die Fk/mizier, i. o60 ; Sayce, HCM 81.) But the existence of this goddess is a disputed fioinl. The evidence, it must be admitted, is very imited, and not decisive. With regard to the I'liiin. sources, the word on tlie Kition inscription sujijiDscd to represent 'Asherah is differently read byStade, Z^ If (1881)344 f., and in tlie CIS i. 1. 13; whilst the phrase in the Ma'sub inscription is obscure, and can , be explained in different ways (WaXkvy , Rev. des Etudes J uives , xii. 110; Hott'mann, Uebereiniqe Phon. Inschr. 20 ff. ). Again, the value of the evidence of the Tel el-Amania inscriptions uiKjn this i)oint is as yet uncertain (Nowack, Heh. Arch. ii. 307, n. 2; W. K. Smith, Rel. Sem. 173 n). And, la.'-tly, the OT pas,sages are perhaps best ex- plained by supposing that the comjiilers of the hist. tx>ok8 misunderstood the term 'Asherah, and con- fused it with 'Ashtoreth (Stade, (le.ick. des Volkes Isr. i. 4C0 ; Nowack, p. 19 ; W. K. Smith, p. 173 ; Montefiore, Uibbert Lect. 89). 2. A sacred tree or pole. The ordinary furni- ture of a Can. high-place or shrine consisted of the altar, near to which stood a stone pillar or Ma??(;>- bah, and a sacred tree or "Ashirah, 1 K M'", 2 K 18. l''or an altar and an 'Asherah of Baal, cf. Jg 0""'°. When the Israelite invaders a])pro- priated for tlieir own religious worship the nigh -places of the Canaanites, they adopted also the Miijf^fobahs and 'Ashi^-ralis, Mic 5'"-^', Is 17' 27', .Jer 17', 1 K 14», 2 K 17'"-". Not until the centralisation of the cultus at Jeru.s., carried out by .Josiah, did the high-places, and with them the pillars and .sacred trees, become illegal, Dt 16-'. An idea of the appearance and nature of an 'Asherah may be obtained from a comparison of some of the pa.s,s!iges in which the word occurs. It was a tree, or stunij) of a tree, planted in the earth, Dt K!^' ; it could be artificially made. Is 17", 1 K 14" lO*; it was made of wood, Jg O" ; it might receive an image-like form, 1 K 15" : it could be 'cut down,' Ex 34", '])lucked up,' Mic 5", 'burnt,' Dt 12', or 'broken in pieces,' 2 Ch 34*. What are supposed to be representations of such sacruil trei-s may be seen in Hawlinson's Ancient Mimnrrhie-i, ii. .37, or in Nowack, ii. 19. The original signification of the 'Ashc^rahs la not clear. Some have held that they were symbols either of a supposed goddess 'Asherah (Kuenen, Rel. lar. ii. 75, 88, 247), or of 'Ashtoreth (Baethgen, Beitraqe, 218 f. ; Oettli on Jj,' 3' in Strack and Znckler's Kurzfiefnsster Komm.). Others believe them to have been connected with Phallic worship (Movers, Collins, PSIiA, June 4, 1889, 291 ; M. Ohnefalsch-Richter. Cyprus, the Bible, and llumer, 140, 170) ; but against this, see W. R. Smith, p. 437. Perhaps the most probable view is that whicli sees in the 'Ashcirahs a survival of tree-worship, whilst the Maj^c^bahs represent a survival of stone-worship (W. Ii. Smith, p. 109; Stade, Gesch. i. 460 ff. ; Pietachmann, Gesch. der P/umizier, 213 ; Nowack, ii. 19). The rendering 'groYe' (plu. 'groves,' RV Asherim) of AV comes from LXX dXffos, a trans, which, though possible in some cases, is obviously inappropriate in others, e.g. 1 K 14^ 15" 2 K 23". LiTERATCTiB.— Driver on Dt. 16-'; Moore on Jr ?' 6»; and the reff. above. For a freah attempt to connect tree and pillar \eneration with Phallic worship, aee Trunihull, The TkretlwUt Covenanl (1696), p. 228 fl. \y_ Q^ ALLEN