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Remember that time when Jews used to worship a tree goddess? No?! We do!

Her name was Asherah and she was a tree! Well, sort of…

 

Asherah is arguably the most important goddess in the Canaanite pantheon. The prototypical mother of gods and humans and consort of the chief god, El, and by him she was the mother of 70 gods. She is also the mistress of the sea and the land, and protector of all living things. 

 

Known also as “Astarte”, “Ishtar”, and the “Queen of Heaven”. She was widely worshiped throughout Syria and Canaan. She was frequently paired with Baal (who was her son), who often took the place of El; as Baal’s consort, Asherah was usually given the name Baalat.

 

In Hebrew the word “Ashera” is derived from the root אֹשֶׁר, literally meaning “Joy”, “bliss” or “immense delight”. I’ll circle back to this in a moment…

 

Asherah was represented by a limbless tree trunk planted in the ground. The trunk was usually carved into a symbolic representation of the goddess. Because of the association with carved trees, the places of Asherah worship were commonly called “groves,” and the Hebrew word “asherah” (plural, “asherim”) could refer either to the goddess or to a grove of trees. Her son, Baal, on the other hand, was represented as a stone pillar. 

 

What could she have meant to the people of monotheistic ancient Israel?

Asherah was known from the immense library of thirteenth-century cuneiform tablets found in Syria at the site of Ugarit. But there are also more than 40 direct and indirect references to Asherah in the the Hebrew Bible, always in negative terms. 

Most references are indirect, to the Asherah poles that symbolized her, but a number of them clearly refer directly to the goddess Asherah (e.g., Judges 3:7; 1 Kings 15:13; 1 Kings 18:19; 2 Kings 21:7; 2 Kings 23:4-7; 2 Chron. 15:16).

 

We first get reference to Asherah in the Book of Exodus, but the clearest biblical statement about her is from Deuteronomy:

Deuteronomy 16:21 - “You shall not plant for yourselves an Asherah beside the altar of Yahweh your God that you make for yourselves.” Lexham English Bible (LEB)

 

Another clear biblical statement about her from Deuteronomy:

Deuteronomy 12:2-5 - “2 You must completely demolish all of the places there where they served their gods, that is, the nations whom you are about to dispossess, on the high mountains, and on the hills and under each leafy green tree. 3 And you shall break down their altars, and you shall smash their stone pillars, and their Asherah you must burn with fire, and the images of their gods you shall hew down, and you shall blot out their names from that place. 4 You shall not worship Yahweh your God like this. 5 But only to the place that Yahweh your God will choose from all of your tribes to place his name there as his dwelling shall you seek, and there you shall go.” Lexham English Bible (LEB)

 

And yet, in case we missed the previous memos, another decisive reference from

Judges 6:25-26 - “25 Now on that same night Yahweh said to him [Gideon], “Take the bull of the cattle that belongs to your father, and a second bull seven years old, and pull down the altar of Baal that belongs to your father, and cut down the Asherah that is beside it; 26 and build an altar to Yahweh your God on the top of this stronghold in the proper arrangement, and take a second bull and offer it as a burnt offering with the wood of the Asherah that you will cut down.” Lexham English Bible (LEB)

 

Asherah-worship, however, was a perennial problem in Israel.

As Solomon slipped into idolatry, one of the pagan deities he brought into the kingdom was Asherah, called “the goddess of the Sidonians” (1 Kings 11:5, 33). Later, Jezebel made Asherah-worship even more prevalent, with 400 prophets of Asherah on the royal payroll (1 Kings 18:19). 

 

Jeremiah 44:15-23 - “15 Then all the men who knew that their wives were making smoke offerings to other gods, and all the women who stood by, a great assembly, and all the people who lived in the land of Egypt in Pathros, answered Jeremiah, saying, 16 “Concerning the word that you have spoken to us in the name of Yahweh, we are not going to listen to you! 17 But certainly we will do everything [defiance of Yah, no reverence] that went out from our mouths, to make smoke offerings to the queen of heaven [Asherah] and to pour out to her libations just as we did, we, and our ancestors, our kings, and our officials, in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, for then we had enough to eat, and we were well-off, and we did not see disaster. 18 But since we stopped making smoke offerings to the queen of heaven [Asherah] and pouring out libations to her, we have lacked everything, and by the sword and by the famine we have perished. 19 And indeed, when we were making smoke offerings to the queen of heaven [Asherah] and pouring out to her libations, was it not with the consent of our husbands that we made for her sacrificial cakes marked with her image, and we poured out to her libations?”  20 Then Jeremiah said to all the people, to the men and to the women, and to all the people who answered him a word, saying, 21 “The smoke offerings that you made in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem—you and your ancestors, your kings and your officials, and the people of the land—did not Yahweh remember them, and did it not come to His mind? 22 And Yahweh was no longer able to bear it, because of the evil of your deeds, because of the detestable things that you committed [no reverence]. Thus your land became as a site of ruins, and as a horror, and as a curse, without inhabitants, as it is this day. 23 Because of the fact that you made smoke offerings, and that you sinned against Yahweh [no reverence], and you did not listen to the voice of Yahweh [no obedience], and you have not walked in his law, and in his statute, and in his legal provisions [no devotion], therefore this disaster [the consequence] has happened to you, as it is this day.” Lexham English Bible (LEB)

 

At times, Israel experienced revival, and notable crusades against Asherah-worship were led by Gideon (Judges 6:25-30), King Asa (1 Kings 15:13), and King Josiah (2 Kings 23:1-7). But, all in all, it seemed like a lost cause to uproot her worship from within the hearts of His stiff-necked children.

 

Curiouser and curiouser...

Inscriptions from two locations in southern Canaan seem to indicate that she was also worshiped as the consort of Yahweh. These inscriptions specifically refer to “Yahweh and his Asherah.” In other words, as the pagan El was replaced with the Holy El, the people concluded that Yah had a wife named Asherah.

 

This corrupt blending of a holy God with a pagan goddess became part of everyday religious practice, for an asherah pole even stood in front of Solomon’s Temple for most of its existence, as well as in Yahweh’s sanctuary in Samaria. There is also much extra-biblical evidence of Asherah in Israel from the time of the judges right through monarchical times, including in paintings/drawings, pendants, plaques, pottery, (possibly) clay “pillar” figurines, cult stands, and in inscriptions.

 

And even more curiouser - In Proverbs 1:20–33 and Proverbs 8:1—9:12, wisdom is personified as a woman who has much to offer—including “enduring wealth and prosperity” and “life”—to anyone who would heed her words (Proverbs 8:18, 35).

 

Is it possible that the “Wisdom” King Solomon referred to in these passages in none other than Asherah? Some scholars suggest just that…

 

Consider this - Solomon ignored Yahweh's warning by building temples in honor of his wives’ native gods throughout Jerusalem.

1 Kings 11:4 - “As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father had been”.  Lexham English Bible (LEB)

 

By building and dedicating these temples, it was Solomon himself that brought the worship of Asherah out of the countryside and into the capital city of Jerusalem.

 

Excerpt from Proverbs 8 - “When he established the heavens, I was there… when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him… and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the children of man…” Lexham English Bible (LEB)

 

This takes us back to the meaning of Asherah - Queen of Heaven, consort of El - in Hebrew. As you recall, in Hebrew the word “Ashera” is derived from the root אֹשֶׁר, literally meaning “Joy”, “bliss” or “immense delight”. And, on the way, opens a pandora box of questions for us to ponder…

 

But that’s a rabbit hole we are not ready to jump into. At least not yet…