ASHER

4'), yet some of the Jews of the period married wives from Ashdod, and their children spolce in its dialect (Neh IS''- 21). It was captured by Sargon's commander-in-chief (Is 20')- Jeremiah, Amos, Zephaniah, and Zechariah speak denunciations against it. It was again captured by Judas Maccabzeus (1 Mac 6"), and again by Jonathan (10"*). The solitary reference to it in the NT is the record of Philip's departure thither after the baptism of the Ethiopian (Ac 8"). It is identified with the modern Bsdud, a village about two-thirds of the way from Jaffa to 'Askalan, and some 3 miles from the sea. It is on the slope of a hill, and at its entrance are the remains of a large mediaeval khan. There are fragments of ancient buildings to be found here and there in the modern walls.

R. A. S. Macalister.

ASHEB. — 1. A town on the S. border of Manasseh (Jos 17'). Site unknown. 2. To 12=Hazob, No. 1.

ASHEB. — The eighth son of Jacob, by Zilpah, Leah's handmaid. Leah, joyful over his birth, named him 'Happy' (Gn 30'"). This 'popular etymology' dominates J's thought in the ' Blessing of Jacob ' (Gn 492") and in the 'Blessing of Moses' (Dt 33^). Asher's territory was especially fertile and fitted to promote prosperity. Whether this fact operated in its naming, or whether the name was originally that of a divinity of a militant Canaanite clan mentioned frequently in the Tell el-Amarna letters as the MSri abd-Ashirti ('Sons of the servant of Asherah'), or whether the Canaanite tribe 'Asaru, known from the inscriptions of the Egyptian king Seti i. (14th cent.), gave the name to the tribe, it is impossible to say. The two last theories imply an amalgamation of original inhabitants with a Hebrew clan or tribe, which, probably prior to the entrance of the southern tribes, had found its way into the North. A predominance of the Gentile element thus introduced would account, in a measure at least, for the non-participation of the Asherites in the war against Sisera, although they are said to have sent a contingent to the support of Gideon in his war with the Midianites (Jg B"* 7"), and, according to the Chronicler, went 40,000 strong to Hebron to aid David in his struggle for the kingship (1 Ch 123«). According to the earliest writing extant in the OT, viz., the Song of Deborah, the other northern tribes, Zebulun to the south and Naphtali to the east of it, flung themselves with fierce abandon against the army of Sisera, while ' Asher sat still at the haven of the sea' (Jg 5'"). Accordingto P's census, there were 41,500 males 'twenty years old and upward' at Sinai, and when they arrived in the plains of Moab they had increased to 53,400 (Nu l^' 26").

P gives also the territorial boundaries, including the names of 22 cities and their dependent villages, the majority of which are unidentified (Jos lO^i-ao; ct. Jg 1"- »^ and Jos 17" J). Asher's territory was gained by settlement, not by conquest (Jg 1"'). The tribe played an unimportant r61e in Israel. It is not mentioned in 1 Ch 27""'- , where the tribes are enumerated together with their respective leaders under David. For the genealogies see Gn 46", Nu 26", 1 Ch 7'™-. See also Tribes of Israel. James A. Craig.

ASHERAH. — In RV Asherah (plur. Asherim, more rarely Asheroth) appears as the tr. of a Hebrew sub-stantive which AV, following the LXX and Vulgate, had mistakenly rendered grove. By OT writers the word is used in three distinct applications.

1. The goddess Asherah. — In several places Asherah must be recognized as the name of a Canaanite deity. Thus in 1 K 18" we read of the prophets of Baal and of Asherah, in 15" ( = 2 Ch 15") of an abominable image,' and in 2 K 21' of 'a graven image' of Asherah, also of the sacrificial vessels used in her worship (23*), while Jg 3' speaks of the BaaUm and the Asheroth. These references, it must be allowed, are not all of equal value

. ASHERAH

for the critical historian and some of our foremost authorities have hitherto decUned to admit the existence of a Canaanite goddess Asherah, regarding the name as a mere literary personification of the asherah or sacred pole (see § 3), or as due to a confusion with Astarte (cf. Jg 3' with 2").

In the last few years, however, a variety of monu-mental evidence has come to light (see Lagrange, iltudes sur les religions semitiques 2 (1905), 119 ff.) — the latest from the soil of Palestine itself in a cuneiform tablet found at Taanach — showing that a goddess Ashirat or Asherah was worshipped from a remote antiquity by the Western Semites. There need be no hesitation, therefore, in accepting the above passages as evidence of her worship in OT times, even within the Temple itself.

The relation, as to name, history, and attributes, of this early Canaanite goddess to the powerful Semitic deity named Ishtar by the Babylonians, and Ashtart (OT 'Ashtoreth') by the Phoenicians, is still obscure (see KAT ', Index; Lagrange, op. cit.). The latter in any case gradually displaced the former in Canaan.

2. An image of Asherah. — The graven image of Asherah set up by Manasseh in the Temple (2 K 21'), when destroyed by Josiah, is simply termed the asherah (2 K 23'). Like the idols described by the prophet of the Exile (Is 41' 44i2«.), it evidently consisted of a core of wood overlaid with precious metal, since it could be at once burned and 'stamped to powder' (cf. 2 Ch 15'" for the corresponding image of Maacah), and was periodically decorated with woven hangings (Luc. 'tunics') by the women votaries of Asherah (2 K 23'). There is therefore good warrant for seeing in the asherah which Ahab set up in the temple of Baal at Samaria (cf. 1 K 16"" with 2 K 10»)— according to the emended text of the latter passage it was burned by Jehu but was soon restored (13") — something of greater consequence than a mere post or pole. It must have been a celebrated image of the goddess.

3. A symbol of Asherah. — In the remaining passages of OT the asherah is the name of a prominent, if not indispensable, object associated with the altar and the mazzebah (see Pillar) in the worship of the Canaanite high places. It was made of wood (Jg 6™), and could be planted in the ground (Dt 16^'), plucked up or cut down (Mic 5», Ex 34'"), and burned with fire (Dt 12"). Accordingly the asherah is now held to have been a wooden post or pole having symbolical significance in the Canaanite cults. How far it resembled the similar emblems figured in representations of Babylonian and Phoenician rites can only be conjectured.

When the Hebrews occupied Canaan, the local sanctuaries became seats of the worship of J", at which the adjuncts of sacred pole and pilla'r continued as before. The disastrous results of this incorporation of heathen elements led to the denunciation of the asherahs by the prophetic exponents of Israel's reUgion (Ex 34'", Jer 172, Mic 5'"'-, and esp. Dt 7" 122ff- 16"), and to their ultimate abolition (2 K 18* 23*ff).

4. Significance of the asherah. — The theory at present most in favour among OT scholars finds in the asherahs or sacred poles the substitutes of the sacred trees uni-versally revered by the early Semites. This theory, however, is not only improbable in view of the tact that the asherahs are found beside or under such sacred trees (Jer 17", 1 K 142", 2 K 17'»), but has been dis-credited by the proved existence of the goddess Asherah. In the earliest period of the Semitic occupation of Canaan (c. B.C. 2500-2000), this deity probably shared with Baal (cf. Jg 3' 6^ etc.) the chief worship of the immigrants, particularly as the goddess of fertility, in which aspect her place was later usurped by Astarte. In this early aniconic age, the wooden post was her symbol, as the stone pillar was of Baal. Bearing her name, it passed by gradual stages into the complete eikBn or anthropomorphic image of the deity as in Samaria and Jerusalem. A. R. S. Kennedy.

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