Asherah

Most scholars (Ackerman, Binger, Day, Dever, Dijkstra, Edelman, Hadley, Handy, Keel and Uehlinger, Loretz, Merlo, Niehr, Olyan, Petty, Wyatt, Xella, and Zevit) believe that Asherah was a goddess worshipped by the Israelites including (Smith, M.S., 2002, page xxxii). Sometimes referred to as the "Queen of Heaven", Asherah was only one of the deities worshipped by the Israelites. Archaeological digs find her altar erected next to that of Yahweh's in sites in Israel and the Ugaritic texts indicate that she was considered the consort, or wife, of Yahweh. Her symbol was the Tree of Life. The people often erected groves of trees in her honor, or a single pole, called an Asherah pole. She was also worshipped on what texts refer to as the "high places".

The Bible tells of the attempts by the Yahwehists to eliminate the people's worship of other deities, but it also records the repeated failures to do so. In 1 Kings 15 Asa admonishes the standing queen of Israel and his grandmother, Maacah, for worshipping Asherah and destroys the Asherah pole Maacah has erected.

In 1 Kings 18, the Bible tells us that not only were both Asherah and Baal worshipped by the Israelite queen, Jezebel, but between them they had 850 prophets.

2 Kings 21 shows Manassah, king of Israel, erecting an Asherah pole and 2 Kings 23 tells us that there was an Asherah pole erected in the temple as well as women weaving for her there and numerous articles placed in the temple for Asherah. Apparently, it had not occurred to the priests to remove these things before Josiah told them to. It appears that they resided there with their blessings. He also destroyed poles erected in her honor at the high places. This chapter also shows us that Asherah was worshipped in Judah and Jerusalem during this period.

Jeremiah 44 tells of the women of Judah, now living in Egypt, lamenting the new laws prohibiting them from worshipping the Queen of Heaven. They state that when they stopped worshipping her they began perishing by the sword and dying from famine.

 

Bible verses regarding Asherah:

Exodus 34:13
Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and cut down their Asherah poles.

Deuteronomy 7:5
This is what you are to do to them: Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles and burn their idols in the fire.

Deuteronomy 12:3
Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and burn their Asherah poles in the fire; cut down the idols of their gods and wipe out their names from those places.

Deuteronomy 16:21
Do not set up any wooden Asherah pole beside the altar you build to the Lord your God, 22 and do not erect a sacred stone, for these the LORD your God hates.

Judges 3:7
The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord ; they forgot the Lord their God and served the Baals and the Asherahs.

Judges 6:25
That same night the Lord said to him, "Take the second bull from your father's herd, the one seven years old. Tear down your father's altar to Baal and cut down the Asherah pole beside it.

Judges 6:26
Then build a proper kind of altar to the Lord your God on the top of this height. Using the wood of the Asherah pole that you cut down, offer the second bull as a burnt offering."

Judges 6:28
In the morning when the men of the town got up, there was Baal's altar, demolished, with the Asherah pole beside it cut down and the second bull sacrificed on the newly built altar!

Judges 6:30
The men of the town demanded of Joash, "Bring out your son. He must die, because he has broken down Baal's altar and cut down the Asherah pole beside it."

1 Kings 14:15
And the Lord will strike Israel, so that it will be like a reed swaying in the water. He will uproot Israel from this good land that he gave to their forefathers and scatter them beyond the River, because they provoked the Lord to anger by making Asherah poles.

1 Kings 14:23
They also set up for themselves high places, sacred stones and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every spreading tree.

1 Kings 15:13
He even deposed his grandmother Maacah from her position as queen mother, because she had made a repulsive Asherah pole. Asa cut the pole down and burned it in the Kidron Valley.

1 Kings 16:33
Ahab also made an Asherah pole and did more to provoke the Lord , the God of Israel, to anger than did all the kings of Israel before him.

1 Kings 18:19
Now summon the people from all over Israel to meet me on Mount Carmel. And bring the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and the four hundred prophets of Asherah, who eat at Jezebel's table."

2 Kings 13:6
But they did not turn away from the sins of the house of Jeroboam, which he had caused Israel to commit; they continued in them. Also, the Asherah pole remained standing in Samaria.

2 Kings 17:10
They set up sacred stones and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every spreading tree.

2 Kings 17:16
They forsook all the commands of the Lord their God and made for themselves two idols cast in the shape of calves, and an Asherah pole. They bowed down to all the starry hosts, and they worshiped Baal.

2 Kings 18:4
He removed the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles. He broke into pieces the bronze snake Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had been burning incense to it. (It was called Nehushtan.

2 Kings 21:3
He rebuilt the high places his father Hezekiah had destroyed; he also erected altars to Baal and made an Asherah pole, as Ahab king of Israel had done. He bowed down to all the starry hosts and worshiped them.

2 Kings 21:7
He took the carved Asherah pole he had made and put it in the temple, of which the Lord had said to David and to his son Solomon, "In this temple and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put my Name forever.

2 Kings 23:4
The king ordered Hilkiah the high priest, the priests next in rank and the doorkeepers to remove from the temple of the Lord all the articles made for Baal and Asherah and all the starry hosts. He burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron Valley and took the ashes to Bethel.

2 Kings 23:6
He took the Asherah pole from the temple of the Lord to the Kidron Valley outside Jerusalem and burned it there. He ground it to powder and scattered the dust over the graves of the common people.

2 Kings 23:7 He also tore down the quarters of the male shrine prostitutes, which were in the temple of the Lord and where women did weaving for Asherah.

2 Kings 23:14 Josiah smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles and covered the sites with human bones.

2 Kings 23:15 Even the altar at Bethel, the high place made by Jeroboam son of Nebat, who had caused Israel to sin-even that altar and high place he demolished. He burned the high place and ground it to powder, and burned the Asherah pole also.

2 Chronicles 14:3 He removed the foreign altars and the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles.

2 Chronicles 15:16 King Asa also deposed his grandmother Maacah from her position as queen mother, because she had made a repulsive Asherah pole. Asa cut the pole down, broke it up and burned it in the Kidron Valley.

2 Chronicles 17:6 His heart was devoted to the ways of the Lord ; furthermore, he removed the high places and the Asherah poles from Judah.

2 Chronicles 19:3 There is, however, some good in you, for you have rid the land of the Asherah poles and have set your heart on seeking God."

2 Chronicles 24:18 They abandoned the temple of the Lord , the God of their fathers, and worshiped Asherah poles and idols. Because of their guilt, God's anger came upon Judah and Jerusalem.

2 Chronicles 31:1 When all this had ended, the Israelites who were there went out to the towns of Judah, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles. They destroyed the high places and the altars throughout Judah and Benjamin and in Ephraim and Manasseh. After they had destroyed all of them, the Israelites returned to their own towns and to their own property.

2 Chronicles 33:3 He rebuilt the high places his father Hezekiah had demolished; he also erected altars to the Baals and made Asherah poles. He bowed down to all the starry hosts and worshiped them.

2 Chronicles 33:19 His prayer and how God was moved by his entreaty, as well as all his sins and unfaithfulness, and the sites where he built high places and set up Asherah poles and idols before he humbled himself-all are written in the records of the seers.

2 Chronicles 34:3 In the eighth year of his reign, while he was still young, he began to seek the God of his father David. In his twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of high places, Asherah poles, carved idols and cast images.

2 Chronicles 34:4 Under his direction the altars of the Baals were torn down; he cut to pieces the incense altars that were above them, and smashed the Asherah poles, the idols and the images. These he broke to pieces and scattered over the graves of those who had sacrificed to them.

2 Chronicles 34:7 he tore down the altars and the Asherah poles and crushed the idols to powder and cut to pieces all the incense altars throughout Israel. Then he went back to Jerusalem.

Isaiah 17:8 They will not look to the altars, the work of their hands, and they will have no regard for the Asherah poles and the incense altars their fingers have made.

Isaiah 27:9 By this, then, will Jacob's guilt be atoned for, and this will be the full fruitage of the removal of his sin: When he makes all the altar stones to be like chalk stones crushed to pieces, no Asherah poles or incense altars will be left standing.

Jeremiah 17:2 Even their children remember their altars and Asherah poles beside the spreading trees and on the high hills.

Micah 5:14 I will uproot from among you your Asherah poles and demolish your cities.

The women were the ones most likely to honor Asherah. And their lamentations at being told not to are voiced several times in Jeremiah.

Jeremiah 7:18 The children gather wood, the fathers light the fire, and the women knead the dough and make cakes of bread for the Queen of Heaven. They pour out drink offerings to other gods to provoke me to anger.

Jeremiah 44:17 We will certainly do everything we said we would: We will burn incense to the Queen of Heaven and will pour out drink offerings to her just as we and our fathers, our kings and our officials did in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. At that time we had plenty of food and were well off and suffered no harm.

Jeremiah 44:18 But ever since we stopped burning incense to the Queen of Heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have had nothing and have been perishing by sword and famine."

Jeremiah 44:19
The women added, "When we burned incense to the Queen of Heaven and poured out drink offerings to her, did not our husbands know that we were making cakes like her image and pouring out drink offerings to her?"

Jeremiah 44:25 This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: You and your wives have shown by your actions what you promised when you said, 'We will certainly carry out the vows we made to burn incense and pour out drink offerings to the Queen of Heaven.' "Go ahead then, do what you promised! Keep your vows!

Inscriptions found at Kuntillet ‘Ajrud (dated between 850 and 750 BCE) say:

I bless you through Yahweh of Samaria, and through his Asherah!

And at ‘El Qom (from the same period) this inscription:

Uriyahu, the king, has written this. Blessed be Uriyahu through Yahweh, and his enemies have been conquered through Yahweh’s Asherah.

That Yahwists worshipped Asherah until the 3rd century BCE is also evidenced from the Elephantine Papyri.


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