Who was Asherah?

asherah, asherath. The word 'grove' naturally suggests a row of trees, but that this cannot be the meaning is evident from groves being set up 'under every green tree.' 1 Kings 14:23; 2 Kings 17:10. Manasseh set a graven image of the grove that he had made in the temple, which Josiah removed, burnt, and ground to powder. 2 Kings 21:7; 2 Kings 23:6. This was doubtless made of metal, but the groves were of wood, as we learn from their being cut down, and burnt. Judges 6:25-26; 2 Kings 23:14-15. One passage speaks of groves being planted, Deut. 16:21; another, of their being made, and another, of their being built. 1 Kings 14:15, 23. They are constantly associated with idols and images, and Judges 3:7 speaks of their being served along with Baalim.

On the whole it seems most probable that they were wooden symbols of a goddess, in the form of images or pillars, or mere stems of trees inserted in the earth. In 2 Kings 23:7 we read that women wove 'hangings' for the groves, but these were literally 'houses' or 'tents,' which implies that they enclosed the groves, probably for impure purposes, for immorality was almost constantly associated with idolatry. Kalisch and others suppose that the name Asherah has reference to the Syrian goddess Astarte, and it is so translated by the LXX in 2 Chr. 15:16. Fürst refers it to the Phoenician nature-god. The many references to the idols, images, and groves show how far Israel had departed from the living God and fallen into idolatry.

In the statements of the renewed covenant the separation of the people from the inhabitants of Canaan is made prominent. They were to have nothing to do with the impure and abominable idolatries of these nations. He called His people unto holiness. Moreover, they were to destroy their altars, their images and their groves. The word groves is "asherah." It was an image used for the most lascivious practices, commonly known as the phallic worship. It flourished among all the ancient nations, but was especially used by the Canaanites. When Israel later fell in with these abominations, the judgment fell upon them. The commandments concerning the feasts, the Sabbath, and the firstfruits are repeated.

Judges 2:11, Judges 3:7, Judges 8:33, Judges 10:6, 10, should be rendered "the Baalim" — not one, but many male gods; and "the Asheroth," translated "the groves," but rather, the female divinities, in Judges 3:7, and "the Ashtaroth," in Judges 10:6. The article, when expressed, brings out the enormity of their guilt — they forsook the one God to serve the many, the true God for the false ones. 1 Sam. 31:13, 1 Sam. 22:6, "a tree" should be "the tamarisk," a well-known one. Dan. 9:27, Dan. 11:39, "the many." Judges 15:19, "the hollow place." It remained after Samson had drank at it.

(c) Gideon, therefore, builds an altar, and calls it Jehovah-shalom, — "Jehovah is peace." It is not merely that there is peace with God, nor would this be the expression for it, for Jehovah is already the covenant name. No; but Jehovah is peace: it is found in Him; He has produced and bestowed it: from all fear whatever the soul takes shelter in Himself. And this being so, the altar itself is now a challenge of the idols; Jehovah's altar cannot abide in company with Baal's, nor Israel's deliverance be accomplished with a divided faith. Thus it was on the same night, the night of the day in which Jehovah had appeared, that Jehovah bade him throw down Baal's altar, and cut down the asherah, — a pillar of wood, the symbol of the Ashtaroth worship with which that of Baal was conjoined, — and, building an altar to Himself on the top of the stronghold (to which they were accustomed to retire from the face of the Midianites), to offer upon it his father's second bullock with the wood of the asherah he had cut down. Not to be interrupted by the unbelief of those around, he did it by night, and the next morning the challenge to Baal was apparent. Thus "to faith" Gideon had to "add virtue," — the boldness needed by every good soldier of Christ; and this boldness is God's means to awaken and embolden others, so that Joash, his father, steps into the ranks. To the cry for his son to be put to death, he answers that the pleader for Baal deserves that: it is for Baal himself to avenge the insult, — a sarcasm which smites down at once the opposition, and leaves to Gideon the title of idol-challenger, "Let Baal contend!" In the strife that is beginning, the very existence of the man of faith is a sign of victory already achieved, a pledge of one to come.

Idolatry was no new evil amongst God's favoured but faithless people Israel. Their whole course in this respect is traced with much detail in Ezek. 20. In Egypt, before the deliverance, they worshipped the gods around them (ver. 8); they worshipped idols in the wilderness, although perhaps covertly (ver. 13), and they worshipped idols in the land (ver. 28). The worship of Baal in particular is noted in Judges 2:11-13; Gideon was instructed by God to throw down the altar of Baal which his father had erected, and also to cut down the Asherah which stood by it (Judges 6:25): just before Jephthah was raised up for the people's deliverance, they confessed that they had forsaken God, and served Baalim (Judges 10:10).

The "Groves" so frequently referred to in the history of Ahab and Elijah were really statues of Ashtoreth. Baal seems to have represented the sun, and Ashtoreth the moon. In the divine indictment of the Northern Kingdom, when the people were carried captive into Assyria, we read: "they left all the commandments of Jehovah their God, and made them molten images, two calves, and made an Asherah, and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served Baal" (2 Kings 17:16). Note how "all the host of heaven" is here linked with Baal. In Jer. 7:18 Ashtoreth is called "the queen of heaven." From Job 31:26-27 we gather that homage to the Sun and moon was the earliest form of idolatry.

The characteristic snares of idolatry seen in the history of Israel also illustrate these three moral principles that are in the world and of the world. We see the worship of Astarte (whose images are translated 'Asherahs' in the Darby translation, and `groves' in the KJV) - giving religious licence to sexual promiscuity or 'fertility', the worship of Baal - as a means to increased material prosperity; the worship of Moloch - as a means to ascendancy over one's fellow. Pleasure, possessions and power.

Dius and Menander, Tyrian historians, mention an Eithobalus of Ahab's time, who was priest of Ashtoreth (female consort of Baal), who having murdered Pheles, became king of Tyre. See Josephus, c. apion, i. 18. This was, in all probability, Jezebel's father. Her zeal for the spread and maintenance of the worship of Baal and Ashtoreth, or Astarte, is therefore easily accounted for; hence, also, her inveterate hatred of the holy worship of Jehovah, and her murderous designs against His prophets. Her name means chaste — Satan's counterfeit or ridicule, as it were, of purity. Was it the hope of strengthening his kingdom, or her seductions, with the attractions of her painted face, that led Ahab into this alliance? Behind it all, we may be sure, Satan was seeking by this new move to utterly corrupt and destroy God's people and His truth from the earth. "And Ahab made a grove" — Asherah — an image, or pavilion, to Astarte" and Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him.

Still (vv. 5-12), in this unfortunate alliance Jehoshaphat is too pious to act without consulting the Lord and His Word. Ahab immediately assembles four hundred prophets. There were many of them. Where did they come from when hardly a few isolated prophets could be found in all the territory of Israel? They were few, for only one prophet of the Lord was sufficient to make known His mind. These four hundred prophets of Ahab's, who were they? Could they perhaps have been in disguise the four hundred prophets of the Asherah, the female divinity, who had not been destroyed at the Kishon? This is quite likely! Whatever it may have been, if they were the same, they had changed their dress with the circumstances. They were now pretending to speak by the Spirit of God, whereas a lying spirit who served their own interests had taken hold of them. One can wear the livery of a prophet of the Lord and be lying. How often this has been so at all times, and how much more so today. "Go up," they all cry, "and the Lord will give it into the king's hand" (v. 6).

The task which Josiah undertook in faith was colossal, and he gave himself no rest until he had destroyed every vestige of idolatry out of the whole land of Israel, although he was only ruler over Judah and Benjamin. Jerusalem — Jehovah's chosen centre — was first cleared. It is specially noted that "he brought out the grove from the house of Jehovah without Jerusalem, to the brook Kidron, and burnt it at the brook Kidron, and stamped it small to powder, and cast the powder thereof upon the graves of the children of the people." (2 Kings 23:6). "The grove" appears to have been an image of Astarte. Imagine such a horror being set up in the house of Jehovah, concerning which He once said that His eyes and His heart would be there perpetually! (2 Chron. 7:16). Adjoining the temple were the house of the Sodomites! Horror upon horror; how low Israel had fallen that such bestiality should be found in the most sacred spot on earth! The history of Christendom has been quite as fearful. One writer has said that its annals are "the annals of Hell!" Idolatry, blasphemy, immorality, and cruel persecution of the godly all practised by men who, with high-sounding ecclesiastical titles, claimed to be the successors of the Apostles, and the only authoritative ministers of the Word of God and the Sacraments!

This is what is seen in the people here. They forget Jehovah their God, form alliances with the people round them after their own will, and end in bondage to false gods — the Baals and the Asherahs, or images of Ashtoreth. Jehovah sells them therefore into the hand of Cushan-rishathaim, king of Mesopotamia, and they serve him for eight years.