Asherah in the Hebrew Bible and Northwest Semitic Literature

John Day

Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 105, No. 3. (Sep., 1986), pp. 385-408.

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JBL 105/3 (1986) 385-408

ASHERAH IN THE HEBREW BIBLE

AND NORTHWEST SEMITIC LITERATURE *

JOHN DAY

Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford University, England, OX2 6QA

The late lamented Mitchell Dahood was noted for the use he made of
the Ugaritic and other Northwest Semitic texts in the interpretation of the
Hebrew Bible. Although many of his views are open to question, it is
indisputable that the Ugaritic and other Northwest Semitic texts have
revolutionized our understanding of the Bible. One matter in which this is
certainly the case is the subject of this paper, Asherah.' Until the discovery
of the Ugaritic texts in 1929 and subsequent years it was common for
scholars to deny the very existence of the goddess Asherah, whether in or
outside the Bible, and many of those who did accept her existence wrongly
equated her with Astarte. Since the discovery of the Ugaritic texts, however,
no one can deny that there was a Canaanite goddess Asherah, independent
of Astarte, and it is generally accepted that this same goddess appears a
number of times in the OT-though even today there are still a few scholars
who refuse to face the facts, as we shall see below. In treating the subject
of Asherah I shall discuss first Asherah in Northwest Semitic literature and
then Asherah in the Hebrew Bible.

I. Asherah in Northwest Semitic Literature

The earliest references to the goddess Asherah are alleged to be in the
Ebla texts (ca. 2350 B.c.), where P. Matthiae claims that she appears as a
"lesser but well-attested deity,2 but it should be noted that she does not
*This essay was the winning entry in the SBCs 1984 Mitchell Dahood Memorial Prize
Competition in Biblical Hebrew and Northwest Semitic, and a shortened form of it was
delivered at the SBCs annual meeting in Chicago on 10 December 1984. The author wishes
to express his gratitude to the competition committee (Professors F. M. Cross, P. D. Miller,
M. H. Pope; secretary, Professor D. N. Freedman) for making the award, as well as to Double-
day & Co., who provided the subvention.
M. J. Dahood himself touched on various matters concerning the goddess Asherah in his
essay 'Ancient Semitic deities in Syria and Palestine," in Le antiche divinita semitiche (ed. S.
Moscati; Rome: Centro di Studi Semitici, 1958) 65-94 passim.
P. Matthiae, Ebla: An Empire Rediscovered (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1980) 187.
See also G. Pettinato, "The Royal Archives of Tell-Mardikh-Ebla," BA 39 (1976) 48. It is sur-
prising that Pettinato makes no mention of this in his book The Archives of Ebla (Garden
City, NY: Doubleday, 1981).
386 Journal of Biblical Literature

appear in any of the texts published so f a r 3 Until such documentation

exists, therefore, this claim needs to be treated with caution. In the second
millennium B.C. we find the goddess under the name ASratum in cuneiform
texts from the period of the first dynasty of Babylon (ca. 1830-1531 B.c.),
where she appears as the consort of the god A m ~ r r uAlthough
.~ these texts
are in Akkadian rather than a Northwest Semitic language, they are of
interest for our present purpose: it is likely that her cult was brought to
Mesopotamia by the Amorites. She is usually called "the Lady of the steppe"
(belet seri) and in an inscription dedicated to ASratum on behalf of Ham-
murabi she is described as kallat iar iami "bride of the king of heaven" and
b d e t kuzbi u u&i "mistress of sexual vigor and rejoicing." Her name appears
in old god lists but occurs only in one personal name, Airatum-ummi
("ASratum is my mother").
Two further items in Akkadian cuneiform deserve to be noted before
we return to Northwest Semitic texts, since they relate to Palestine and
Syria. The first is a text from Taanach, near Megiddo in northern Palestine,
dating from the fifteenth century B.c., and addressed by Guli-Adad to
RewaSSa (previously read as IStar-wa-Sur), the Prince of Taanach. Part of
the tablet reads, "Further, and if there is a wizard of Asherah, let him tell
our fortunes, and let me hear quickly (2); and the (oracular) sign and inter-
pretation send to me." The reading "wizard of Asherah (u-ma-an dA-ii-
rat) was suggested by W. F. Albright, but F. Hroznp originally read "finger
of Asherah" (u-ba-an dA-ii-rat).5Whichever reading is correct, the allusion
is tantalizing: if Albright's rendering is correct the reference would call to
mind the prophets of Asherah mentioned in 1 Kgs 18:19 in the time of Ahab.
The second item to be noted here concerns the king of Amurru named
Abdi-ASirta "servant of ASirta" (Asherah), mentioned a number of times in
the el-Amarna letters, dating from the first half of the fourteenth century
B.C. The name is most often spelled abdi-a-ii-ir-ta, but we also find abdi-a-
G-ir-ti (te), abdi-as'-ra-tum, abdi-dai-ra-tum, abdi-as'-ra-ti, abdi-dai-ra-ti,
and abdi-a:-ra-ta. Both the Taanach and el-Amarna tablets were discovered
before the Ugaritic texts, but many scholars at that time refused to accept
that they testified to the existence of a goddess Asherah. All this was changed
with the discovery of the Ugaritic texts in 1929 and subsequently, to the
E.g,, G. Pettinato, Catalogo dei testi cuneiformi di Tell Mardikh-Ebla (Naples: Istituto
universitario orientale di Napoli, Seminario di Studi Asiatici, 1979) 267 contains no reference
to Asherah in its list of divine names.
See P. Jensen, "Die Gotter Amurru(u) und ASratu," ZA 11 (1896) 302-5; E. Ebeling,
"ASratu," Reallexikon der Assyriologie 1 (Berlin and Leipzig: de Gruyter, 1928) 169; J.-R.
Kupper, L'iconographie du dieu Amurru dans la glyptique de la 1 re dynastie babylonienne
(Brussels: Palais des Academies, 1961) 61-63, cf. 59, 68, 70, 85.
W. F. Albright, 'A Prince of Taanach in the Fifteenth Century B.C.," BASOR 94 (1944)
18; F. Hroznj: "Keilschrifttexte von Ta'annek," in E. Sellin, Tell Ta 'annek (Vienna: Carl
Gerold's Sohn, 1904) U3-14.
See 0. Weber in J. A. Knudtzon, Die El-Amarna-Tafeln 2 (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1915).
 Day: Asherah in the Hebrew Bible 387

discussion of which we must now turn.

The Ugaritic texts from Ras Shamra on the Syrian coast, written in
alphabetic cuneiform, are our single most important Northwest Semitic
source about the goddess Asherah. She is there referred to as 'atrt, which
is generally vocalized as Athirat, and appears as the consort of the supreme
god El. As befits El's consort, she is sometimes called 'ilt (Elat), literally
"goddess" (CTA 3.V.45, 14.1V.198, 15.111.26, etc.). She is the mother of the
gods and as such is referred to as qnyt 'ilm "the procreatress of the gods"
(see CTA 4.1.23, 4.111.26,30,32, 35, etc.). Less well known is a fragmentary
text that refers to 'um. 'il [m ] "the mother of the gods" (PRU II.2.43), which
presumably also refers to Athirat. Athirat therefore shared at least to some
extent in her consort El's work of creation. El is referred to as bny bnwt
"creator of creatures" in the Ugaritic texts (see CTA 4.11.11, 6.111.5, 17.1.25,
etc.) and 1' qn 'rs "El creator of the earth" in other texts7 The gods are
referred to on one occasion as i b 'm, bn. 'atrt "the seventy sons of Athirat"
(CTA 4.VI.46). It is not as widely appreciated as it should be that there is
a direct line of connection between this concept and the later Jewish idea
of the seventy guardian angels of the nations (see 1Enoch 89:59; 90:22-25;
Tg. Ps.-J, on Deut 32:8).8 Since the idea of the guardian angels of the
nations clearly goes back to the concept expressed in Deut 32:8, whereby
the Most High "fixed the bounds of the peoples according to the number
of the sons of and since the sons of God reflect the Canaanite idea
of sons of El (bn 'il), there must surely be a direct connection with the
seventy sons of Athirat referred to at Ugarit.
Athirat is frequently called rbt. 'atrt, ym "Lady Athirat of the sea" (see
CTA 4.111.27, 4.V.64, 6.1.47, etc.). In keeping with this epithet it is appro-
priate that we read of Athirat's fisherman Qodesh-and-Amrur (qdi.
w 'amrr) (see CTA 3.VI.11, 4.IV.8, 13, 16) and in the Keret epic we hear of
her shrines at the coastal cities of Tyre and Sidon: 'a$rt. srm w 'ilt. sdnym
' The expression ' I qn '7s occurs in the Phoenician inscription of Azitawadda from Kara-
tepe (KAI 26 A 111. 18) and in a neo-Punic inscription from Leptis Magna, Tripolitania (KAI
129.1). In addition, the form 'lqwnr' occurs in a bilingual text from Palmyra, where he is
equated with Poseidon (J. Cantineau, "Tadmorea. No. 31: Un Poseidon palmyrknien," Syria
19 [1938]78-79; see also G. Levi della Vida, "El 'Elyon in Genesis 14 18-20," J B L 63 [1944]
8). N . Avigad, "Excavations in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, 1971," IEJ
22 [1972] 195-96, refers to a seventh-century B.C. inscription which he reads ['1] qn ' T S ,but
there is no certainty that this reconstruction is correct. See ElkunirSa, discussed below.
I noted this independently only to find that attention had already been drawn to it by
W. F. Albright, "Some Remarks on the Song of Moses in Deuteronomy XXXII," V T 9 (1959)
343. For more on this see the discussion in my book God's Conflict with the Dragon and the
Sea: Echoes of a Canaanite Myth in the Old Testament (Cambridge: University Press, 1985)
174-75.
Reading b&nb'&1 (or 'Zldhtm)"sons of GodlEl" with the support of the Qumran fragment
4QDeut, the LXX, OL, and the Syro-Hexaplaric MS Cambr. Or. 929, rather than MT's bBn8
yiirci 'dl "sons of Israel," which was manifestly a scribal alteration in order to eliminate the
polytheistic overtones of b&nb 'dl (or 'Zlohim).
 Journal of Biblical Literature

"Athirat of the Tyrians and Elat of the Sidonians" (see CTA 14.198-99,
201-2). (The presence of prophets of Asherah in association with the Tyrian
princess Jezebel in 1 Kgs 18:19 has been compared, though this reference
is probably a gloss [see below].) However, the proposal was made by Al-
bright that rbt. 'atrt, y m means "the Lady who traverses the sea" or "the
Lady who treads on the sea (dragon)," and this view has been followed by
such scholars as F. M. Cross and M. H. Pope.1° Nevertheless, in spite of the
wide support that this view has attained in some circles, the following
points need to be raised. First, the view that rbt. hirt. y m means "the Lady
who traverses the sea" or "the Lady who treads on the sea (dragon)" pre-
supposes that this was the original full name of the goddess and that her
common designation as Athirat was a later abbreviation of the longer form.
Against this, however, it may be noted that already in the first dynasty of
Babylon the goddess was simply known as ASratum, which suggests that the
shorter form was original. Second, this view seems to presuppose that the
goddess Athirat took part in a conflict with the sea, but we have no evidence
of this in the Ugaritic texts. Accordingly, it seems more natural to assume
that rbt, 'atrt, y m means simply "Lady Athirat of t h e sea." We now have
abundant evidence that personal names could appear in the construct state
in Ugaritic, for example, 'airt. srm w 'ilt. sdnym "Athirat of the Tyrians and
Elat of the Sidonians" mentioned above. Many other examples could be
cited. If, then, the name 'airt is probably not the feminine participial form
of 'air "to traverse," "to tread," what is its etymology? An earlier suggestion
of Albright was that the name Athirat means "holy place," "sanctuary," and
this view is held today by such scholars as H. Gese and J. C, de Moor." In
support it is noted that the Semitic root 'tr "place" came to denote "holy
place," "sanctuary," and this meaning is attested for Akkadian a$rtu, eiertu,
iiirtu, Gertum, a&u, and as'ratu, Phoenician 'irt, Aramaic 'tr and 'trt and :
Ugaritic 'air. The goddess Athirat is called on a number of occasions QudSu
(qds'; see CTA 16.1.11, 22, etc.), a name meaning "holiness" or "sanctuary,"
and so it is argued that it would be very fitting if the name Athirat bore
a similar meaning. The personification of sanctuaries in divine names is
well attested among the Semites, it is pointed out, as for example in the

lo W. F. Albright, Archaeology and the Religion of Israel (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1942) 77-78; idem, Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan (London: Athlone,
1968) 105-6; F. M. Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1973) 31; M. H. Pope, 'Athirat," in Worterbuch der Mythologie (ed. H. W.
Haussig; Stuttgart: Emst Klett, 1965) 1. 247. Pope interestingly notes that Nachmanides had
already associated the name Asherah with 'ST "to go" in his explanation of the Asherah
passage in Deut 16:21.
l1 W. F. Albright, "The Evolution of the West-Semitic Divinity 'An-'Anat-'Attl," AISL 41
(1925) 99-100; H. Gese in H. Gese, M. Hofner, K. Rudolph, Die Religionen Ahyriens, Alt-
arabiens und der Mandaer (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1970) 150; J. C. de Moor in TWAT 1.
473-74 (Eng, trans. TDOT 1. 438).
 Day: Asherah in the Hebrew Bible 389

name of the god Bethel, literally "house of El." Although one clearly cannot
be dogmatic, it seems to me that this view has certain attractions.
As was pointed out above the goddess Athirat is sometimes called
QudSu (qdi).When we find the gods referred to as the bn qdi (see CTA
2.1.21, 38, 17.1.4, etc.) it is therefore natural to suppose that this should be
rendered "sons of QudSu" and not simply "sons of holiness" as some scholars
translate it, given the fact that the gods were regarded as the sons of
Athirat. This supposition is further reinforced by the close parallelism of
the following two passages, one of which has bn. 'agrt and the other bn qdi:
in CTA 3.V.46-47 Anat laments wn. 'in. bt[.]lb '1. km. 'ilm hzr. kb[n. 'algrt
"But there is not a house for Baal like the gods (nor) a court like the sons
of Athirat," and in CTA 2,111.19-20 Athtar declares 'ank. 'in bt[.l]y[.km.]
'ilm [, w ] hzr [.kbn q d ] i "I myself have not a house like the gods [nor] a
court [like the sons of QudlSu." This name QudSu is noteworthy in that it
not only is attested in the Ugaritic texts but also is known in Egypt as the
name of a goddess. She is well known from depictions on Egyptian reliefs
and amulets of the New Kingdom,12especially the Ramesside era, where she
is characteristically depicted naked, wearing a Hathor wig, and standing
on a lion, holding snakes in one hand and flowers in the other, and some-
times snakes in both hands. She is often depicted together with the gods
Resheph and Min and her erotic character is clearly emphasized. The most
remarkable representation is on a relief that was discovered at Thebes and
is now in the collection of Winchester College in England. The goddess is
called qdi-'strt-'nt, which indicates a fusion of QudSu (Athirat) with the
other major Canaanite goddesses Astarte and Anat.13Plaques and figurines
of the QudSu type are known from Syria and Palestine from ca. 1700-1200
B . c . , ' ~ SO that we may be confident that we have here representations of the
goddess Athirat. It is very interesting that all these depictions make her
function as a fertility goddess abundantly clear. This aspect of her char-
acter is played down in the Ugaritic texts in favor of her role as a mother
goddess, but it reappears in the OT, where she is constantly associated with
Baal and is clearly associated with sacred prostitution in 2 Kgs 23:7. This
Astarte-like aspect of her character was therefore not a later, first-millen-
nium development but was an original part of her nature, even though it
is not emphasized in the Ugaritic texts.
What are the major occasions in which Athirat appears in the Ugaritic
texts? Most prominently she appears in the text concerning Baal's desire for

See ANEP, pls. 470-74.

l3 See I. E. S. Edwards, 'A Relief of Qudshu-Astarte-Anath in the Winchester College
Collection," JNES 14 (1955) 49-51.
l4 See J. B. Pritchard, Palestinian Figurines in relation to certain goddesses known through

literature (New Haven: American Oriental Society, 1943) 33-42; 0 . Negbi, Canaanite Gods
i n Metal (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University Institute of Archaeology, 1976) 99-100, figs. ll7-19 and
pls. 53-54.
 Journal of Biblical Literature

a house (palaceltemple) in CTA 4. A king must naturally have a palace, and

Baal, having defeated the god of the chaos waters Yam and assumed the
kingship in CTA 2, is in need of one. First, Anat goes to El to demand a
house for Baal, employing a mixture of threats and flattery (CTA 3.V), but
she is unsuccessful. Later Baal and Anat importune Athirat to intercede
with El to grant Baal a house, and this time the request is successful because
of Athirat's intervention (CTA 4.111-V).
Another Ugaritic text in which Athirat plays a prominent role is the
myth in CTA 23 about the birth of Shahar and Shalim, the gods begotten
of El who symbolize dawn and dusk. In this text El seduces two women in
a scene that has been described by Albright as "one of the frankest and most
sensuous in ancient Near-Eastern literature." l5 The two women are Athirat
and r h m y . There is dispute over the identity of r h m y . The most popular
view is that she is to be equated with Anat, who is called elsewhere r h m
"maiden" (see CTA 6.11.5, 27). It would be surprising, however, for one
named the Virgin Anat to be a mother goddess, and there are no other
indications in the Ugaritic texts that this goddess, who figures there fre-
quently, was a wife of El. The suggestion has been made that r h m y might
simply be another name for Athirat (compare the name of the composite
deity Kothar-and-Hasis). However, the text certainly reads as if they were
two separate women. It may be, therefore, that r h m y is the name of a
completely independent goddess, to be equated neither with Anat nor with
Athirat. It has been suggested that r h m y might be equivalent to the Akka-
dian goddess dsa-su-ra-tum, a word that means "womb" (cf. Heb. rehem
"womb). This view may now be rejected, since dsa-su-ra-tum was equated
rather with k_trt, the birth-goddess, as we now know from parallel god lists.lB
In the Ugaritic texts Athirat is mentioned as receiving a sheep in
various sacrificial offering lists (CTA 34.6, 35.1.15, 36.1.6, 37.3, App. 11. 16,
Ugaritica V.9.7). In a more recently discovered text in Ugaritica VII (RS
24.256, verso 23-24) she receives two sheep. In the Akkadian version of the
Ugaritic pantheon (Ugaritica V.18= RS 20.24, 19) Athirat is represented
under the name dai-ra-tum, the deity known from the first dynasty of
Babylon mentioned earlier.
It is the view of M. H. Pope that El and Athirat were estranged.17
Whatever view we take on this question there are certainly signs of

l5 W. F. Albright, Archaeology and the Religion of Israel, 73, cited by M . H. Pope, El in

t h e Ugaritic T a t s (VTSup 2; Leiden: Brill, 1955) 35.

l 8 See line 12 of the Ugaritic god list RS 24.264+280, which has kt[ r ] t with line 12 of the

parallel Akkadian god list RS 20.24, which has dsa-su-ra-tum. See Ugaritica VII (Paris:
Mission Archeologique de Ras Shamra, 1978) 2. Already P. Xella was inclined to reject the
equation of rhmy with dsa-su-ra-tum, a possibility which he had raised. (I1 mito di Shr e Slm
[Rome: Istituto di studi del vicino oriente, 19731 121).
l7 Pope, El, 35-42.
 Day: Asherah in the Hebrew Bible

estrangement in the Hittite ElkunirSa myth.ls Although this myth, which

dates from the second half of the second millennium B.c., is in Hittite, it
clearly has a Northwest Semitic background, which is why it will be con-
sidered here. In this myth the protagonists are ElkunirSa, which seems to
correspond to the form '1 qn 'rs "El creator of the e a r t h known from
Phoenician and neo-Punic texts (see n. 7); ASertu, his wife, who is clearly
equivalent to Athirat (Asherah); and the storm god, whom we may suppose
to be Baal-Hadad. The myth recounts that the storm god came to the house
of ElkunirSa and there ASertu attempted to seduce the storm god to lie with
her. When he refused she threatened him with her spindle. After this rejec-
tion the storm god went to ElkunirSa, who was living in a tent at the Mala
(=Euphrates) River, and told him of ASertu's attempt to seduce him.
ElkunirSa's response was that the storm god should go back to ASertu and
humiliate her: "Go, sleep with her! Lie with my wife and humble her!"
This the storm god accordingly went and did and also told her that he had
slain seventy-sevenleighty-eight of her sons. On hearing this ASertu
lamented for seven years. A second fragment narrates that the goddess IStar
(probably = Astarte) overheard a bedroom conversation of ElkunirSa and
ASertu and recounted it to the storm god. Whatever the conclusion of this
myth, it does suggest estrangement between ElkunirSa (El) and ASertu
(Athirat) and helps shed some light perhaps on the background of the OT
allusions that associate Baal and Asherah. Perhaps she was eventually suc-
cessful in getting her man1
In recent years interest in the subject of Asherah has been revitalized
as a result of the discoveries at Kuntillet 'Ajrud ("the solitary hill of the
water-wells"), a site about fifty miles south of 'Ain el Qudeirat (often
equated with Kadesh-Barnea) in northeast Sinai. One of the inscriptions on
a pithos contains the words brkt. 'tkm. lyhwh. Smm, wl'irth, "I have
blessed you by Yahweh Smrn and his Asherah." The translation of Smrn is
disputed. The excavator Z. Meshel originally proposed reading "our guar-
dian," since the verb Smr "to keep, guard" occurs in another text from
Kuntillet 'Ajrud involving the Asherah. In that text someone named 'mryw
says brktk. lyhwh [ . . . ] wl'irth, ybrk, wySmrk wyhy ' m . 'dny "I have
blessed you by Yahweh [ . . . ] and his Asherah. May he bless and keep you,
and be with my lord."lg On the other hand, the rendering "Yahweh of
Samaria," first proposed by M. Gilula, can claim the support of an analo-
gous text that alludes to yhwh tmn w 'Srth "Yahweh of Teman and his

l 8 See H. Otten, "Ein kanaanaischer Mythus aus Bogazkoy," Mitteilungen des lnstituts fur
Orienfforschung 1 (1953) 125-50. For a convenient translation by A. Goetze, see ANET 519.
l Q 2. Meshel, Kuntillet 'Ajrud: A Religious Centre from the time of the Judaean Monarchy
on the b o ~ d e rof Sinai (Catalogue No. 175; Jerusalem: Israel Museum, 1978). The pages are
not numberedl
392 Journal of Biblical Literature

Asherah" and is now supported by J. A. Emerton among otherse20

What is significant for us is the fact that all these texts refer to "Yahweh
and his Asherah." What exactly is meant by "his Asherah? Three views
have been suggested as possibilities: a cella or chapel, the goddess Asherah,
or a cultic object. The first meaning cella or chapel, though attested in
other Semitic languages, is not found elsewhere in Hebrew and should
therefore be rejected. The second view, that it is simply the goddess
Asherah, should also be rejected, since in biblical Hebrew (unlike some
other Semitic languages) personal names are unknown with a pronominal
suffix.21This leaves us with the third and most probable view, namely, that
Asherah denotes the name of a cult object. 22 ASis well known, this meaning
is well attested in the OT (see Exod 34:13; Deut 7:5; 12:3; 16:21; Judg 6:26,
28,30; 1 Kgs 14:15, 23, etc.). Although there is some dispute about precisely
what kind of cult object it was, we shall see below that the evidence is
strong that the Asherah in the OT was a wooden pole symbolizing the god-
dess Asherah. If this were the case, we can understand how the Asherah can
be invoked as a source of blessing in the Kuntillet 'Ajrud inscriptions along-
side Yahweh, since it symbolized the goddess. It seems therefore that these
texts reflect a religious syncretism in which Asherah was closely related to
Yahweh, presumably as his consort. That this should be so ought not to
surprise us when we recall such allusions as Deut 16:21-22, "You shall not
plant any wooden thing as an Asherah beside the altar of the Lord your
God which you shall make. And you shall not set up a pillar, which the
Lord your God hates." The presence of the symbol of the goddess Asherah
next to Yahweh's altar most naturally suggests that she was regarded in syn-
cretistic circles as Yahweh's consort. The Kuntillet 'Ajrud inscriptions date
from about 800 B.C. and thus give us a direct insight into the nature of the
popular religion so scathingly condemned by Israel's preexilic prophets. It
is natural to recall the later Aramaic papyri from Elephantine in Egypt, in
which the god Yahu (i.e., Yahweh) appears to have a consort in the form of

20 M. Gilula, "To Yahweh Shomron and His Asherah," Shnaton 3 (1978-79) 129-37

(Hebrew); J. A. Emerton, "New Light on Israelite Religion: The Implications of the Inscrip-
tions from Kuntillet 'Ajrud," ZAW 94 (1982) 2-20. Z. Meshel himself now recognizes that this
is a possibility; see "Did Yahweh have a consort?" BARm 5 (1979) 31.
2' A. Angerstorfer seeks to find the name of the goddess here in another way by vocalizing

it as ASirtah (cf. el-Amarna Abdi-ASirta) ("ASerah als 'Consort of Jahwe' oder ASirtah?"
Biblische Notizen 17 [1982] 7-16). However, since Kuntillet 'Ajrud was within Judah's terri-
tory and the vocalization of the name is attested as 'ci8r6 in later Judahite (La, biblical)
Hebrew, we should reasonably expect the vocalization 'ctiirat rather than 'ctErt6. Z. Zevit sug-
gests vocalizing Asherata ('dBrGt6) in the Kuntillet 'Ajrud inscriptions (as well as in the
Khirbet el-Qom inscription), but this vocalization is nowhere else attested ("The Khirbet el-
QBm Inscription Mentioning a Goddess," BASOR 255 [1984] 45-46).
2 2 In this conclusion I agree with J. A. Emerton, "New Light," 13-18.
 Day: Asherah in the Hebrew Bible

A n a t - Y a h ~It. ~is~understandable that in certain circles Yahweh should have

Asherah as a consort, since Asherah was originally El's consort and we
know that El and Yahweh were equated in ancient Israel. Similarly, the fact
that Yahweh has Anat as a consort at Elephantine presumably goes back
to an equation of Yahweh with Baal, since Anat was Baal's consort
originally.
At this point it should be mentioned that the pithos mentioning Yah-
weh of Samaria and his Asherah has a drawing depicting three figures
underneath the inscription. On the far right is a figure playing a lyre and
to the left are two similar figures, generally thought to represent the god
Bes. Gilula, however, has argued that the drawing relates directly to the
inscription and that the figure on the left represents Yahweh in the form of
a bull and the figure in the middle depicts the goddess A ~ h e r a hThere. ~ ~ is,
however, no certainty that the inscription was intended to describe the
drawing. If it was, it would be odd, as Emerton pertinently notes,25for
there to be three figures in the drawing when only two are mentioned.
P. Beck, who has undertaken the most detailed comparative study of the
Kuntillet 'Ajrud drawings known to the writer, concludes that there is no
doubt that the two similar figures do represent the god BesZ6She notes that
if the two vertical lines below the nose are intended to depict his character-
istic square-cut beard, an equation with the female deity Asherah would
certainly be ruled out. It may also be noted that Bes was associated with
music, which might account for the figure of the lyre player. Accordingly,
it may be concluded that the onus of proof is on those who would see a
depiction of Asherah here. 27

2 3 See A. Cowley, Ammaic Papyri of the Fiflh Century B.C. (Oxford: Clarendon Press,

1923) no. 44, 3 @. 147). W. F. Albright sought to explain ' n t in 'ntyhw and also in 'ntbyt ' 1
(Cowley, Ammaic Papyri, 22, 125) as simply meaning "providence" ("The Evolution," 92-97),
and later he suggested "sign" (Archaeology and the Religion of Israel, 174). However, the
presence of a deity Anat-Bethel in the Akkadian treaty of ca. 676 B.C. between Esar-haddon
of Assyria and Baal, king of Tyre, renders Albright's interpretation of 'ntbyt ' 1 unlikely, and
the same is true with regard to 'ntyhw (see R. Borger, 'Anath-Bethel," V T 7 [1957] 102-4).
Albright himself seems to have recognized this later; see Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan,
197.
24 Gilula, "To Yahweh Shomron," 129-37.

2 5 J. A. Emerton, "New Light," 10.

2 8 P. Beck, "The Drawings from Horvat Teiman (Kuntillet 'Ajrud)," Tel Auiu 9 (1982)

27-31.
2 7 Other important discussions of the Kuntillet 'Ajrud material in addition to those cited

above include F. Stolz in Monotheismus i m alten Israel und seiner Umwelt (ed. 0 . Keel;
Fribourg: Schweizerisches Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1980) 167-72; M. Weinfeld, "Kuntillet
'Ajrud: A Sacred Site of the Monarchic Period," Shnaton 4 (1980) 280-84 (Hebrew); A.
Lemaire, Les Ecoles et la formation de la Bible duns lXncien Israel (Fribourg: Editions
universitaires; Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1981) 25-33; W. G. Dever, "Asherah,
Consort of Yahweh? New Evidence from Kuntillet 'Ajrud," BASOR 255 (1984) 21-37. Dever
proposes to see the lyre player as Asherah. However, he accepts that the two figures to the
394 Journal of Biblical Literature

According to the French epigrapher A. ~ e m a i r ea, further reference to

Yahweh's Asherah is to be found in inscription (3) from grave I1 at Khirbet
el-Qom, a site about nine miles west of H e b r ~ nDated . ~ ~ to about 750 B.C.
by Dever and Lemaire29and to about 700 B.C. by Cross,30the text reads as
follows in Lemaire's transcription: 'ryhw, h'ir. ktbh brk. 'ryhw. lyhwh.
wmsryh, l'irth. hwi' lh. He translates it as follows, "Uriah the rich has
caused it to be written: Blessed be Uriah by Yahweh and by his Asherah;
from his enemies he has saved him." It will be noted, however, that Lemaire
achieves this translation only by rearranging the position of l'irth from
after wmsryh, to before it, which he himself admits may seem "une solution
dhesperee." In a more recent study S. Mittmann has argued that the reading
1 'irth is itself to be rejectede31He detects an 1 after the ' and reads 1'1 irth
"to the god of his service." Mittmann's overall transcription and translation
are as follows: 'ryhw. h&, ktbh brk 'ryhw. lyhwh, wmmsr ydh. 1'1 irth.
hwi' lh "Uriah the singer has written it. Uriah is blessed by Yahweh and
out of distress he praises the God of his service, who helps." However, set
apart from the main inscription noted above Lemaire found below it the
isolated words 1 'nyhw "by Oniah" and wl 'irth "by his Asherah on separate
lines, but Mittman fails to discuss this.32Even more recently, Z. Zevit has
examined the Khirbet el-Qom text at first hand rather than relying simply
on photographs, as earlier scholars had apparently done.33According to
him lines 1-3 read as follows: 'ryhw h ' i r ktbh brkt 'ryhw lyhwh
wmmsrryyh/r hl'li'rttrhhwi'lh; in line 4 he reads l'byhw, in line 5
[ ]d/r/b 'g/? wll 'irth, and in line 6 [ ]'??rth. This he renders,
"Uryahu, the prosperous, his inscription: I blessed Uryahu to YHWH. And
from his enemies, 0 Asherata, save him. By Abiyahu [ ? I?? and to
Asherata [ ? ] A[she]rata." As Zevit observes, no sense can be made of the
letters in line 3 as they stand. Moreover, he notes that we have a number
of doubled or repeated letters and with one exception the second letter was
either incompletely or lightly inscribed (the exception being the t-t
sequence, where the first letter seems to be secondary). There also appears
to be a doubled 1 in line 5. Zevit understands this doubling to be either a
form of erasure or more probably a way of giving magical emphasis.

left denote Bes, not Yahweh; it would therefore be odd for the lyre player to represent Asherah
and more natural to suppose that the depiction and the inscription are not directly related.
28 A. Lemaire, "Les inscriptions de Khirbet el-QBm et l'Asherah de Yhwh," RB 84 (1977)

595-608.
2Q Dever, "Iron Age Epigraphic Material from the Area of Khirbet el-KBm:' HLrCA 40-41

(1969-70) 165-67; A. Lemaire, "Les inscriptions," 602-3.

30 According to Dever, "Iron Age Epigraphic Material," 165 n. 53.
3' Mittmann, "Die Grabinschrift des Sangers Uriahu," ZDPV 97 (1981) 143-44.

3 2 Lemaire, "Les inscriptions," 599.

3 3 Zevit, "The Khirbet el-Qbm Inscription," 39-47.
 Day: Asherah in the Hebrew Bible 395

Whether this view of things will be accepted remains to be seen.34

Another text where some scholars have alleged that Asherah is men-
tioned is the first plaque from Arslan Tash in Syria. F. M. Cross and R. J.
Saley state that the script of this inscription is Aramaic but the orthography
is P h ~ e n i c i a nIts
. ~ date
~ is the seventh century B.C. The following is a trans-
literation of the relevant passage (from the end of line 8 to line 12): krt. In.
'It 'lm 'ir, krt In, wkl bn 'lm wrb. dr kl, q&n. The first seven words were
translated by Albright as "the goddess of eternity, Asher(at?) hath made a
covenant with us, hath made a covenant." 36 It will be noted that Albright
has to emend the text from 'ir to 'irt, which seems unjustified, since we
should not emend the text unless absolutely necessary. Cross and Saley
present a view that does not involve emendation, seeing 'ir as an allusion
to Asherah, which they vocalize 'ciiir6 and take to be an isogloss with
Hebrew.37They render the first part of the passage cited above as "The
Eternal One has made a covenant with us, Asherah has made (a pact) with
us." However, it seems more natural to agree with what is probably a
majority of scholars in regarding 'ir as an allusion to the god Asshur rather
than the goddess A ~ h e r a hThis . ~ ~ has the advantage that we do not have to
postulate an anomalous spelling of the name, since it must be admitted that
'Srt is what we should most naturally expect if it was Asherah, whereas 'ir
is attested as the Phoenician spelling of Asshur (the place) in KAZ 24:8. It
should be borne in mind that at the time of the inscription's composition
Arslan Tash (Hadattu) was an Assyrian province, so that an allusion to the
supreme Assyrian god Asshur at this point would not be totally surprising.
If 'Sr is not Asherah, there is then less attraction in seeing 'lm as "the Eter-
nal One" ('Olam =El), and it seems more probable that we should render
'It 'lm rather as "eternal covenant" (cf, bzrit '61am in Gen 9:16; 17:7; 13;
19: Exod 31:16; Lev 24:8; Ps 105:lO).The passage cited above could then be
rendered, "An eternal covenant was made with us, Asshur made it with us,

34 Might one render the crucial words "I blessed Uriah by Yahweh, and by his Asherah he

delivered him from his enemies"? See P. D. Miller, who translates, "Blessed is Uriyahu by
Yahweh; Yea from his adversaries by his asherah he has saved him" ("Psalms and Inscriptions,"
in Congress Volume: Vienna, 1980 [VTSup 32; Leiden: Brill, 19811 317). If so, one could
obtain a reference to Yahweh's Asherah without Lemaire's emendation of the text. On Zevit's
reading Asherata, see n. 21.
3 5 F. M. Cross and R. J. Saley, "Phoenician Inscriptions on a Plaque of the Seventh Century

B.C. from Arslan Tash in Upper Syria," BASOR 197 (1970) 42.
38 W. F. Albright, "An Aramaean Magical Text in Hebrew from the Seventh Century B.C.,"

BASOR 76 (1939) 8.
3 7 Cross and Saley, "Phoenician Inscriptions," 45.

3 8 See T. H . Gaster, "A Canaanite magical text," Or 11 n.s. (1942) 44, 58; KAI 2

(Wiesbaden, 1968) 45; F. Rosenthalin ANET (3d ed. with suppl.; Princeton: University Press,
1969) 658; J. C. L. Gibson, Textbook of Syrian Semitic Inscsiptions (Oxford: University Press,
1982) 3. 83, 85; D. S. Sperling, "An Arslan Tash Incantation: Interpretations and Implica-
tions," HCCA 53 (1982) 6-7.
396 Journal of Biblical Literature

as did all the gods and the mighty of the circle of all the holy ones."
I n Punic inscriptions the chief goddess was Tnt, apparently vocalized
Tinnit. The precise identity of this goddess is disputed, and each of the
three major Canaanite goddesses-Asherah, Anat, and Astarte-has been
suggested. Tinnit seems to be distinguished from Astarte in an inscription
from Carthage that reads lrbt 1 'Strt wltnt blbnn "To the Ladies, Astarte and
Tinnit in Lebanon" (KAI 81.1). At the same time she was clearly associated
with Astarte, and it is interesting that a seventh-century B.C. inscription
from Sarepta in Phoenicia reads hsml ' z p '1 ilm bn mp'l bn ' z y ltnt 'Strt
"The statue which Shillem, son of Map'al, son of 'Izai made for Tinnit-
Astarte." 39 This is interesting in showing that the cult of Tinnit was already
known in Phoenicia in the seventh century B.C. and suggests that she may
not necessarily have originated in North Africa but may have been a native
Phoenician goddess. This therefore renders questionable the view of F. 0.
Hvidberg-Hansen that the name tnt contains a Libyan-Berber prefix t
added to the name of 'nt (Anat).40She may nevertheless have been a form
of Anat, as Albright and others have argued.41Her close association with
Astarte would suit this, as would her title Virgo Caelestis (cf. "Virgin
Anat"). Cross, however, has argued that Tinnit is to be equated with
A ~ h e r a hHe
.~~thinks the name tnt is related to tnn "dragon," so that she
would be "the One of the dragon" or "the Dragon Lady" (cf. 'a_trtym
understood as "She who treads on the sea"). Since her consort is Baal-
Hammon, who is commonly equated with El, it would be natural for her
to be Asherah. It may be argued, however, that if tnt really is derived from
tnn "dragon," the name should mean "female dragon" rather than "the One
of the dragon," and in any case the translation of 'azrt ym as "She who
treads on the sea" is open to question, as has been shown above. As for Baal-
Hammon, although he is commonly supposed to be El, it is more natural
to believe that he is a form of Baal. Baal-Hammon is frequently called
simply Baal (see KAI 137.1) in the Punic inscriptions, which suggests that
this was his name and not simply an epithet meaning "the lord (of
Hammon)." Nor is he ever called El in Punic texts. Any deity containing the
element b '1 in his name is most naturally interpreted as a form of the god
Baal unless there is strong evidence to the contrary. Moreover, in Latin
inscriptions Baal-Hammon bears the epithet frugifer and deus frugum,
indicating a fertility god, which does not suit El very well but fits Baal
admirably. Even the fact that classical sources often refer to Baal-Hammon
as Kronos is not decisive, since in Hannibal's oath in his treaty with Philip V

38 See J. B. Pritchard, Recovering Sarepta, a Phoenician City (Princeton: University Press,

1978) 105.
40 F. 0. Hvidberg-Hansen, La Ddesse TNT (2 vols.; Copenhagen: Gad, 1979).

4 L Albright, Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan, 42-43 n. 86; 130, 134-35.
4 2 Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, 28-33.
 Day: Asherah in the Hebrew Bible 397

of Macedon, recorded in Polybius 9.2-3, Kronos is not mentioned at all and

the chief Punic deity is called Zeus, which must be B a a l - H a m m ~ nPOS-
.~~
sibly it was the fact that Kronos devoured his own children that encouraged
his equation with Baal-Hammon, since this god was especially associated
with child sacrifice Anyway, if Baal-Hammon is a form of Baal there is
accordingly no necessity to regard Tinnit as Asherah. She is perhaps most
naturally a form of Anat or an independent deity.
Finally, before turning to Asherah in the Hebrew Bible, it should be
noted that 'ASirri is mentioned in an Aramaic inscription from Tema (see
KAZ 228A, lines 2-3, 16-17) alongside Salm zi Mahram and ~ i n - ~ a las
l aone
of the three "gods of Tema." Athirat is well known from ancient Arabian
sources as a sun-goddess, the consort of the moon gods 'Amm and Wadd.44

11. Asherah in the Hebrew Bible

Having considered Asherah in Northwest Semitic literature we shall
now turn our attention to Asherah in the Hebrew Bible. I shall begin by
noting how it was understood by the ancient versions. The LXX rendered
Asherah by d l a o ~(plural d l q ) "grove," whence comes the well-known ren-
dering in the KJV. The only exceptions are Isa 17:8 and 27:9 where the LXX
rendered GkvGpu "trees" and 2 Chr 15:16 and 24:18, where it understood
' A a ~ a pand
~ 'Aordprut~respectively. The Vg likewise understood Asherah
to mean "grove," translating it as lucus in all cases except Judg 6:25, 26, 30,
where it has nemus "wood or "grove;' and Judg 3:7, where it read Ashtaroth
for MT Asheroth. The targum offers no enlightenment, simply transliterat-
ing the word Asherah. When we come to the Peshitta we find a variety of
renderings. It has dehldtd "object of reverence," "fearful thing" nineteen
times, btldtd "trees" twice, (ws'ldtd "molten images" twice, salm8 "images"
twice, pdtakdr8 "idols" twice, 'cilawdtd "high places" once, nemrd (meaning
uncertain) three times, 'andriant8 (possibly a Greek word meaning "statue")
once, and in Judg 3:7 it renders 'astdrtd (note initial aleph).
According to the Mishna the Asherim were living trees that were
worshiped, for example, grapevines, pomegranates, walnuts, myrtle, and
willows (see m. 'Or. 1:7, 8; m. Sukk. 3:l-3; m . Abod. Zar. 3:7, 9, 10;

4 3 See now the discussion in M. L. Barri, The God-list in the Treaty between Hannibal and

Philip Vof Macedonia (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983) 40-57. At this
point I should also like to point out that even if Cross's proposal that El's dwelling was on
Mount Amanus (Hamanu) should prove to be correct, this would not offset the natural inter-
pretation of the Punic deity Baal-Hammon as a Baal rather than an El deity.
4 4 SeeD. Nielsen, Handbuch der altarabischen Altertumkunde (Copenhagen: Nyt nordisk,

1927) 1. 226-27, 233; G. Ryckmans, Les noms propres sud-skmitiques (Louvain: Bureaux du
Mukon, 1934) 1. 7; idem, Les religions arabes prkislamiques (2d ed.; Louvain: Publications
universitaires, 1951) 44; A. Jamme, "Le p a n t h b n sud-arabe priislamique," Muskon 60 (1947)
109.
 Journal of Biblical Literature

m . Me'il. 3:8). The same idea persists in the medieval Jewish commen-
tators. Thus, Kimhi states, "Every tree which is worshiped and is planted
in honor of a deity that they worship idolatrously is called Asherah."
Luther's "Haine" and the KJV's "groves" perpetuate the rendering of the
LXX and Vg. In 1685 the learned Cambridge scholar John Spencer wrote
a work entitled De Legibus Hebraeorum Ritualibus, which attempted,
using the limited resources of the time, to understand the Hebrew Bible
from the standpoint of comparative religion. He detected several meanings:
frequently, he admitted, it meant a grove, but it could also denote an image
of a grove, an individual tree, a temple, or the goddess Astarte. When we
come to the nineteenth century and the early part of the twentieth, the
period when the critical approach to the Bible was being accepted but the
Ugaritic texts had not yet been discovered, we can detect three main views.
First, there were those who equated Asherah with the goddess Astarte or
her symbol.45Second, there were those who maintained that the Asherah
was a cult object but not the name of a deity. W. Robertson Smith was one
noteworthy defender of this view, claiming that Asherah always denoted a
wooden pole,4ebut some others thought in terms of an image, a tree, or a
phallic symbol. Finally, there were those such as the Dutch scholar A.
Kuenen who argued that Asherah denoted both a goddess and a cult object
symbolizing her, though the goddess was not to be equated with A ~ t a r t e . ~ ~
This last view is the one still most widely accepted today and is, as I shall
argue, the one most consistent with a natural interpretation of the biblical
data and makes sense in the light of the ancient Near Eastern evidence.
As I noted at the beginning of this paper, it was the discovery of the
Ugaritic texts in 1929 and subsequent years that proved to everyone's satis-
faction that there was a Canaanite goddess Asherah (Athirat) and that she
was distinct from Astarte. Most scholars have also accepted that this same
goddess is referred to a number of times in the OT, namely, Judg 3:7; 1Kgs
15:13; 18:19; 2 Kgs 21:7; 23:4; 2 Chr 15:16. There have, however, been a few
dissentients. K.-H. Bernhardt, apparently followed by A. Caquot, argues
that there was a goddess Asherah in the OT but that she is not to be equated
with the Ugaritic Athirat: they have nothing in common except their names,
even though possibly there might ultimately have been some c o n n e c t i ~ n . ~ ~

4 5 Those adopting this view included W. W. von Baudissin, Studien zur semitischen Reli-

gionsgeschichte (Leipzig: Reimer, 1876) 2. 218-19; M. Ohnefalsch-Richter, Kypros, die Bibel

und Homer (Berlin: Asher, 1876) 218-19; P. Torge, Aschera und Astarte: Ein Bdtrag zur
semitischen Religionsgeschichte (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1902); Albright, "The Evolution," 100.
4 e W. Robertson Smith, The Religion of the Semites (London: A. & C. Black, 1889) 188.

4 7 A. Kuenen, The Religion of Israel (London and Edinburgh: Williams & Norgate, 1874)

1. 88-93.
4 8 K.-H. Bernhardt, "Aschera in Ugarit und im Alten Testament," Mitteilungen des Instituts

fur Orientforschung 13 (1967) 163-74; A. Caquot, M. Sznycer, and A. Herdner, Textes ouga-
ritiques (Paris: Cerf, 1974) 1. 71.
 Day: Asherah in the Hebrew Bible 399

A. Lemaire accepts that there are a few apparent references to Asherah as

a goddess in the OT but seeks to explain them away simply as the work of
Deuteronomic redactors who wished to root out the Asherim (understood
as sacred trees) by attributing idolatrous status to them.49E. Lipinski finds
two passages that might appear to refer to a goddess Asherah in the OT but
claims that both are textually However, none of these views is
convincing.
With regard to Bernhardt, it may be noted that he puts forward the
following arguments against the view that the OT goddess Asherah is to be
equated with the Ugaritic goddess Athirat. First, he notes that in the Uga-
ritic texts Athirat's role is essentially that of mother of the gods, whereas in
the OT Asherah has the character of a fertility goddess. Second, he points
out that in the Ugaritic texts Athirat is the consort of El, whereas in the OT
she is associated a number of times with Baal, which suggests that she is
regarded as his consort. Third, he reminds us that Athirat is associated with
the sea in the Ugaritic texts but there is no sign of this in the OT in connec-
tion with Asherah. To these arguments the following replies may be made.
First, as was noted earlier, Athirat is sometimes called QudSu in the Ugaritic
texts, and representations of QudSu have been found in Egypt that reveal
her as a fertility goddess of marked erotic character. Comparable represen-
tations of the QudSu type are also known from Syria and Palestine dating
from the second millennium B.C. It is therefore clear that Athirat at that
time did have the character of a fertility goddess, even though this aspect
is not emphasized in the Ugaritic texts. Second, it is true that Athirat is the
consort of El in the Ugaritic texts yet appears to be associated sometimes
with Baal in the OT. However, as we have already seen above, the Hittite
ElkunirSa myth from the second millennium B.C. shows us that ASertu
(Athirat), the consort of ElkunirSa (El), was already going awhoring after
the storm god (Baal). The OT allusions to Asherah alongside Baal may
imply that she eventually got her man! Third, the absence of reference to
an association of the OT goddess Asherah with the sea is an argument e
silentio and hardly of great weight, especially when we consider how little
the OT really tells us about Asherah anyway. Finally, I would note that just
as the Ugaritic goddess Athirat was the mother of the gods, so the OT god-
dess Asherah was closely associated with the host of heaven (cf. 2 Kgs 17:16;
21:3; 23:4). Bernhardt notes this but says that we have no idea what the rela-
tion of Asherah to the host of heaven was exactly in the OT. To this I would
reply that the fact that Asherah appears to have been regarded as Yahweh's
consort in syncretistic circles (see Deut 16:21 and the Kuntillet 'Ajrud
material) and that the sons of God (deriving from the Ugaritic bn 'il) are

4Q A. Lemaire, "Les inscriptions," 606.

E. Lipinski, "The Goddess Agrat in ancient Arabia, in Babylon, and in Ugarit," Orien-
talia Looaniensia Periodica 3 (1972) 114.
 Journal of Biblical Literature

clearly the sons of Yahweh in the OT, it follows that the sons of God were
regarded as Asherah's offspring in syncretistic circles. Since the sons of God
clearly correspond with the host of heaven (cf. Job 38:7), it appears that we
may hold that the host of heaven were probably regarded as the offspring
of Asherah. We thus have evidence that Asherah could be regarded as the
mother of the gods in ancient Israel just as at Ugarit. In conclusion, there-
fore, Bernhardt's attempt to dissociate OT Asherah from Ugaritic Athirat
is unsuccessful.
Lemaire's attempt to dismiss the apparent references to a goddess
Asherah in the OT as simply the work of Deuteronomic redactors wishing
to root out the Asherim (understood as sacred trees) by attributing idola-
trous status to them is also unconvincing. Nowhere does he present any
evidence for this view. It appears to be simply a desperate attempt to deal
with the problem that, having argued that the Asherim in the OT generally
are sacred trees, he finds a few references that do not seem to fit this
hypothesis (he cites Judg 3:7; 1 Kgs 18:19; 2 Kgs 23:4; 2 Chr 24:18). How-
ever, quite apart from the fact that it is unlikely that the Asherim were
actual living trees (as we shall see below), Lemaire nowhere comes to terms
with the fact that it would be a remarkable coincidence for the Deutero-
nomic redactors to create a Canaanite goddess Asherah in such a haphazard
way when there actually was a prominent Canaanite deity with the very
same name, as we know from the Ugaritic texts. Surely it is far more natural
to suppose that the OT allusions to a goddess Asherah actually reflect the
goddess of that name known from the Ugaritic texts and elsewhere. The
Asherim would then be her cult symbols.
Next it is necessary to consider the views of Lipihki. He finds only two
places in the Hebrew Bible where Asherah might appear to be the name
of a goddess, Judg 3:7 and 1 Kgs 18:19, but he rejects them both. In Judg
3:7 the Israelites are accused of having served "the Baals and the Asheroth,"
but since the parallel passages in Judg 2:13; 10:6; 1Sam 7:4 and 12:lO allude
rather to "the Baals and the Ashtaroth," Lipinski prefers to regard Asheroth
as a scribal error for Ashtaroth in Judg 3:7. In 1 Kgs 18:19 he thinks the
reference to the four hundred prophets of Asherah is an intrusion since they
play no role in the subsequent story of the ordeal on Mount Carmel and the
words are marked with an asterisk in the Hexapla, which implies that they
were not an original part of the LXX text. In any case, he thinks that the
words should be better translated "the four hundred prophets of the shrine."
With regard to Judg 3:7 it may be argued against Lipinski, however, that
even if "Asheroth" is not the original reading, the parallelism with "the
Baals" still testifies to the understanding of Asheroth as an expression of
divinity that certainly predates the Septuagint. The fact that Asheroth is
the lectio dificilior suggests that it is the original reading; probably both
Asheroth and Ashtaroth were general expressions for Canaanite female
deities in the OT. As for 1 Kgs 18:19, it is indeed quite likely that the
 Day: Asherah in the Hebrew Bible

reference to "the four hundred prophets of Asherah is a gloss, for the

reasons stated by Lipinski, and this is accepted by most commentators.
Here again, however, the parallelism with the name of Baal strongly sug-
gests that Asherah was understood as a divine name by whoever added the
gloss; the meaning "shrine" is not attested for 'ciiErd in biblical Hebrew,
although such a meaning is attested for words in cognate Semitic languages,
as has been noted above. Moreover, such a rendering is open to other objec-
tions (see discussion below).
A further weakness in Lipinski's position is that he fails to discuss 2 Kgs
23:4, where we read of "vessels made for Baal, for Asherah, and for all the
host of heaven." Once again Asherah is mentioned alongside Baal but also
in this case together with the host of heaven. The context makes it impos-
sible to understand Asherah as anything but the name of a divinity. Asherah
also seems to be a goddess in 1Kgs 15:13, where we read that Asa "removed
Maacah his mother from being queen mother because she had an abomi-
nable thing made for Asherah, and Asa cut down her abominable thing and
burned it in the brook Kidron." We do not know exactly what the abom-
inable thing (mipleset) was. Could it have been a nude image of the
goddess? The Vg says in this verse that Asa removed his mother ne esset
princeps in sacris Priapi, et in luco ejus, quem consecraverat, thereby
implying that it was a phallic symbol; but there is no evidence to support
this understanding. Finally, it may be noted that Asherah is probably the
name of the goddess in 2 Kgs 21:7, where we read that "the graven image
of Asherah ('et-pesel hii'ciBrd) that he [Manasseh] had made he set in the
house. . . ." Lipinski, however, thinks that 'et-pesel hii'ciibrd refers to the
shrine (Asherah) and the idol within it,51but as Emerton has commented,
it is difficult to see why the Deuteronomist did not write 'et-happesel w8et-
hd'G2rd if that were the case (assuming 'ciBrd could mean "shrine" any-
~ a y ) . ~may ~ I be
t concluded, therefore, that Lipinski's attempts to eliminate
the deity Asherah from the Hebrew Bible are unsuccessful.
In addition to being the name of a goddess, the word Asherah fre-
quently denotes the name of a cult object in the Hebrew Bible. We are never
told exactly what it was, and it is only by examining carefully the data in
the text that we can gain some idea of what it was. Various views have been
put forward.
First, there is the view that the Asherim were groves or living trees. As
I have already noted, this view has the support of the LXX, which generally
renders Asherah by "grove" (&loo<,plural & l q )and in two places has "trees"
(GCvGpu) for Asherim, and the Vg similarly almost always has "grove" (lucus)
and in Judg 6:25, 26, 30 nemus "wood or "grove." According to the Mishna
(see m. 'Or. 1:7, 8; m. Sukk. 3:l-3; m. 'Abod. Zar. 3:7, 9, 10; m. Me'il. 3 8 )

51 Lipinski, "The Goddess Atirat," 113.

52 Emerton, "New Light," 17.

 Journal of Biblical Literature

the Asherim were living trees. As is well known the KJV regularly translates
Asherah as "grove" and Asherim and Asheroth as "groves." There are still
some scholars today who think that the Asherim could on occasion be living
trees, and Deut 16:21 is generally appealed to: "You shall not plant any tree
as an Asherah beside the altar of the Lord your God which you shall
make." 53 However, so far as I am aware, Lemaire is the only scholar today
who maintains that the Asherim were always living trees. 54 He assumes that
the Asherim are to be equated with sacred trees like the tamarisk planted
by Abraham at Beer-Sheba (Gen 21:33) and the oak in the sanctuary at
Shechem (Josh 24:26). Against this, of course, stands the fact that the OT
often refers to the making ('did) of Asherim (1Kgs 14:15; 16:33; 2 Kgs 17:16;
21:3,7; 2 Chr 33:3) and also of the building (bdnd, 1Kgs 14:23) and erection
(ndsab, 2 Kgs 17:lO) of Asherim, which does not seem appropriate for trees.
Lemaire's attempt to counter these arguments is distinctly weak, for he
claims on the one hand that the usage of the verb 'did is very broad. He
appeals to 1Kgs 12:32, where 'did is employed of a feast, the golden calves,
and the high places. On the other hand he claims that the use of the verbs
band and n@ab was motivated by the other objects mentioned alongside
the Asherim in these passages, namely, the high places (bdmBt) and the
pillars (mag8bBt). However, it is difficult to see how 1Kgs 12:32 offers any
support for Lemaire's case, since the golden calves and the high places
clearly were manufactured objects and there is nothing surprising about
the use of 'did in connection with a feast. None of these is comparable to
a tree Furthermore, if band and n@ab were only really appropriate for use
in connection with the high places and pillars and not the Asherim, one
would expect a different verb to have been employed in connection with the
latter. The only natural conclusion is that the Asherim were genuinely
manmade objects, and this is widely accepted. A further point that may be
made is that we read in Jer 17:2 of "their Asherim, beside every luxuriant
treq" which would be odd if the Asherim were themselves trees. What then
of Deut 16:21? Does this refer to the Asherah as a tree? Since all the other
allusions in the OT that I have just noted imply that the Asherah was a
manmade object, this would be surprising, especially since they come from
the same body of literature-the Deuteronomic corpus. It is therefore more
natural to translate '8s in Deut 16:21 as "wood, wooden thing" rather than
"tree," a meaning that is amply attested elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible (see
Exod 15:25; 31:5; Deut 4:28; 1 Kgs 6:15; 2 Kgs 19:18, etc.). We may accord-
ingly translate, "You shall not plant any wooden thing as an Asherah beside
the altar of the Lord your God which you shall make"
The second view of the nature of the Asherah to be discussed has been
proposed by W. L. Reed in the only full-length book devoted to the subject

53 See K. Galling in Biblisches Reallexikon (2d ed.; Tiibingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1977) 13.
54 Lemaire, "Les inscriptions," 603-8.
 Day: Asherah in the Hebrew Bible

of Asherah since the discovery of the Ugaritic texts, The Asherah in the Old
Testament (Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1949). Reed
argues that the Asherim were simply wooden images of the goddess Ashe-
rah. That the Asherah cult object symbolized the goddess Asherah seems
clear enough, but this does not necessarily require it to have been an actual
image. Indeed, the fact that Asherim are frequently mentioned alongside
pZ.sz^ltm "graven images" (a term including images of wood) as distinct
objects (see Deut 7:5; 12:3; 2 Chr 33:19; 43:3, 4, 7; Mic 5:12-13, [Eng.
13-14]) suggests that, though idolatrous, they were not actually images.
Third, E. Lipinski has put forward an original point of view according
to which Asherah in the Hebrew Bible denotes sometimes a sacred grove
and sometimes a chapel or el la.^^ He finds the former meaning in Exod
34:13; Deut 7:5; 12:3; 16:21; Judg 6:25-30; 2 Kgs 23:15; 2 Chr 14:2; 31:l; Mic
5:13 (Eng. 14) and the latter meaning in 1Kgs 14:15, 23; 16:33; 18:19; 2 Kgs
17:10, 16; 21:3, 7; 2 Chr 19:3; 33:4, 7, 19; Jer 17:2. The arguments used
against Lemaire's interpretation of the Asherim as sacred trees cannot be
used against Lipinski, since those passages employing the verbs 'add, band,
and nasab in connection with the Asherim are assigned by Lipinski to the
latter group, where he finds the meaning "shrine." However, his interpreta-
tion of the Asherim is seriously open to criticism. Thus, it is most improbable
that we should distinguish the Asherah in 2 Kgs 18:4; 23:14, 15 from the
Asherah in 1 Kgs 14:23; 2 Kgs 17:10, the former being the name of a grove
and the latter the name of a shrine, since both groups of passages mention
the Asherah in the context of high places (bdmdt) and sacred pillars (mass8-
bdt). The Asherah must refer to the same object in both groups of passages.
Now the former group of passages alludes to the Asherah being cut down
and Lipinski himself agrees that a shrine cannot be meant and that the
latter group of passages refers to Asherim under every luxuriant tree, which
rules out the likelihood that the Asherim were themselves trees. Since both
groups of passages must refer to the same object, as we have seen, it follows
that the Asherah can be neither a shrine nor a grove.5e
The fourth and most natural view-and, incidentally, the most widely
held opinion-is that the Asherim were wooden poles sacred to the goddess
Asherah. That there was a definite connection between the Asherah cult
object and the goddess Asherah is clearly suggested, for example, by a com-
parison of 2 Kgs 21:3, where we read that Manasseh "erected altars for Baal,
and made an Asherah, as Ahab king of Israel had done, and worshiped all
the host of heaven, and served them," with 2 Kgs 23:4, where we read of
"all the vessels made for Baal, for Asherah, and for all the host of heaven."
In the former verse the Asherah is clearly a cult object, since it is said to
have been made, whereas in the latter verse Asherah is certainly a deity, as

55 Lipinski, "The Goddess Agrat," 112.

5e So, rightly, Emerton, "New Light," 16-18.

 Journal of Biblical Literature

is indicated by the context. Yet in both cases (the) Asherah is mentioned

alongside Baal and the host of heaven, which indicates a close connection
between them. We may assume that the Asherah cult object symbolized the
goddess Asherah. Yet is has already been noted that the Asherah was neither
a living tree, since it is manmade, nor simply an image of the goddess, since
it is clearly distinguished from images on several occasions. It therefore
seems most natural to suppose that the Asherah was some kind of wooden
pole symbolizing the goddess Asherah. If so, it is interesting to note that this
would harmonize with a little-noticed passage in Philo of Byblos which
states that the Phoenicians "consecrated pillars and staves (B&PGouq) after
their names [of their gods]" (Eusebius Praep. ev. 1.10.11).
Is it possible to say more about the nature of these sacred poles? Unfor-
tunately, we do not have any enlightenment from archaeological discoveries
in Syria and Palestine, because of the perishable nature of wood. We do
have a number of artistic representations of sacred poles and stylized trees
from the ancient Near East, but it is impossible to know which, if any, of
these represent the A ~ h e r a hR.. ~A.
~ Oden has proposed that the caduceus,
whose origin he finds in the palm tree and which was the symbol of the
Punic goddess Tinnit, is to be equated with the OT AsheraheS8 This identifi-
cation rests on the equation of the Punic goddess Tinnit with the Canaanite
goddess Asherah, but the identity of these two deities is far from being
universally agreed and is, as we have seen above, open to question. I t may
be, nevertheless, that the sacred Asherah pole had the form of a stylized
tree. The evidence for this I would seek in Hos 14:9 (Eng. 8). There the
prophet makes Yahweh declare, "Ephraim, what has he59still to do with
idols? I t is I who answer and look after him. I am like a luxuriant cypress,
from me comes your fruit." The bold comparison of Yahweh with a tree,
unique in the Hebrew Bible, juxtaposed with the condemnation of idolatry
here, has suggested to many scholars that Hosea is polemicizing against
idolatry associated with Canaanite tree symbolism. Could this be polemic
against the Asherah? A number of scholars have believed that it is. It was
this that led J. Wellhausen to emend the Hebrew 'dni 'dniti wa'dXrennfi
"It is I who answer and look after him" to 'Bni 'Gnat6 w a 'GZrdtd "I am his
Anat and his Asherah," a suggestion that has been followed by G. Fohrer
and E. Jacob.60This, however, has been rightly described by E. Sellin as

57 See W. L. Reed, The Asherah in the Old Testament (Fort Worth: Texas Christian Uni-

versity Press, 1949) 97-101 for depictions and descriptions of various objects that have been
equated with the Asherah.
58 R. A. Oden, Studies in Lucian's De Syria Dea (HSM 15; Missoula, MT: Scholars Press,

1977) 149-55.
Reading 16 for MT 12, since it is Ephraim, not Yahweh, who is joined to idols (cf. Hos
4:17).
J. Wellhausen, Die kleinen Propheten (3d ed.; Berlin: Reimer, 1898) 134; G. Fohrer,
"Umkehr und Erlosung beim Propheten Hosea," TZ 11 (1955) 171 and n. 18 (reprinted in
 Day: Asherah in the Hebrew Bible 405

more ingenious than correct. Though abstaining from emendation of the

text, I believe that we have in the words 'ani 'Cniti wa 'dMrennt2 a play on
the names of the goddesses Anat and Asherah. That this is no merely
fanciful suggestion can be supported, I believe, from the following circum-
stance. As I have argued in detail elsewhere, Hos 13:4-14:lO (Eng. 9) has
eight passages with remarkable parallels in Isa 26:13-27:11, all of which,
with one partial exception, come in the same order.61The parallelism is
such that it is reasonable to suppose that the latter is dependent on the
former. A number of the parallels are never or only rarely attested else-
where in the OT, so it is difficult to put them down to sheer coincidence.
Rather we have here a piece of inner scriptural interpretation. The proto-
apocalyptic Isa 26:13-27:ll was inspired to a considerable extent by Hos
13:4-14:lO (Eng. 9), just as other proto-apocalyptic texts were inspired (in
part) by other prophetic texts. The series of eight parallels to which I have
alluded may be set out in tabular form as follows:
(i) Israel knows no lordslgods but Yahweh.

Hos 13:4. Cf. Isa 26:13 (LXX).

(ii) Imagery of birthpangs but child refuses to be born.

Hos 13:13. Cf. Isa 26:17-18.
( iii) Deliverance from Sheol.

Hos 13:14 (LXX, etc.) Cf. Isa 26:19.

(iv) Imagery of destructive east wind symbolic of exile.

Hos 13:15. Cf. Isa 27:8.
(v) Imagery of life-giving dew.

Hos 14:6 (Eng. 5). Cf. Isa 26:19.

(4 Israel blossoming and like a vineyard.

Hos 14:6-8 (Eng. 5-7). Cf. Isa 27:2-6.

(vii) Condemnation of idolatry, including the Asherim.

Hos 14:9 (Eng. 8). Cf. Isa 27:9.
(viii) The importance of discernment; judgment for the wicked.
Hos 14:lO (Eng. 9). Cf. Isa 27:ll.
I t will be observed that one of the Hoseanic verses paralleled in Isaiah
is the verse that formed the starting point of the present discussion, Hos 14:9
(Eng. 8), "Ephraim, what has he still to do with idols? It is I who answer
and look after him. I am like a luxuriant cypress, from me comes your
fruit." The corresponding verse in Isa 27:9 reads, "Therefore by this the

Fohrer, Studien zur Alttestamentlichen Prophetie (1949-65) [BZAW 99; Berlin: Tiipelmann,
19671 230 and n. 18); E. Jacob, in E. Jacob, C.-A. Keller, S. Amsler, Osde, Joel, Abdias, Amos
(Neuchltel and Paris: Delachaux & Niestlk 1965) 95, 97.
J. Day, "A Case of Inner Scriptural Interpretation: The Dependence of Isaiah xxvi.
13-xxvii. 11 on Hosea xiii. 4-xiv. 10 (Eng. 9) and Its Relevance to Some Theories of the Redac-
tion of the 'Isaiah Apocalypse,"' ITS 31 n.s. (1980) 309-19.
406 Journal of Biblical Literature

guilt of Jacob will be expiated, and this will be the full fruit of the removal
of his sin: when he makes all the stones of the altars like chalkstones crushed
to pieces, no Asherim or incense altars will remain standing." The fact that
Isa 27:9 specifically refers to the Asherim tends to support the view that Hos
14:9 (Eng. 8) really did have the Asherim in mind in its play on words and
in its comparison of Yahweh with a tree while rejecting idolatry. The re-
moval of the Asherim (inter alia) constitutes the "full fruit" of the removal
of Jacob's sin, just as Hos 14:9 (Eng. 8) makes it clear that Israel's fruit
comes from Yahweh and not the (implicitly tree-like) idols. The net result
of all this is that we seem to have here new supporting evidence for the view
that the Asherah had the form of a stylized tree.e2
Having established the nature of Asherah as both a goddess and a cult
object, we are now in a position to offer a general survey of the OT's allu-
sions to this cult. The Asherim, along with the other appurtenances of the
high places (bam8t), the altars and the pillars (massBbBt),the latter appar-
ently symbols of the male deity, were a feature of popular religion in Israel,
but as a Canaanite accretion to the cult of the God of Sinai (see Judg 5:3-4)
they came to be disapproved of by the "Yahweh-alone party" (to employ a
phrase of Morton Smith). As such they were condemned to destruction by
Exod 34:13 (commonly ascribed to J) as well as by the Deuteronomist (Deut
7:5; 12:3; cf. 16:21). However, it is clear that over a long period they formed
a feature of Israel's popular religion. Those who are accused of worshiping
Asherah or constructing Asherim include the people in the time of Judg 3:7,
Jeroboam I (1Kgs 14:15), Rehoboam (1 Kgs 14:23), Asa's mother Maacah
(1Kgs 15:13), Ahab (1Kgs 16:32; cf. 1Kgs 18:19),Jehoahaz (2 Kgs 13:6) the
northern kingdom prior to its fall in 722 B.C. (2 Kgs 17:10, 16), and Manasseh
(2 Kgs 21:3, 7). Those who took steps to remove this cult included Gideon
(Judg 6:25-30), Asa (1Kgs 15:13), Hezekiah (2 Kgs 18:4), and Josiah (2 Kgs
23:4, 6, 7, 14, 15). The historicity of Hezekiah's reform has been doubted
by some scholars, reminiscent as it is of Josiah's reform. There seem no
reasonable grounds for doubting it, however, since Hezekiah's reform in-
cluded the removal of the snake Nehushtan (2 Kgs 18:4), which had no part
in the reform of Josiah. This suggests that Hezekiah's reform is not to be
viewed as simply a back-projection of that of Josiah. One interesting allu-
sion in the account of Josiah's reform states that "he broke down the houses
of the male cult prostitutes which were in the house of the Lord, where the
women wove garments for Asherah (2 Kgs 23:7). I have already drawn
attention to the fact that the context here clearly indicates the nature of
Asherah as an erotic fertility goddess, comparable to that suggested by the
second-millennium B.C. QudSu figurines. An additional point that deserves
comment is the reference to the women weaving garments for Asherah. The

6 V o r a more detailed presentation of the case for the dependence of Isa 26:13-27:ll on
Hos 13:4-14:lO (Eng. 9), see Day, "A Case of Inner Scriptural Interpretation."
 Day: Asherah in the Hebrew Bible 407

word here rendered "garments" is Hebrew bdttim, which surely cannot

have its usual meaning "houses" but rather, as originally suggested by A.
Sanda, is probably cognate with Arabic butt "woven garment." 63 We may
compare too the Lucianic recension of the LXX, which has oroX&q "gar-
ments." Apart from the Lucianic recension, the LXX has XETTL(E)LV or
XerTrerp, which is probably an error for p e ~ r r e r prather than an indication
that the Hebrew text had kuttiinim "tunics."
In the prophets, the only explicit references to the Asherim are in Isa
173; 27:9; Jer 17:2; and Mic 5:13 (Eng. 14). It is on the last of these passages
that I wish to comment here. The verse reads, "and I will root out your
Asherim from among you and destroy 'arZkii." What is the meaning of
'arbka here? The normal meaning of such a form would be "your cities,"
but this does not provide a very good parallel to "your Asherim." We have
already had a condemnation of "your cities" ('drbkd) in v 10 (Eng. ll), there
appropriately paralleled by "your strongholds." Moreover, v 13 (Eng. 14)
forms part of a section in w 9-13 (Eng. 10-14) where we find a whole series
of parallel terms describing things that are to be cut off or destroyed, and
all of these parallels are very close: horses/chariots (v 9 [Eng. lo]), cities/
strongholds (v 10 [Eng. ll]), sorceries/soothsayers (v 11[Eng. 12]), images/
pillars (v 12 [Eng. 131). When we come to v 13 (Eng. 14) we really do need
a closer parallel to Asherim than cities. Various suggested emendations of
'drbkd have been put forward, including 'cisabbbkd "your idols," '@kd
"your trees," grbkd "your carved images," @rZka "your enemies," bB'dlbk8
"your Baals," and 'ummfidbkd "your pillars."64It has also been suggested
that 'drbkd means "your blood-spattered altars," 65 but, as E. W. Nicholson
has shown, the philological basis of this rendering is highly dubious.66The
fact is, as A. S. van der Woude has noted, followed by E. W. Nicholson, the
word 'ST is attested once elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible in a context that
makes parallelism with Asherim in Mic 5:13 (Eng. 14) perfectly under-
~ t a n d a b l e This
. ~ ~ is in 2 Kgs 10:25. Taken with the following verse, the
passage reads, ". . . and (they) went into the 'ir of the house of Baal and
they brought out the pillar that was in the house of Baal, and burned it."
The word 'ir must mean something like "inner shrine" of a temple, as most
modern versions of the Bible recognize. Since it was the place where the
pillar (magzbB) of Baal was kept, it was presumably the site also of the
Asherah, in view of the close association of pillars and Asherim in the
Hebrew Bible. We may accordingly render 'CrZkd in Mic 5:13 (Eng. 14) as
"your inner shrines" and translate the passage as follows: "and I will root
out your Asherim from among you and destroy your inner shrines."
83 A. Sanda, Die Biicher der Konige (Miinster: Aschendorff, 1912) 2. 344.

84 I cite these examples from A. S. van der Woude, Micha (Nijkerk: Callenbach, 1977) 187.

85 See NEB.

E. W. Nicholson, "Blood-spattered Altars?" VT 27 (1977) 113-17.

87 Van der Woude, Micha, 187; Nicholson, "Blood-spattered Altars?" 116.

 Journal of Biblical Literature

There are a number of other places in the OT where allusions to

Asherah or the Asherah have have been detected by various scholars, even
though the word Asherah itself is not explicitly mentioned, namely, Hos
4:12; Jer 2:27; Ezek 8:3, 5. In addition, scholars have occasionally emended
the text in order to find an explicit reference to Asherah or the Asherah in
Gen 30:13; Isa 6:13; and Amos 8:14. Unfortunately, limitations of space
make it impossible to discuss these passages here. Suffice it to say that with
the exception of Hos 4:12, where an allusion to Asherah is possible, these
passages do not contain a reference to the goddess Asherah or her symbol.
I come, at last, to the end of my survey of Asherah in the Hebrew Bible
and Northwest Semitic literature. There are still problems that beset the
interpreter in both sets of material, but it is now certainly clear that
Asherah was the name both of an important Canaanite goddess and of the
wooden cult object that symbolized her. Thanks to the Kuntillet 'Ajrud
material we now have extrabiblical testimony to the cult object as well as
the goddess, who was previously known from Ugaritic material, etc. There
can be no doubt that in the matter of Asherah the Ugaritic and other
Northwest Semitic texts have been extremely valuable in enabling us to
elucidate this subject and to reject earlier mistaken views.
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Asherah in the Hebrew Bible and Northwest Semitic Literature
John Day
Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 105, No. 3. (Sep., 1986), pp. 385-408.
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[Footnotes]

8
Some Remarks on the Song of Moses in Deuteronomy XXXII
W. F. Albright
Vetus Testamentum, Vol. 9, Fasc. 4. (Oct., 1959), pp. 339-346.
Stable URL:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0042-4935%28195910%299%3A4%3C339%3ASROTSO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-J

13
A Relief of Qudshu-Astarte-Anath in the Winchester College Collection
I. E. S. Edwards
Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol. 14, No. 1, Henri Frankfort Memorial Issue. (Jan., 1955), pp.
49-51.
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23
Anath-Bethel
R. Borger
Vetus Testamentum, Vol. 7, Fasc. 1. (Jan., 1957), pp. 102-104.
Stable URL:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0042-4935%28195701%297%3A1%3C102%3AA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-6

66
Blood-Spattered Altars?
E. W. Nicholson
Vetus Testamentum, Vol. 27, Fasc. 1. (Jan., 1977), pp. 113-117.
Stable URL:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0042-4935%28197701%2927%3A1%3C113%3ABA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-B
NOTE: The reference numbering from the original has been maintained in this citation list.