Asherah

“ But according to the parenthesis which breaks the thread of this king's story (2 Kings xiii. 5, 6) , he was guilty of a far more culpable defection from orthodox worship; for in his reign, the Asherah—the tree or pillar of the Tyrian nature-goddess—still remained in Samaria, and therefore must have had its worshippers. How it came there we cannot tell. Jezebel had set it up (1 Kings xvi. 33) , with the connivance of Ahab. Jehu apparently had "put it away" with the great stêlê of Baal (2 Kings iii. 2) , but, for some reason or other, he had not destroyed it. ”

“ To Dr. Inman belongs the distinguished merit of having first broken ground in the right direction. In his Ancient Faiths, vol. 1, 1868, he identified the Assyrian "Asherah" with the female "door of life," and pointed out its analogy to the barred sistrum. We have seen that it is really much more complex, being precisely analogous in meaning to the famous crux ansata (Fig. 170) , the central mystery of Egyptian worship; to the lingam or lingyoni of India (Fig. 109) , the great emblem of Siva-worship; and to the caduceus of Greece and Rome. ”

“ Jer 3:21) , since the Lord has rejected or cast out (Jer 7:30) the generation that has drawn His wrath down on it, because they have set idols in the temple in which He has revealed His glory, to profane it. The abominations are the image of Asherah which Manasseh set up in the temple, and the altars he had built to the host of heaven in both the courts (2Ki 21:5, 2Ki 21:7) . Besides the desecration of the temple of the Lord by idolatry, Jeremiah mentions in Jer 7:31, as an especially offensive abomination, the worship of Moloch practised in the valley of Benhinnom. ”

“ Judah and Assyria.—Amid these changes Judah was intimately connected with the south Palestinian peoples (see further Philistines) . Ahaz had recognized the sovereignty of Assyria and visited Tiglath-pileser at Damascus. The Temple records describe the innovations he introduced on his return. Under his son Hezekiah there were fresh disturbances in the southern states, and anti-Assyrian intrigues began to take a more definite shape among the Philistine cities. Ashdod openly revolted and found support in Moab, Edom, Judah, and the still ambiguous “Egypt.” ”

“ If he is the 'ruler of all the gods,' and their father, he is so simply by virtue of that same superior strength which makes him the 'law-giver' for mankind, and not because of any ancient traditions, nor as an expression of some nature-myth. He lords it over gods and spirits, but he lords it solely because of his warlike qualities. Ashur is the giver of crown and sceptre, and the kings of Assyria are the patesis of the god, his lieutenants. ”

“ He restored the worship of the Lord and the sacrifices, and made new sacred vessels in the place of those that Ahaz had destroyed. But in the fourteenth year of his reign, [157] , [158] , in the year of the world 3291, before Christ 709, before the vulgar era 713, Sennacherib, king of Assyria, coming with an army into the land of Judah, Hezekiah was forced to take all the riches of the temple, and even the plates of gold that he himself had put upon the gates of the temple, and give them to the king of Assyria. ”

“ Rehoboam was forty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city which Yahweh chose, in which to set his name, out of all the tribes of Israel. And the name of his mother was Naamah the Ammonitess. 22 And Judah did evil in the eyes of Yahweh, and they provoked Yahweh more than all that their fathers had done, with their sins which they committed. 23 And they also built for themselves shrines, and pillars, and Asherahs, on every high hill, and under every green tree. 24 And there were male cult prostitutes [54] in the land. ”

“ The Asheri family suffered great privations but remained faithful in their devotion to the Talmud. Jacob ben Asher is known as the Ba‘al ha-ṭurim (literally “Master of the Rows”) from his chief work, the four Ṭurim or Rows (the title is derived from the four Ṭurim or rows of jewels in the High Priest’s breastplate) . In this work Jacob ben Asher codified Rabbinic law on ethics and ritual, and it remained a standard work of reference until it was edited with a commentary by Joseph Qaro, who afterwards simplified the code into the more popular Shulḥan Aruch. ”

“ In one instance only in later times, in Assyria, which had become exclusively Semitic, do we find the idea of one supreme god, who was national and not local, and who overshadowed all other gods, as Jahve in the later days of the Jewish monarchy, and in the conception of the Hebrew prophets, did the gods of the surrounding nations. Assur, the local god of the city of Assur, the first capital of Assyria, became, with the growth of the Assyrian Empire, the one supreme god, in whose name wars were undertaken, cities destroyed, and captives massacred or mutilated. ”

“ Shall we stay here and perish slowly by hunger, or shall we fall upon our swords, or shall we sally forth from the gates, and, having slain as many of the heathen as we may, so perish ourselves? I had hoped that the Lord would give deliverance to Israel by my hand, and by the hand of my brothers. But if it be not so, His will be done. For He is not shut up to do that which it pleaseth Him by one man or another. He can call whomsoever He will, and give him strength for the work.”
He paused for a moment, and Azariah broke in, “It is well said, O captain of the host. ”

“ The prophet Isaiah tells the people that Yahweh uses Assyria as his rod to punish them. Those who seek Yahweh, find him. He does not fail or forsake them. But when they forsake him, and provoke him to anger, he casts them away forever. But even then if people repent, humble themselves before him, fall down on their faces, rend their clothes, and weep, he relents, forgives them, comes back to them, takes them under his protecting wings, helps them, and prospers them. ”

“ Asshur shall be their king, for they will not amend. The days of punishment, of vengeance will come; as to the people, so shall it happen to the priests. Israel's pride shall be bowed down, and Judah shall fall with him. They shall not remain in the land of Jehovah; Ephraim shall return to Egypt, and eat unclean things in Assyria. They are gone because of destruction; Egypt shall gather them up, and Memphis shall bury them. ”

“ Asher was the supreme god of the Assyrians, 20the Vedic Mahadeva, the emblem of the human male structure and creative energy. The same idea of the creator is still to be seen in India, Egypt, Phœnicia, the Mediterranean, Europe, and Denmark, depicted on stone relics.
To a rude and ignorant people, enslaved with such a religion, it was an easy step from the crude to the more refined sign, from the offensive to a more pictured and less obnoxious symbol, from the plain and self-evident to the mixed, disguised, and mystified, from the unclothed privy member to the cross. ”

“ If he was the "host of heaven," all the deities might be regarded as having their being in him.
Such was the chief deity of the Assyrians—a national god, grafted on to, but always distinct from, the rest of the pantheon, which, as has been shown, was of Babylonian origin, and always maintained the characteristics and stamp of its origin.
The spouse of Aššur does not appear in the historical texts, and her mention elsewhere under the title of Bêltu, "the lady," does not allow of any identification being made. ”

“ This is Pharaoh and all his tumult, is the saying of the Lord Jehovah. - In order that the overthrow of the Assyrian, i.e., the destruction of the Assyrian empire, may be placed in the clearest light, a picture is drawn of the impression which it made upon the whole creation. There is no necessity to understand כּה אמר in a past sense, as in Eze 31:10. What God did on the overthrow of Asshur He may even now, for the first time, make known through the prophet, for a warning to Pharaoh and the people of Israel. ”

“ Then the king Ahasuerus said unto Esther the queen and to Mordecai the Jew, "Behold, I have given Esther the house of Haman, and him they have hanged upon the gallows, because he laid his hand upon the Jews. Write ye also to the Jews, as it liketh you, in the king's name, and seal it with the king's ring: for the writing which is written in the king's name, and sealed with the king's ring, may no man reverse." ”

“ In Assyria, Belit appears, either as the wife of Bel, as the consort of Ashur, as the consort of Ea, or simply as a designation for Ishtar, i. e. “the goddess,” the “mistress of countries, or of mountains,” in which connection it is interesting to note that the ideographs for country and mountain are identical in Assyrian.
If the attributes of the goddesses of the Babylonian and Assyrian pantheon be carefully examined, they will be found to associate the female principle with fertility, abundance and with water, the source of plant life. ”

“ Chapter 9 1 Now in the twelfth month, that is, the month Adar, on the thirteenth day of it, when the king's command and decree was close to coming into effect, on the day that the enemies of the Jews hoped to overpower them, it was turned around, so that the Jews overpowered those who hated them. 2 The Jews were gathered together in their cities in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus, to attack [32] those who sought to harm them, and no one could withstand them, because all the peoples were afraid of them. ”

“ Ahaz's policy of relying on human help from Assyria instead of divine help from Jehovah was refuted by its outcome. With Syria and Samaria ruined, there lay nothing between Jerusalem and the Assyrian. And it is in Hezekiah's reign—the next after that of Ahaz—that the ruthless conqueror from Nineveh is found overrunning Judah itself. How king, prophet, and people met that crisis will begin the next lesson, for it belongs to the period when the Southern Kingdom is all that remained of the organized Hebrew nation in Palestine.
QUESTIONS ON LESSON X
1. ”

“ Yet another letter gives his name as Abdi-Aš-ra-tum, in the second element of which we must see another form of Abdi-Aširti, unless the scribe has also made a mistake in this case, and written Ašratum for Aštaratum, which is just possible. In any case, it shows a close connection between the goddess Aštarte or Ištar, and the Ashera, which was in Palestine, at that date, and for centuries before and after, her emblem. To be the servant of the one was to be the servant of the other, though the bearer of the name seems to have the desire rather to be considered the priest of the goddess. ”

“ For Asserhadon King of Assyria, in the 68th year of Nabonassar, after he had Reigned about thirty years over Assyria, invaded the Kingdom of Babylon, and then carried into captivity many people from Babylon, and Cuthah, and Ava, and Hamath, and Sepharvaim, placing them in the Regions of Samaria and Damascus: and from thence they carried into Babylonia and Assyria the remainder of the people of Israel and Syria, which had been left there by Tiglath-pileser. This captivity was 65 years after the first year of Ahaz, Isa. vii. ”

“ Verses 16-17 Isa 7:16-17“For before the boy shall understand to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land will be desolate, of whose two kings thou art afraid. Jehovah will bring upon thee, and upon thy people, and upon thy father's house, days such as have not come since the day when Ephraim broke away from Judah - the king of Asshur.” The land of the two kings, Syria and Israel, was first of all laid waste by the Assyrians, whom Ahaz called to his assistance. ”

“ The archer in the sun disc of the Assyrian standard probably represented Ashur as the god of the people--a deity closely akin to Merodach, with pronounced Tammuz traits, and therefore linking with other local deities like Ninip, Nergal, and Shamash, and partaking also like these of the attributes of the elder gods Anu, Bel Enlil, and Ea.
All the other deities worshipped by the Assyrians were of Babylonian origin. ”

“ The supreme god, Assur, is often spoken of in language which at first sight [Pg 84] seems monotheistic: to him the Assyrian monarchs ascribe their victories, and in his name they make war against the unbeliever. A similar inconsistency prevailed in the character of Assyrian worship itself. There was much in it which commands our admiration: the Assyrian confessed his sins to his gods, he begged for their pardon and help, he allowed nothing to interfere with what he conceived to be his religious duties. ”

“ Such an end will come to the Assyrian kingdom on the overthrow of Nineveh. Nah 3:18. “The shepherds have fallen asleep, king Asshur: thy glorious ones are lying there: thy people have scattered themselves upon the mountains, and no one gathers them. Nah 3:19. No alleviation to thy fracture, thy stroke is grievous: all who hear tidings of thee clap the hand over thee: for over whom hath not thy wickedness passed continually?” The king of Asshur addressed in Nah 3:18 is not the last historical king of that kingdom, but a rhetorical personification of the holder of the imperial power of Assyria. ”

“ Asshur was, indeed, in later times the spirit of conquering Assyria personalized. We do not find him regarded as anything else than a war-god. We do not find him surrounded by any of the gentler attributes which distinguish non-militant deities, nor is it likely that his cult would have developed, had it lasted, into one distinguished for its humanizing influence or its ethical subtlety. ”