Deuteronomy 16:21-22

Deuteronomy 16:21-22. Against the Use of "Asherim and Maṣṣeboth

21. Thou shalt not plant thee an Asherah plant, because the "Asherah (see general note following) was either a mast or artificial tree.

of any kind of tree The Heb. construction is not in the genitive but in apposition; translate therefore: an "Asherah, any tree or any timber.

beside the altar of the Lord thy God No doubt, the Heb. may mean either the(one), or any, altar(for the latter see Exodus 20:26, where my altarin the light of Exodus 20:24 must mean any of my altars). Yet the former meaning being the more natural, and there being no trace elsewhere in D of the permission of other altars after the settlement of Israel in Canaan was achieved, it is precarious to suppose (Steuernagel) that we have here the expression of a different school of deuteron. reform from that which appears in ch. 12: one viz. which permitted more than one sanctuary and sought only to secure the purity of worship at these.

22. Neither shalt thou set thee up a pillar raise for thyself a Maṣṣebah(see general note following) or standing-stone.

which the Lord thy God hateth Similarly Deuteronomy 12:31, but with the addition there of abomination, which is wanting here but found in the next verse.

General Note on the "Asherah and Maṣṣebah

Two symbols or inhabitations of deity erected in sanctuaries throughout the Semitic world: frequently combined in the O.T. as present in Canaanite sanctuaries, and at first erected also by Israel but afterwards forbidden to them.

1. The "Ashçrah(plur. "Ashçrim, see Deuteronomy 12:3 and elsewhere, but "Ashçrôth2 Chronicles 19:3; 2 Chronicles 33:3), artificial tree or mast set up like the maṣṣebothby the altars of Semitic sanctuaries, a work of man's fingers(Isaiah 17:8: cp. 1 Kings 14:15; 1 Kings 16:13; 2 Kings 21:3), wooden (Deuteronomy 16:21; Judges 6:26, the wood of the "A.; cp. the verbs used of it: plant, Deuteronomy 16:21, rise, Isaiah 27:9, pluck up, Micah 5:14, cut down, Deuteronomy 7:5; Judges 6:25 f., Judges 6:30; 2 Kings 18:4; 2 Kings 23:14; 2 Chronicles 14:2, burn, here, 2 Kings 23:6; 2 Kings 23:15, in distinction from the breakingof the stone maṣṣebôth). Unlike the maṣṣebahthe "Asherahis never described as a sanctioned or tolerated part of Jehovah's sanctuaries. There was one by the altar of the Ba-al belonging to his father, which Gideon cut down (Judges 6:25 ff.); Ahab made theor an "Asherahfor the altar of the Ba-al in Samaria (1 Kings 16:33), which appears to have been left by Jehu when he burned the maṣṣeboththere (2 Kings 10:26 ff.; see however end of this note), for it still stood under Jehoahaz (2 Kings 13:6). The deuteronomic editor of Kings says that in Judah Rehoboam raised maṣṣebothand "Asherimon every high hill and under every spreading tree (1 Kings 14:23): Jehoshaphat is said to have removed them (2 Chronicles 14:2; 2 Chronicles 17:6; 2 Chronicles 19:3), but they were restored by Joash (id.Deuteronomy 24:18). Their removal is stated as part of Hezekiah's reforms (2 Kings 18:4), but Manasseh, besides building altars to the Ba-al, made an "Asherah (id.Deuteronomy 21:3), and by the prophets they are counted among the idolatrous sins of Israel (Micah 5:14; Jeremiah 17:2; Isaiah 27:9). That they were dedicated to Jehovah is implied in the prohibition, Deuteronomy 16:21. The command to cut them down in Exodus 34:13 is a later insertion: there is no record of a law against them before D. Like the standing-stone the mast (or tree for which it stood) was frequently identified with the deity, and was probably the female counterpart to the stone. Several passages seem to imply that there was a goddess called "Asherah (prophets of the "A., 1 Kings 18:19, image of the "A., id.Deuteronomy 15:13; 2 Kings 21:7, vessels of the "A., id. Deuteronomy 23:4, and even houses, i.e. tents or deckings, id.Deuteronomy 23:7: cp. the veiled -Asherah below). Her existence has been denied by, among others, W. R. Smith (Rel. Sem. 171 f.). But his reason, that every altar, to whatever deity it belonged, had an "Asherah is hardly sufficient to prove an exclusively generic meaning for the name. Recent Assyriology appears to put beyond doubt the name "Asherah as that of a Canaanite goddess and to give good reasons for her identification with "Ashtoreth (cp. Judges 3:7; 1 Kings 18:19). The Ass. name is Ashratu or Ashirtu, and in the Tell-el-Amarna letters we find a man's name -Abd-"Ashratum, -the worshipper of "Asherah."

-The double meaning which "Asherah has as "sacred pole" and as the name of the goddess (-Ashtoreth) is now placed beyond doubt by the witness of the Tell-el-Amarna tablets (Ashirtu = Ishtar) and finds its explanation in a representation of the veiled Ishtar-Ashera, as a bust running into a pillar in the fashion of the Hermes, discovered by von Oppenheim at Ras el--Ain, the source of the Khabur" (Winckler and Jensen, 3rd ed. of Schrader's KAT276, see also deut 245, 248, 258, 421, 432 f.).

That the "Asherah represented a female deity (in distinction from the male character of the maṣṣeboth) is perhaps the reason of the less tolerance which it received in Israel.

2. The Maṣṣebah (thing set upright) standing-stone(plural maṣṣeboth, Deuteronomy 12:3), such as that raised by Jacob as the witness of his bargain with Laban (Genesis 31:49; Genesis 31:51) and at Rachel's grave (id.Genesis 35:20), or by Absalom in his own memory (2 Samuel 18:18); but usually of the large monoliths (R.V. marg. obelisks) beside the altars of Semitic shrines. They were regarded as the habitation of a deity (see Genesis 28:22 below), but in the sense of being his embodiment; and so in ritual -spoken of and treated as the God himself" (W. R. Smith, Rel. Sem. 85); -in them one saw the deity present at the altar, and to them the worshippers directed their hands and their prayers" (Nowack, Hebr. Arch. ii. 18). That they stood in Canaanite sanctuaries is frequently stated in the O.T. (here, Deuteronomy 7:5; Exodus 23:24; and for the house of the Ba-al in Samaria, 2 Kings 10:26 f.).

Specimens were recently discovered at Gezer by Mr R. A. S. Macalister in one high place a row of 10, divided into 7 and 3, of which only the stumps of two remain, and the rest vary in height from 5 ft 5 ins. to 10 ft 6 ins., the largest being 4 ft 7 ins. broad by 2 ft 6 ins. thick, and in another high place a row of 4 with the stump of a fifth; at Ta-anak by Prof. Sellin two rows of 5 each, with a pair at a little distance; and at Megiddo (Tell-el-Mutesellim) by Dr Schumacher one pair. In the high-place at Petra there are 2 great Maṣṣeboth 6 metres high, hewn out of the living rock. Those at Gezer are roughly hewn from (with one exception) the local rock, the upper end of one worked to a sharp point, and the slopes -polished by having been kissed, anointed, rubbed or otherwise handled," and another -carefully shaped to a rounded form": both probably phallic (PEF. Quart. Statement, 1903, 25 ff.; Bible Side-lights from Gezer, 57 ff.).

In the earliest times maṣṣebothwere erected by the Hebrews: by Jacob (Genesis 28:18; Genesis 28:22 E, Genesis 35:14 f. J) in memory of God's appearance to him, and to beGod's-house = Beth-el (cp. Gk βαιτύλιον and βαίτυλος, -animated stone," through the Phoenician). Because of the verb we should also read maṣṣebah, for the mizbeaḥ, altar, which Jacob set upat Shechem and called God, the God of Israel (Genesis 33:20, E). According to E (to whom most of the O.T. notices of maṣṣeboth are due) Moses put up 12 with the altar which he built on Ḥoreb 1 [138]. Hosea (Hosea 3:4; Hosea 10:1) implies that maṣṣebôthwere as regular parts of Jehovah's sanctuaries in N. Israel as altars and sacrifices 2 [139]. With such a recognition of the maṣṣebothin the worship of Jehovah the command in Hosea 12:3 to destroy the maṣṣebothof the Canaanite sanctuaries is of course compatible. But the same cannot be said of the injunction in Deuteronomy 16:22 not to set up a maṣṣebahbeside the altar of Jehovah, which Jehovah thy God hateth(cp. Micah 5:13). This is another of the many marks that the deuteron. legislation is later than Hosea. It is possible, however, that there had never been a maṣṣebah in the Temple of Jerusalem. In 2 Kings 10:26 f. Jehu is said to have burned the maṣṣebothin the house of the Ba-al in Samaria, but because of the verb some read instead the "Asherah. On the whole subject see especially W. R. Smith, Rel. Sem., 1st ed., 186 ff., 437 f.; G. F. Moore, -Massebah" in EB.

[138] We read also of great stonesset up by Joshua in Jehovah's sanctuary at Shechem as a witness against the people (Joshua 24:26 E) and at Gilgal as memorials of the passage of Jordan (id. Joshua 4:5), at Mizpeh and Gibeon (1 Samuel 7:12; 2 Samuel 20:8).

[139] According to Isaiah 19:19, a maṣṣebahshall be erected in Egypt as a symbol of her people's acknowledgement of Jehovah; but the date of this prediction is uncertain; and the writer may be speaking metaphorically. The two bronze columns Yakin and Bo-az (1 Kings 7:21) were probably from their names -He foundeth" and -In him is strength" symbols of the Deity, but they did not stand in the inner sanctuary. W. R. Smith, Rel. Sem. 191 n. and 468, takes them as altar-pillars with hearths on their tops.