Exodus 34:13

The altars and religious emblems of the Canaanites to be utterly destroyed. Cf. Exodus 23:24, with the references; and the almost verbal repetitions in Deuteronomy 7:5; Deuteronomy 12:3.

pillars or standing-stones: see on Exodus 23:24.

Ashçrim The plur. of Ashçrâh, the sacred wooden (see Deuteronomy 16:21; Judges 6:26) post or column, which stood by the altar in Canaanite places of worship (cf. Judges 6:25-30, by an altar of Baal), and was often by the unspiritual Israelites set up (2 Kings 17:10), or (Deuteronomy 16:21) -planted," beside the altar of Jehovah. It is often supposed to have been a conventional substitute for a sacred tree; but this is not certain. We have no particulars about the precise size or shape of an Ashçrâh: the two posts, of the form of tree-trunks, resting on a wide base, and surmounted by representations of the full and crescent moon, carved upon a stone from Carthage (Nowack, Arch.ii. 19; Benzinger, Arch.1 p. 381, 2 p. 326), mightindeed be Ashçrâhs; but we have no evidence that they were. The name Abd-ashirta(-servant of Ashirta") in the Tell el-Amarna letters, and the expression -finger (oracle) of Ashirta," on a cuneiform tablet of c.1350 found at Taanach (see the writer's Schweich Lectures, p. 82), seem to indicate that there was an old Semitic goddess Ashçrâh; and if this was the case, the -Ashçrâh" of the OT. was probably her emblem: but the great difference in the Heb. (אשרה and עשתרת) makes it unlikely that she was the same as the Phoen. -Ashtôreth, or the Ass. Ishtar(Benz. Arch.2 [220] 326 f.). On account of their heathen associations, the Ashçrîm, like the maẓẓçbâhs(see on Exodus 23:24), were proscribed by the more spiritual Israelites. For other allusions to Ashçrâhs, see Deuteronomy 7:5; Deuteronomy 12:3 (repetitions of the present prohibition), 1 Kings 14:15; 1Ki 14:23; 1 Kings 15:13; 1 Kings 16:33 2 Kings 13:6; 2 Kings 18:4; 2Ki 21:3; 2 Kings 21:7; 2Ki 23:4; 2 Kings 23:6-7; 2 Kings 23:14-15; and comp. Moore's art. in EB.s.v.

[220] I. Benzinger, Hebr. Archäologie, 1894, Exodus 2 (enlarged), 1907.