SACRED POLE

The Hebrew word ʼashe·rahʹ (pl., ʼashe·rimʹ) is thought to refer to (1) a sacred pole representing Asherah, a Canaanite goddess of fertility (Jg 6:25, 26), and (2) the goddess Asherah herself. (2Ki 13:6, ftn) However, it is not always possible to determine whether a particular scripture is to be understood as referring to the idolatrous object or to the goddess.

Asherah. The Ras Shamra texts identify this goddess as the wife of the god El, the “Creator of Creatures,” and refer to her as “Lady Asherah of the Sea” and “Progenitress of the Gods,” this also making her the mother of Baal. However, there apparently was considerable overlapping in the roles of the three prominent goddesses of Baalism (Anath, Asherah, and Ashtoreth), as may be observed in extra-Biblical sources as well as in the Scriptural record. While Ashtoreth appears to have figured as the wife of Baal, Asherah may also have been so viewed.

During the period of the Judges, it is noted that the apostate Israelites “went serving the Baals and the sacred poles [the Asherim].” (Jg 3:7, ftn; compare 2:13.) The mention of these deities in the plural may indicate that each locality had its Baal and Asherah. (Jg 6:25) Jezebel, the Sidonian wife of Ahab the king of Israel, entertained at her table 450 prophets of Baal and 400 prophets of the sacred pole, or Asherah.​—1Ki 18:19.

The degraded worship of Asherah came to be practiced in the very temple of Jehovah. King Manasseh even placed there a carved image of the sacred pole, evidently a representation of the goddess Asherah. (2Ki 21:7) Manasseh was disciplined by being taken captive to Babylon and, upon his returning to Jerusalem, showed he had profited from that discipline and cleansed Jehovah’s house of idolatrous appendages. However, his son Amon resumed the degrading worship of Baal and Asherah, with its accompanying ceremonial prostitution. (2Ch 33:11-13, 15, 21-23) This made it necessary for righteous King Josiah, who succeeded Amon to the throne, to pull down “the houses of the male temple prostitutes that were in the house of Jehovah, where the women were weaving tent shrines for the sacred pole.”​—2Ki 23:4-7.