The “Groves” or Ashera

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Sep 22, 1898

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 38.

The “Groves” or Ashera.

The Ashera, rendered in our common version “groves,” is held by some to refer to a sacred pillar, and only erroneously, at a later time, to Astarte, the consort of the Phoenician sun-god Baal. Prof. Dr. Peter Jensen clearly shows in an article in The Sunday School Times of September 3, that the pillars, or groves, were symbols of the feminine of Baal known as Ashratu, or Ashrat, the Ashera of the Old Testament, against the licentious worship of which God warned His people. Dr. Jensen traces this same Babylonian god and goddess among the Egyptians, the Philistines, the Amorites, the Hittites (from whom descended the Armenians), and from there to Europe.