Deuteronomy 32:18

Hebrew Bible

16 They made him jealous with other gods, they enraged him with abhorrent idols. 17 They sacrificed to demons, not God, to gods they had not known; to new gods who had recently come along, gods your ancestors had not known about. 18 You forgot the Rock who fathered you, and put out of mind the God who gave you birth. 19 But the Lord took note and despised them because his sons and daughters enraged him. 20 He said, “I will reject them. I will see what will happen to them; for they are a perverse generation, children who show no loyalty.

Jeremiah 2:27

Hebrew Bible

25 Do not chase after other gods until your shoes wear out and your throats become dry. But you say, ‘It is useless for you to try and stop me because I love those foreign gods and want to pursue them!’ 26 Just as a thief has to suffer dishonor when he is caught, so the people of Israel will suffer dishonor for what they have done. So will their kings and officials, their priests and their prophets. 27 They say to a wooden idol, ‘You are my father.’ They say to a stone image, ‘You gave birth to me.’ Yes, they have turned away from me instead of turning to me. Yet when they are in trouble, they say, ‘Come and save us!’ 28 But where are the gods you made for yourselves? Let them save you when you are in trouble. The sad fact is that you have as many gods as you have towns, Judah. 29 Why do you try to refute me? All of you have rebelled against me,”says the Lord.

 Notes and References

"... the asherah was perceived as the goddess’s symbol, not only by its critics, but also by Israelite worshipers. These views are historically problematic, however. The myth in Jeremiah 2:27 is not attributed to a goddess, as in Canaanite religion, but to a symbol in the cult of Yahweh. That such maternal language was appropriated to Yahweh is evident from Deuteronomy 32:18, discussed in the following section. It is possible, therefore, that the symbol named in this verse did not refer to Asherah. Yet there is a further difficulty for assuming that Asherah is described in Jeremiah 2:27. The larger context of this verse, Jeremiah 2:23-28, names Baal also as an object of opprobrium, and perhaps it is Baal and Asherah who are the objects of attack in this verse. Elsewhere in the Deuteronomistic History, especially in 1 Kings 18:19, the juxtaposition of Baal and Asherah may reflect the substitution of Asherah for Astarte. The same replacement may be involved in Jeremiah 2:27. Or, perhaps this verse reflects a historical connection made secondarily between Baal and Asherah in Jeremiah’s own time. As a result of the complex problems that Jeremiah 2:27 presents, the precise divine referents of the symbols of tree and stone in this verse are difficult to establish; indeed, many scholars deny that there are any divine referents ..."

Smith, Mark S. The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel (p. 135) William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2002

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