Deuteronomy 4:19
Hebrew Bible
17 any kind of land animal, any bird that flies in the sky, 18 anything that crawls on the ground, or any fish in the deep waters under the earth. 19 When you look up to the sky and see the sun, moon, and stars—the whole heavenly creation—you must not be seduced to worship and serve them, for the Lord your God has assigned them to all the people of the world. 20 You, however, the Lord has selected and brought from Egypt, that iron-smelting furnace, to be his special people as you are today. 21 But the Lord became angry with me because of you and vowed that I would never cross the Jordan nor enter the good land that he is about to give you.
Date: 6th Century B.C.E. (Final composition) (based on scholarly estimates)
Source
2 Chronicles 33:3
Hebrew Bible
1 Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned for fifty-five years in Jerusalem. 2 He did evil in the sight of the Lord and committed the same horrible sins practiced by the nations whom the Lord drove out ahead of the Israelites. 3 He rebuilt the high places that his father Hezekiah had destroyed; he set up altars for the Baals and made Asherah poles. He bowed down to all the stars in the sky and worshiped them. 4 He built altars in the Lord’s temple, about which the Lord had said, “Jerusalem will be my permanent home.” 5 In the two courtyards of the Lord’s temple, he built altars for all the stars in the sky.
Date: 4th Century B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
Source
Notes and References
"... Asherah was an undeniable component of the official cult of Judah, introduced into the Jerusalem temple by the Judean kings as a foreign, but not forbidden cult. (Deuteronomy 16:21; 1 Kings 15:13; 2 Kings 21:7; 23:4, 7; 2 Chronicles 33:3-5, 19. Asherah was also closely associated with the "host of heaven"; 2 Kings 17:16; 21:3; 23:4) Regarding Josiah's reform, the Hebrew Bible states, 'and he brought out the Asherah from the house of the LORD'. Many debates evolve around the problematic word ’ašērâ in the Masoretic Text. It seems to indicate a wooden cult object, a pole, a tree or a stone that can "stand", be "made", be "set up", be "planted", "cut down", "uprooted", "burned", "brought out", "destroyed", "made into dust", "taken away" and "broken into pieces". The word ’ašērâ occasionally indicates the name of a goddess ..."
Mondriaan, Marlene Elizabeth
The Rise of Yahwism: Role of Marginalized Groups
(p. 120) University of Pretoria, 2010
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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