Texts in Conversation
Genesis 49 blesses Joseph by God paired with breasts and womb, a traditional name for a goddess. A clay jar from ninth-century Kuntillet Ajrud blesses people by God and the same goddess, naming her openly as Asherah.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Kuntillet Ajrud Inscriptions
Horvat Teiman
Ancient Near East
I bless you by Yahweh of Samaria and his asherah.
Genesis 49:25
Hebrew Bible
24 But his bow will remain steady, and his hands will be skillful; because of the hands of the Powerful One of Jacob, because of the Shepherd, the Rock of Israel, 25 because of the God of your father, who will help you, because of the Sovereign God, who will bless you with blessings from the sky above, blessings from the deep that lies below, and blessings of the breasts and womb. 26 The blessings of your father are greater than the blessings of the eternal mountains or the desirable things of the age-old hills. They will be on the head of Joseph and on the brow of the prince of his brothers.
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Notes and References
... The Blessing God and His Asherah. The pairing of the god and goddess has an important reflex in the now famous Kuntillet ’Ajrud and Khirbet el-Qom inscriptions. The standard collections of inscriptions offer abundant notes on the readings and bibliography. Mentioned here is simply the information pertinent to the concern of this study, namely blessing by male and female powers. The Kuntillet ’Ajrud inscriptions contain four similar references along these lines. ... If this interpretation of Genesis 49:24-26 is correct, then El and Asherah were Israelite deities distinguished from Yahweh, who is invoked separately in verse 18. This chapter might then represent a tradition or early stage in Israel’s religious history in which El and Yahweh were not identified and Asherah stood as an identifiable goddess. ...
Smith, Mark S.
"The Blessing God and Goddess in Early Israel" in Eidevall, Göran; Scheuer, Blaženka (ed.) Enigmas and Images: Studies in Honor of Tryggve N. D. Mettinger
(p. 220) Eisenbrauns, 2011
* 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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