What is an Asherah Pole?

1 Kings 14:23

“They also set up for themselves high places, sacred stones and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every spreading tree.”

Many times I have read the Old Testament and wondered what the author was writing about. I will ask questions such as who is Baal? Why is the worship of idols not liked by the God of the Israelites? Who is Moloch and why did they sacrifice babies to this god? Who would do such a thing?

In the next few devotionals let’s discover who/what these idols are, and why God commanded the Israelites not to worship or have anything to do with these things at all.

Let’s start with what an Asherah Pole is. These poles, or sometimes stylized trees, stood as a sacred monument and tribute to the Canaanite goddess, Asherah. According to Canaanite myth, this mother goddess created several gods in the Canaanite pantheon with the other creator god, El. The Canaanites often worshipped her via trees (Asherah poles) because of her association with the tree of life.

The term, Asherah Poles, first appears in Exodus 34:13 after Moses and Israelites have just camped below Mount Sinai. Moses was on the mountain getting the Ten Commandments. When he came down from the mountain, he told the Israelites to cut down all of the Asherah poles and smash the sacred stones. Furthermore, if you do a quick dive into the history of the Egyptian gods, most of them have something to do with the earth, like Aker (earth and horizon god) or Aten (sun disk deity) to name a few.

Why did Moses tell his people to cut down the Asherah poles? The poles are a worship site for the Canaanite God, Asherah. One of the Ten Commandments is to not have any other gods before the one true God. In fact, it is the first commandment. So having an Asherah pole is signifying that you are worshiping some other earthly god. Psalm 24:1 tells us, “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.” So God did not want His people to worship and serve the creation, but rather the creator.

All throughout the Old Testament, God tells the Israelites to tear down these poles. In fact, even Solomon himself was guilty of setting up these poles to appease his many wives from foreign countries. His son Rehoboam, was guilty of this and his rival Israelite King Jeroboam was as well. In 1 Kings 14 we read how the Lord is going to tear the kingdom away from him because of this and acts that signified his devotion to gods other than the Lord.

So what does the Asherah pole have to do with today’s world? It’s highly unlikely to see an Asherah pole around today, but we do see this god of old still being worshiped. How? I am sure we have all heard of mother earth. I love the earth and I strive to protect the environment so that generations after us can experience the beauty of the earth. This is a noble thing to do, but I believe worshiping the earth is going a bit too far!

You don’t have to look very far to see people who have replaced God with mother earth. The article below shows how some people in today’s world gather around a tree with carvings on it that looks much like the tree of life in the garden of Eden.

We as christians don’t pray to a tree, nor do we lift up the environment as our god so what does this have to do with us? We can all take a serious look at how we spend our resources such as our time, money, and emotions. The Asherah poles signified one thing that redirected the Israelites away from the Lord. You may not have a literal Asherah pole in your front yard but what do you spend your time and effort on? The Lord tells us He needs to first in our lives, not after we spend all our resources on other things.

I love the environment but it comes after my devotion to the one true God and His son, Jesus Christ. I can go on and on about how modern scientists say things about climate change, urbanization or getting away from oil and gas and embracing clean energy. Yes these things are important to discuss, but the point is that we should be directing people to Jesus and not making mother earth our god. Satan is very crafty and he uses everything he can to redirect your attention away from God using the environment and the people who champion the cause. Don’t be fooled into a slow fade of worshiping other things other than God and in this case the earth.

I have attached two articles will that help explain more and get into some detail of just who and what an Asherah pole is.

https://www.christianity.com/wiki/bible/what-is-an-asherah-pole.html

https://www.gotquestions.org/Asherah-pole.html

Prayer: Father, Satan is crafty and he will use anything he can to derail our line of worship. He will use all kinds of false hopes and false truths as traps for us to get into. He will then drive our thoughts away from you. I pray that we would be wise and know the truths of the Bible. Set us free from all the rabbit trails that Satan uses to take our focus off you Lord. In Jesus name, amen.