April — sept. 1858t] Notes Antiquarian and Mythical. 55 



Manasseh, we recal Josiah's " bringing out the grove from the 

 house of the Lord without Jerusalem, unto the brook Kidron, and 

 stamping it small to powder," it is plain that in these and several 

 other passages, to be intelligible, some other meaning must be 

 attached to the word rendered " grove." That word in the origi- 

 nal is Ashera, and Gesenius thinks that wherever it occurs it sig- 

 nifies an idol, though Porkhurst from the expression 4 plant' and 

 * trees' is of opinion that in the above quoted prohibition at least 

 a grove must be meant. As has been observed, however, the 

 word translated trees is a noun singular, and the command may be 

 understood as forbidding to set up an Ashera of any kind of wood 

 (compare Isaiah xliv, 14 to 19.) The Asherim were nearly always 

 connected with certain pillars, mistranslated statues in the autho- 

 rised version ; it is not necessary to go into the evidence for be- 

 lieving these pillars to have been of a most abominable character, 

 heightened probably by a revolting addition ; it is enough to point 

 out that the setting up of the Asherim or the pillars, usually the 

 two together, is invariably denounced as the deadliest crime of the 

 apostate Kings, whether of Israel or Judah. Against them the 

 indignation of the Prophets burnt hottest, and the express com- 

 mands to break and hew them down marked them as the particu- 

 lar objects of divine wrath. (Exod. xxxiv. 13. Deut. vii. 5.) On 

 the nature and worship of these pillars and the Ashera idol there 

 is no direct testimony, but when we find Herodotus declining to 

 enter into particulars of the rites of the country from whence they 

 were derived on account of the pain and loathing it would cause 

 him, and call to mind some of the Jewish laws directed against 

 the practices of the Canaanitish temples, it is easy to conjecture 

 the reason of the guarded silence maintained by Scripture on the 

 point. Enough that there are good grounds to conclude that the 

 Ashera rites included lingam worship in its grossest form and with 

 its most polluting ceremonies. The very tradition has now disap- 

 peared from that land, whereas there is weighty reason to think, it 

 profaned in its worst shape the very house of God ; so too may it 

 pass away from the regions where it lingers latest. 



In succeeding times the signification of the lingam emblem ap- 

 pears to have become forgotten or obscured, as in some degree it 

 Vol. xx. o. s. Vol. iv. n. s. 



