A Blessing from the Sinai Desert

One translation of an inscription from Kuntillet Ajrud in the Sinai, dated to the late ninth century BCE, reads: "I bless you by Yahweh of Samaria and his asherah!"

Scripture: He also removed Maacah his mother from being queen, because she had made an abominable image for an Asherah. Asa cut down her image and burned it at the brook Kidron.

Our passage is about King Asa of Judah, who reigned forty-one years in Jerusalem, and his mother Maacah's image made for an Asherah.

Excavations at Kuntillet Ajrud, in the Sinai Peninsula, ran in 1975 and 1976. The excavators' names aren't in my material. The first edition wasn't published until 2012.

They are Hebrew inscriptions on pottery, stone and plaster. Most were written on site; some came on jars, probably from the Jerusalem area.

The date is the late ninth century BCE. The best known are on two pithoi, which are simply large storage jars, alongside paintings.

Scripture: On the first jar, in Kyle McCarter's standard translation, one line reads:

The back of Pithos A, one of the two best-known jars, shows a sacred tree flanked by two goat-like animals. A quoted description in the Wikipedia article calls the tree a representation of an asherah.

Who are the painted figures? Scholars have said Yahweh and Asherah, or the Egyptian dwarf-god Bes, or even demonic ritual dancers. Whether the paintings and writing belong together is also uncertain.

Scripture: One summary calls the inscriptions shocking and exceedingly controversial. Even how to read a single letter in the phrase "his Asherah" is debated.

So what's the link? Both use the word Asherah, and that's the only link my material shows. Nothing in it shows Asa or Maacah named in the inscriptions, so it doesn't prove anything about the passage.

Where the pieces are kept today is not in my material, so check a museum listing.

An old word, still argued over, on a jar in the desert. May the Lord Jesus Christ be with you today. Come back tomorrow for another find.