Ashtoreth was a goddess worshipped in ancient near eastern religions, specifically among the Canaanites, Phoenicians, and Greeks. She was associated with fertility, sexuality, and war. Her name is mentioned often in the Hebrew Bible, where she is portrayed as a false idol. The worship of Ashtoreth is forbidden and condemned in biblical texts. However, understanding the significance of Ashtoreth provides insight into ancient near eastern religions and culture, as well as the religious climate ancient Israel encountered.
Ashtoreth is commonly identified with the Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar. Ishtar was the primary female deity in Babylonian and Assyrian religion. She represented love, fertility, and sexuality. Worship of Ishtar involved temple prostitution and sexual rites. Ashtoreth is simply the Canaanite manifestation of Ishtar. Her cult spread throughout the ancient near east and Mediterranean regions. The Greeks later equated her with Aphrodite.
The name Ashtoreth appears in the Hebrew Bible as ‘Ashtoret.’ She is mentioned in Judges 2:13; 10:6; 1 Samuel 7:3–4; 12:10; 1 Kings 11:5; 11:33; 2 Kings 23:13. These texts condemn the worship of Ashtoreth as idolatrous and forbidden. She is often mentioned alongside the gods Baal, Asherah, and Moloch as an example of the false deities worshipped by neighboring peoples that ancient Israel was commanded to avoid.
Several key factors contributed to the worship of Ashtoreth becoming prevalent in ancient Canaanite religion:
- Ashtoreth was associated with sexuality and fertility. Ancient near eastern cultures relied heavily on agriculture, livestock, and reproduction for survival. Ashtoreth’s association with fertility attributed power and protection over these life-sustaining aspects of society. Appeasing Ashtoreth through worship and sacrifice was thought to guarantee prosperous reproduction of crops, animals, and people.
- Ashtoreth was sometimes considered a consort or companion of the chief god, Baal. Worshipping Ashtoreth along with Baal covered the primary male and female deities, similar to goddess worship alongside a chief male god in other ancient cultures.
- Temple prostitution was a large component of Ashtoreth worship. The sexual rites were seen as mimicking Ashtoreth’s fecundity. This practice permeated Canaanite society. Kings and nobility participated in the rituals alongside lay people.
- Worship of Ashtoreth intersected with the development of goddess cults and fertility religions in the broader Mediterranean cultures. The Phoenicians, Greeks, and others readily adopted Ashtoreth into their pantheons because of her alignment with these religious concepts.
The worship of Ashtoreth is vehemently rejected in the Hebrew Bible because it contradicts the Israelite religion in key ways:
- The rampant sexual rites and temple prostitution associated with Ashtoreth violated biblical codes for sexual purity and monogamy.
- Fertility religions consistently intermingled sexuality and agriculture. The Bible separates these concepts by grounding its view of fertility and life in God rather than ritualized sex.
- As a goddess, Ashtoreth epitomized a pantheon of deities to be worshipped. Ancient Israelite religion exclusively demanded loyalty to the one true God.
- The worship of Baal and Ashtoreth as divine consorts still incorporated polytheism and gendered hierarchy within the deities. The Israelite God transcends these concepts as a unified singular divinity.
By the time of the Divided Kingdom (c. 931–586 BCE) worship of Baal, Asherah, and Ashtoreth was prevalent within the Northern kingdom of Israel along with calf idols. The Bible condemns these practices using “Baal” as shorthand for Baal, Ashtoreth, Asherah worship generally. King Ahab notoriously promoted these cults in the capital of Samaria. However, King Jehu eradicated the house of Ahab and destroyed the temple of Baal in Samaria as part of his revolt against idol worship (2 Kings 10:18-28).
In the Southern Kingdom of Judah the reforms of King Hezekiah and King Josiah specifically targeted eliminating the worship of Baal, Asherah, and Ashtoreth from Judah and centralizing worship around the Jerusalem Temple (2 Kings 18:4; 23:4-14). However, the biblical texts emphasize that rampant idol worship continued to be a problem up until the Babylonian captivity.
The attraction of deities like Ashtoreth spoke to genuine spiritual longings—fertility, beneficence, protection in life and nature. However, the Hebrew Bible outlines a religious vision connecting those longings directly to the character of God and God’s relationship with Israel. Worshiping idols, goddesses, and nature spirits only distracts from the direct worship of the true Creator God. As such, God expressly forbids following after other deities like Ashtoreth. But the continuing temptation to worship Ashtoreth illustrates the difficulty ancient Israel faced in upholding its distinctive covenant faith against syncretism with the surrounding cultures.
In summary, Ashtoreth was a regional manifestation of the Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar adopted into Canaanite religion. She represented fertility, sexuality, and protection over reproductive forces in nature. Her worship featured temple prostitution and annual sexual rites to invoke agricultural and human fertility. The Hebrew Bible condemns Ashtoreth as a false idol. But her prominence illuminates the religious climate of Canaan and ancestral religions that surrounded and influenced early Israelite faith. The worship of Ashtoreth violated the ethical codes and monotheism mandated in the Bible. So the prophets and several righteous kings instituted reforms to abolish her cults. Yet those reforms only enjoyed limited success. The story of Ashtoreth in the Bible stands as an example of how easy it is for humans to stray after false idols apart from steadfast devotion to the one true God.
Key Bible passages mentioning Ashtoreth:
Judges 2:13:
They abandoned the Lord and served Baal and the Ashtoreths.
1 Samuel 7:3-4:
And Samuel said to all the house of Israel, “If you are returning to the Lord with all your heart, then put away the foreign gods and the Ashtoreths from among you and direct your heart to the Lord and serve him only, and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.” So the people of Israel put away the Baals and the Ashtoreths, and they served the Lord only.
1 Kings 11:5:
For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites.
2 Kings 23:13:
And the king defiled the high places that were east of Jerusalem, to the south of the mount of corruption, which Solomon the king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Sidonians, and for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites.
References
Coogan, Michael D. “Ashtoreth.” The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and Gender Studies. Oxford University Press, 2014.
King, L.W. and Hall, H.R. Enuma Elish: The Seven Tablets of Creation. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2017.
Mettinger, Tryggve N.D. No Graven Image?: Israelite Aniconism in Its Ancient Near Eastern Context. Eisenbrauns, 1995.
Smith, Mark S. The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel. Eerdmans, 2002.
Zatelli, Ida. “The Origin of the Biblical Ashtoreth.” Ugarit-Forschungen 40 (2008): 377-382.