The Tribe of Asher in Biblical History. Part Two. Asher in the Land
Continued from Part One. Inheriting the Land
Duration ca. 28 Minutes. To Read Article Please Scroll Down!
Asher is identified with the name Jeshurun meaning Israel. Ashur was blessed to be a warrior. Asher was upright and happy. The Tribe of Asher dwelt amongst the Phoenicians, was proficient in metallurgy and sea-faring. Asher was exiled along with the rest of the Ten Tribes. The Philistines and Phoenicians assisted the Assyrians in transferring a portion of the Exiles by ship to regions in the west including Spain whence they went ot Gaul, Ireland, and Britain. Asher was also linked with the Vikings of Scandinavia.
Contents:
1. The Blessing to Asher and Jeshurun
2. Asher the Warrior-Tribe
3. Asher the Future Viking
4. Asher and Metallurgy
5. Asher and the Bible
6. The Exile of Asher
7. The Future Tribal Inheritance of the Tribe of Asher
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1. The Blessing to Asher and Jeshurun
Jeshurun (Yeshurun) is another name for Israel. We find the name Jeshurun used in verses following on from the Blessing of Moses to Asher. There was a reason for this and indications are that the name Jeshurun and blessings pertaining to it was especially applicable to the Tribe of Asher.
Deuteronomy 33:
24 And of Asher he said:
Asher is most blessed of sons;
Let him be favored by his brothers,
And let him dip his foot in oil.
25 Your sandals shall be iron and bronze;
As your days, so shall your strength be.
26 There is no one like the God of Jeshurun,
Who rides the heavens to help you,
And in His excellency on the clouds.
27 The eternal God is your refuge,
And underneath are the everlasting arms;
He will thrust out the enemy from before you,
And will say,'Destroy!'
28 Then Israel shall dwell in safety,
The fountain of Jacob alone,
In a land of grain and new wine;
His heavens shall also drop dew.
29 Happy are you, O Israel!
Who is like you, a people saved by the LORD,
The shield of your help
And the sword of your majesty!
Your enemies shall submit to you,
And you shall tread down their high places.
The term Jeshurun (Yishurun) in the verse above (Deuteronomy 33:26) according to the Midrash Sifrei (ca. 100 CE) and to the Commentator Rashi (1040-1105) applies to all Israel even though it is part of a group of verses following on from the Blessing of Moses to Asher. Our understanding was that the verses due to their placement, though applying to all Israel, have a special significance to Asher. Fishel Mael also brings sources indicating that they have a special pertinence to the Tribe of Asher. The names 'Asher' and 'Yishurun' may both in Hebrew connote "Uprightness". "Yashar" (as Mael indicates) may also have been another name for Asher. Yishurun in Midrashim is associated with the aspect of Israel as a unified People. Fishel Mael suggests that Asher may have had a special gift to help bring about unification.
See: Asher as Appeaser
Fishel Mael reminds us that in the Temple Service the High Priest wore a breastplate.
This bore 12 precious stones. On each stone was engraved the name of one of the Israelite Tribes. In addition, according to one opinion (Chizkuni), were engraved the names Abraham, Isaac, Yaacov, and Shivtei Yishurun (Tribes of Jeshurun i.e. of Israel). The script for these additional titles was spread over the stones so that part of one word would be on one stone and the next part on the stone that came after it. The stone of Asher bore the first three letters (YSR) of the Hebrew name Yeshurun (YSRON). The stone of Joseph bore the last two letters of the name (ON from YSR-ON) in Hebrew . It follows that the tribes of Asher and Joseph would exemplify, more than the other tribes, the blessings dedicated to Yishuron-Israel. Asher had most of the letters. Not only that but the portion of the name borne by Joseph was more in the nature of a suffix than the root of the name itself.
'Jeshurun' is another name for Israel. A Phoenician inscription has been discovered mentioning 'Tyre and Yeshurun' ("Les Hebreo-Phoeniciens. ... Pays Mediterranie", by Nahum SLOUSCHZ, Paris 1909). This shows North Israelite involvement with the Phoenicians whose chief cities were Tyre and Sidon. Both Tyre (Joshua 19:28) and Sidon (Joshua 19:29) were within the territory of Asher.
For more on this subject together with illustratrions of the point made see:
The Names "Yeshuron" and "Asher"
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2. Asher the Warrior-Tribe
In the Blessing of Moses to the Tribe of Asher above it says:
Deuteronomy 33:
25 Your sandals shall be iron and bronze;
As your days, so shall your strength be.
The word translated here as "Your sandals" in Hebrew is "minaleca" which could also mean your locks or safeguards.
The verse should be preferably translated as saying:
"Iron and brass will be your safe-guards" or surety i.e. what you bargain and trade with.
"You shall be strong all the days of your life."
Rashi comments:
# Here he speaks in regard to all Israel: That they should be warriors dwelling in their borderlands and locking it up (safeguarding it) with iron and bronze. #
Rashi says here that this blessing applies to the entirety of Israel. Nevertheless a special application to the Tribe of Asher is requested due to the adjacency of the verses.
The Blessing to Jeshurun-Israel (following on from the Blessing to Asher) says:
Deuteronomy 33:
27 The eternal God is your refuge,
And underneath are the everlasting arms;
He will thrust out the enemy from before you,
And will say, 'Destroy!'
God prefers that we ourselves destroy the evildoers and enemies of Israel. This requires courage and at times self-sacrifice. These qualities are easy to admire from a distance. Every one of us is potentially a hero or a coward and sometimes the boundary between these two concepts becomes blurred. If you do the best you can, learn and pray, then God will guide you when you need His guidance even if at the time you are not consciously aware of Him.
Deuteronomy 33:
29 Happy are you, O Israel!
Who is like you, a people saved by the Lord,
The shield of your help
And the sword of your majesty!
Your enemies shall submit to you,
And you shall tread down their high places.
"And the sword of your majesty!" relates to the Almighty being the Protector and Champion of Israel. The expression however in the Hebrew is also understandable as applying to Jeshurun-Israel and as saying, AND FOR WHOM THE SWORD IS OF YOUR MAJESTY, i.e. the sword will be the source of your pride and rulership. These verses apply to all Israel (Jeshurun) but due to their placement especially to the Tribe of Asher. In addition to this, the term Jeshurun has an extra pertinence concerning the Tribe of Asher.
"Your enemies shall submit to you", translated in the KJ as SHALL BE FOUND LIARS UNTO THEE. Hebrew "Yicachashu" from the root "CaCHaSh". This is a frequent expression in the Bible. Literally it means something like "deny": Your enemies will be so overwhelmed by you that they will deny their enmity and force themselves to submit unto you.
"And you shall tread down their high places": You will force them to behave themselves. They will conduct themselves according to your will rather than their own.
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3. Asher the Future Viking
In the Song of Deborah in the Book of Judges, it is written how the tribes of Dan and Asher did not join in the war against the enemies of Israel:
Why did Dan remain in ships? Asher continued on the sea shore, and abode in his breaches (Judges 5:17).
The word rendered 'breaches' in Hebrew is miphratsim, meaning (as Kragh notes) a break (in the shore), or an inlet, in Nordic languages, a vik/vig from which we get the word 'Viking'. VIK is how the Hebrew word Miphrats (inlet) is translated in the Swedish Authorized Version (authorized by Gustav-v, King of Sweden) of 1917 (Judges 5:17). From "vik" we obtain the word Viking and thus a possible link to the Tribe of Asher.
Mikkel Stjernholm Kragh in an article entitled "Sweden being the tribe of Asher" under the heading, "Vikings in the Old Testament" points out that the word Viking is derived from the Nordic word vik/vig (vik in Swedish and Norwegian, vig in Danish), which means inlet, creek, because the Vikings sailed out from the inlets and fjords.
It should be pointed out that even in Biblical Times the Time of Asher had Viking Characteristics. Asher like Dan and Zebulon was a sea-going Tribe. Asher was involved with the Phoenicians such as the cities of Tyre and Sidon. Early Bronze Age Scandinavian Civilization had Phoenician and other Middle Eastern characteristics. The Viking ships in their design and profile appear almost indistinguishable from Phoenician ships. In popular imagination the Vikings are depicted with horned helmets. Modern historians doubt that this was historically correct. Ironically however, it was a characteristic of the Sea Peoples and of warriors from the region of northern Asher in Biblical Times. Asher was part of the Sea Peoples and these in Viking style lauched sea-raids and invasions by ships against Egypt.
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4. Asher and Metallurgy
The Tribe of Asher was to produce an expansive metallurgical industry and much of the production attributed by researchers to "Syrians" and "Phoenicians" in general may have derived from them as well as from the Tribe of Dan. The major Phoenician cities of Tyre and Sidon were in Lebanon, in territories allocated to the Israelite Tribe of Asher. The historian Camden claimed that Israelites from the Tribe of Asher had worked the tin mines of Cornwall in Britain. Other Israelite Tribes were also associated with the Phoenicians.
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5. Asher and the Bible
The Tribe of Asher failed to drive out the Canaanites, and 'because of this the people of Asher lived among the Canaanite inhabitants of the land' (Judges 1:31-32). In the time of Deborah and Barak, 'Asher remained on the coast and stayed in its coves' rather than join the fight against Jabin, the Canaanite king who was oppressing Israel (Judges 5:17).
Later in the Book of Judges, Asher joined Gideon from Gilead of Manasseh in war against the Midianites, Amalekites, and others from the East (Judges 6:35).
Judges 6:
35 And he sent messengers throughout all Manasseh, who also gathered behind him. He also sent messengers to Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali; and they came up to meet them.
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After most of the northern Israelites had been exiled and not long before the rest of them were to be deported some of the remaining members of the Tribe of Asher accepted an invitation from Hezekiah to join the Passover celebration in Jerusalem.
2-Chronicles 30:
1 And Hezekiah sent to all Israel and Judah, and also wrote letters to Ephraim and Manasseh, that they should come to the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, to keep the Passover to the LORD God of Israel. 2 For the king and his leaders and all the assembly in Jerusalem had agreed to keep the Passover in the second month. 3 For they could not keep it at the regular time, because a sufficient number of priests had not consecrated themselves, nor had the people gathered together at Jerusalem. 4 And the matter pleased the king and all the assembly. 5 So they resolved to make a proclamation throughout all Israel, from Beersheba to Dan, that they should come to keep the Passover to the LORD God of Israel at Jerusalem, since they had not done it for a long time in the prescribed manner.
6 Then the runners went throughout all Israel and Judah with the letters from the king and his leaders, and spoke according to the command of the king: 'Children of Israel, return to the LORD God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel; then He will return to the remnant of you who have escaped from the hand of the kings of Assyria. 7 And do not be like your fathers and your brethren, who trespassed against the LORD God of their fathers, so that He gave them up to desolation, as you see. 8 Now do not be stiff-necked, as your fathers were, but yield yourselves to the Lord; and enter His sanctuary, which He has sanctified forever, and serve the LORD your God, that the fierceness of His wrath may turn away from you. 9 For if you return to the Lord, your brethren and your children will be treated with compassion by those who lead them captive, so that they may come back to this land; for the LORD your God is gracious and merciful, and will not turn His face from you if you return to Him.'
10 So the runners passed from city to city through the country of Ephraim and Manasseh, as far as Zebulun; but they laughed at them and mocked them. 11 Nevertheless some from Asher, Manasseh, and Zebulun humbled themselves and came to Jerusalem. 12 Also the hand of God was on Judah to give them singleness of heart to obey the command of the king and the leaders, at the word of the LORD.
This occurred about three years before the final exile of remnants of the Ten Tribes.
See:
The Completeness of the Exile. Answer to Claim 2
Asher was also liable to intermix with the Canaanites.
Asher became a minority in his own land and dwelt amongst the non-Israelite pagans. Because the Israelites from the Ten Tribes intermixed with the peoples around them and copied their idolatrous ways they were exiled (2-Kings chs. 17 & 18).
Judges 1:
31 Nor did Asher drive out the inhabitants of Acco or the inhabitants of Sidon, or of Ahlab, Achzib, Helbah, Aphik, or Rehob. 32 So the Asherites dwelt among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land; for they did not drive them out.
These were the same Canaanite peoples who gave rise to Phoenician Civilization and Maritime Enterprise in which Israelite Tribes such as Asher participated.
Most of Asher was exiled by the Assyrians.
The majority of Israelites were taken overland to areas of the Assyrian Empire and cities of the Medes. A portion of the Israelites however were transported by ship directly to the west.
See:
The Israelite Sea Captives. Biblical and Secular Proofs Concerning Ancient Israelites in the West.
One of the places to which Phoenicians and Philistine ships on behalf of the Assyrians took Israelite Exiles was southwest Spain otherwise known as Tarshish. [From here the Israelites moved northwards and to the west, to Gaul, Ireland and Britain]. The precious stone of the High Priest pertaining to the Tribe of Asher was called Tarshish. It could be that elements from Asher were amongst the Exiles taken by ship since the Assyrians used Phoenician (Canaanite) and Philistine (Minoan) ships to transport the Exiles. The Philistines were in the southeast around the area of Gad etc BUT we also find an enclave of Philistines in the north in the region of Asher.
See:
'Palestine existed in Syria, Turkey' (Jerusalem Post Article, 12 th March, 2013)
# The great kingdom of 'Palestine' once existed within Syrian and Turkish boundaries, a University of Tennessee professor claimed in a statement released Tuesday.
Prof. J. P. Dessel, who is a member of the Tell Tayinat archeological digs in Turkey and who presided at the Haifa University Ancient East Research Conference, asserted that the commonwealth had been located between the cities of Aleppo, Hama and Antakya, and the Turkish-Syrian border in the 12th and 11th centuries BCE.
The find is significant because it indicates that the ancient Philistine empire was not limited to the lands of Canaan.
Following the collapse of the Hittite dynasty in the 13th century BCE, smaller states sprung up in areas that had previously been under Hittite rule, one of which was Palestine. In his lecture, Dessel explained that this had been concluded from newfound evidence unearthed in the Tell Tayinat excavations.
Hittite hieroglyphics were found on the Antakya site, reading 'Palestine.' Similar hieroglyphics were found in Aleppo and Hama.
'This is a significant discovery which shows that the Philistines did not just hold land in Israel, but in Syria as well,' said Haifa University Prof. Gershon Glil, the conference coordinator.
So too, most of the territory of Asher encompassed Philistine cities. They were both sometime neighbors to the Phoenicians and rivals of them. The Philistines and Phoenician neighbors of Asher may have been glad to help get rid of them. [We saw something similar in the time of the Holocaust in Europe where erstwhile neighbors and friends of Jews assisted the nazis is dispossessing and persecuting them].
In the Land of Israel and surrounding areas the Tribe of Asher had neighbored Manasseh, Naphtali, Gad, and Dan. We identify Asher with groups that settled in Ireland, northern England, lowland Scotland, Scandinavia. Here too they often adjoined the same tribal groups they had been beside in the land of Israel.
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In the End Times the Tribe of Asher will return together with the other Israelite Tribes.
Asher will once again inherit lands to the north of Israel:
Ezekiel 48:
1 Now these are the names of the tribes: From the northern border along the road to Hethlon at the entrance of Hamath, to Hazar Enan, the border of Damascus northward, in the direction of Hamath, there shall be one section for Dan from its east to its west side; 2 by the border of Dan, from the east side to the west, one section for Asher; 3 by the border of Asher, from the east side to the west, one section for Naphtali; 4 by the border of Naphtali, from the east side to the west, one section for Manasseh.
