Vitringa then followed out the same argu ment, in his note to Is. xvii: 8. Gesenius, at length, has treated the whole question so elabo rately in his Thesaurus as to leave little to be de sired, and has evinced that Asherah is a name, and also denotes an image of this goddess.
Some of the arguments which support this par tial, or, in Gesenius's case, total rejection of the signification grove for Asherah are briefly as fol lows: It is argued that Asherah almost always occurs with words which denote idols and statues of idols ; that the verbs which are employed to express the making an Asherah are incompatible with the idea of a grove, as they are such as to build, to shafie, to erect (except in one passage, where, however, Gesenius still maintains that the verb there used means to erect); that the words used to denote the destruction of an Asherah are those of breaking to Pieces, subverting; that the image of Asherah is placed in the Temple (a Kings xxi:7; and that Asherah is coupled with Baal in precisely the same way as Ashtoreth is (Comp. Judg. ii: 13; x:6; i Kings xviii: 19; a Kings xxiii: 4); and particularly (Judg. iii.7 and ii: t3) where the plural form of both words is explained as of itself denoting images of this goddess. Besides, Se!den objects that the signification grave is even gruous in 2 Kings xvii: to. where we read of 'set ting ut groves under every green tree.' Moreover, the LXX has rendered by Ashcrah Astarte, in 2 Chron. xv: 16, and the Vulgate has done the same in Judg. and, conversely, has rendered Ashlaroth by groves, in t Sam. vii:3.
On the strength of these arguments most modern scholars assume that Asherah is a name for Ash toreth, and that it denotes more especially the relation of that goddess to the planet '1 enus, as the lesser star of gaud fortune. It appears, namely,
to he an indisputable fact that both Baal and Ash toreth, although their primary relation was to the sun and moon, came in process of time to he con nected, in the religious conceptions of the Syro Arabians, with the planets Jupiter and Venus. as the two stars of good fortune (see the article BAAL). Although the mode of transition from the one to the other is obscure, yet many kindred circumstances illustrate it. yet instance, the connection between Artemis and Selene; that between Juno and the planet Venus, mentioned in Creuzer ii:566; the fact that, in the Zendavesta, is the name of the genius of the same tilanet; and that