ASHTAROTH ăsh’ tə rŏth (Heb. עַשְׁתָּרֹֽות, Josh 9:10; variant, עַשְׁתָּרֹ֖ת, Deut 1:4; variant [gentilic] עֲשְׁתְּרָתִ֑י, 1 Chron 11:44; Canaanite divine name, cognate root, עשׁתרת, appears in an inscr. from Rhodes [text is badly defaced] and a tablet from N Africa [H. Donner and W. Röllig, Kanaanäische und Aramäische Inschriften, Bd. I (1962), No. 44, 93.] It was transliterated into Gr. as ̓Αστρόνοη, and a possible pl. of the term appears in Ugaritic. All these terms are used for the fertility goddesses. All are pl. forms of the term Ištar, Biblical Ashtoreth, q.v.).
It is a title and, strictly speaking, not a name, usually found in the sense of “my lady,” “my goddess.” Her cultic worship was widely distributed through the Near E, and the name appears in the Heb. Bible and its various VSS in three senses.
(1) The local manifestation of the mother-goddess celebrated throughout the ancient Sem. world. This deity was the female consort of the male deity Ba’al, and pairs of them were found in the villages of the Canaanites; thus the OT prohibition against the worship and rites of either Baalim (pl.) or Ashtaroth (Judg 2:13; 10:6). Some scholars have attempted to use these pl. forms as criteria for documentary and fragmentary analyses of the MT. Such attempts, however, are specious and based on subjective assumptions. During the period of the Judges, the influence of Baalim and Ashtaroth was of such seriousness that repeated warnings were raised by the Judges against this worship (1 Sam 7:4; 12:10). Apostatizing after the Canaanite cult of Ashtaroth was one of the reasons given for Israel’s defeat at the hand of the Philistines (12:10). The occurrence of the term in 1 Samuel 31:10 has been criticized as being pl. when the sing. seems more appropriate, but there is no convincing evidence that the MT is in error at this point. In Akkad. inscrs. as late as the Neo-Assyrian period, several Ištars are mentioned together, differentiated only by their cult cities. Since this was a local deity of fertility, human, animal, and harvest, it is common that the seasons, rituals, and offerings would differ from location to location. Just as Ba’al was the innovator or causative agent of all phenomena, so the Astarte was the female recipient of the impetus of generation and growth. There is little question but that some of the rites and rituals involved were obscene and perverse in the context of the law given by God to Israel. It was this fact which brought about the imprecations of the Judges and Prophets.
(2) The pl. Ashtaroth is a component of a number of OT place names. The town called Ashtaroth was located in northern Trans-Jordan near ancient Edrei and N of the village of Jair. This was the home of Og, king of Bashan (Deut 1:4, 3:10; Josh 12:4), and the site of the theft of horses mentioned in Amarna Letter 197, where the town is transcribed in cuneiform as: aš-tar-te. It is also mentioned in the Moabite Stone inscr. of King Mesha (2 Kings 3:4). It was later allotted to the half-tribe of Manasseh and settled by the house of Machir. The district was known as Karnaiym after the Assyrian conquest of the northern kingdom and was so named in Genesis 14:5. It subsequently became the capital of the Pers. fifth satrapy. Attempts have been made to etymologize this place name, but no one suggestion seems decisive. The town continued to be a pagan cultic center, and it was overthrown by the Maccabees under Judas in 165 b.c. (1 Macc 5:44).
(3) Ashtaroth is also used in connection with productivity of sheep (ewes; Gen 31:38; 32:14; Ps 78:71). It has been conjectured that possibly Ashtaroth was envisioned as an ewe, but no evidence exists to support such a proposal. What is more likely is that the term Ashtaroth was used for sheep in the same way that Ba’al was applied to men, as in the case of a woman’s husband (Hos 2:16, et al.). In Ugaritic mythology, El the high god is pictured as a rutting bull among a herd of cows. Such animal epithets were common among other cultures of antiquity, such as the Greeks, Phoenicians, et al. It is not semantically supported that the term in such cases means merely “young,” since the notion of fertility and reproductive capacity seems involved. In all cases the term is used as a collective, as though the generating powers were met with anew in each particular case of human or animal generation. The cultic worship centered about this concept, and so the pl. form of the title was dominant.
Bibliography Y. Aharoni, The Land of the Bible (1962), 50, 51, 159ff.