The Asherites were a proud lot, but they didn’t have a proud record. According to Judges 1:31, Asher “did not drive out” the Canaanites in their portion of Canaan as God had commanded, and instead, verse 32, “the Asherites lived among the Canaanite inhabitants of the land.”
But why would God tell them to wipe out the Canaanites and “break down their altars” (2:2), when surely it would be better to get along with the locals and make use of their skills, or “press them into forced labour” (1:28), wouldn’t it?
Well, it would’ve spared the Israelites a lot of agony if they had listened to God (2:17), because after 500 years of thinking they knew better the entire nation of Israel had become saturated with the Canaanite worship of Baal and Ashorah, thanks mainly to Jezebel, the Phoenician princess married to their Israelite king Ahab (1 Kings 16:29-33). As queen she influenced her husband into establishing her Canaanite worship of Baal as the state religion, and set about killing all God’s prophets in a massacre so thorough that Elijah thought he was the only one left alive (19:10).
And the Israelites had no answer to their troubles. They had a few good kings, like Jehoshaphat who tried hard to rid the country of Baal worship (1 Kings 22:41-46), but never did they get rid of it totally, resulting in God destroying the Asherites and nine other Israelite tribes at the hands of the mighty Assyrians.
And from then on, it seems, the Asherites joined “the lost ten tribes of Israel” and disappeared from history. Or did they? Because when Jesus’ parents took the eight day old Jesus to the temple in Luke 2:21-22, “There was a prophetess, Anna, of the tribe of Asher” there (36). “She was very old,” possibly as old as 105, and according to verse 37, “She never left the temple but worshipped night and day, fasting and praying.”
So, not only had the Asherites survived, they also had a good one in Anna, who was the total opposite to the proud and arrogant tribe of Asher of old. Her heart instead, verse 38, was set on “the redemption of Jerusalem (representing all Israel).” She knew the only solution to Israel’s demise was a child being born to save them, and when Jesus’ parents came in carrying Jesus she knew he’d come.
Would the Asherites have guessed, therefore, that one of their own, and a little old lady too, would know the answer to all their troubles – and actually see him in person too? So what would “Anna’s advice to us” today be?….(next blog)
Buck To Basics 