A son of Jacob by Zilpah, Leah's servant, and founder of the tribe of Asher. His name means 'happy', and both Jacob's and Moses's blessings speak of richness — bread that is rich, royal delicacies, and feet dipped in oil. The tribe settled along the fertile coastal plain north towards Tyre and Sidon, though it failed to drive out the Canaanites there and was rebuked in the Song of Deborah for staying by its harbours. Anna the prophetess, who greeted the infant Jesus in the temple, was of the tribe of Asher.
ScholarlyA West-Semitic toponym read roughly as 'a-sa-ru / I-s-r appears in New Kingdom Egyptian place-name lists (Seti I and Ramesses II), and some scholars have linked it to the later tribal region of Asher in western Galilee. The identification is genuinely contested, however, and many scholars doubt it names the tribe rather than an unrelated Canaanite locale.
Egyptian topographical lists of Seti I / Ramesses II; the proposed link and the objections to it are surveyed in the Anchor Bible Dictionary entry on Asher. Presented as debated, not settled.
Name & titles
ScholarlyThe Hebrew name 'Asher derives from a root meaning 'happy, fortunate, blessed.' Genesis preserves a folk etymology in Leah's exclamation at his birth, 'Happy am I! For the women will call me happy.'
Standard Hebrew onomastics; the birth-naming wordplay ('ashri) in the Masoretic text of Gen 30:13.
Asher · Francisco de Zurbarán — Public domain (via Wikimedia Commons)Asher, from The Twelve Sons of Jacob · Jacob de Gheyn II / After Karel van Mander the Elder — CC0 (via Wikimedia Commons)Asher, from the series The Twelve Patriarchs · Maarten van Heemskerck / Dirck Volckertszoon Coornhert — CC0 (via Wikimedia Commons)Asher3581 · יעקב — CC BY-SA 4.0 (via Wikimedia Commons)Asher by Chagall · דר' אבישי טייכר — CC BY 2.5 (via Wikimedia Commons)Asher javne · Daniel Ventura — CC BY-SA 3.0 (via Wikimedia Commons)Beit Kneset Shoney Halachot P1080803 · Deror Avi — CC BY-SA 3.0 (via Wikimedia Commons)Bnei Brak IMG 5855 · deror_avi — CC BY-SA 3.0 (via Wikimedia Commons)Facial Chronicle - b.02, p.015 - Moses counting Asher's kin · Anonymous Russian manuscript illuminators, 1560-1570s Facial Chronicle (Illustrated Chronicle of Ivan the Terrible) (in 10 volumes: pdf, pdf with translation)Public domain image — Public domain (via Wikimedia Commons)Aser Twaalf zonen van Jakob (serietitel), RP-P-BI-6564 · Rijksmuseum — CC0 (via Wikimedia Commons)Asher · Jacques de Gheyn II (Flanders, Antwerp, 1565-1629) — Public domain (via Wikimedia Commons)Bikur cholim 2 · Tamarah — CC BY-SA 3.0 (via Wikimedia Commons)
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