Aaron’s Flowering Staff: A Priestly Asherah?

This piece is based on research presented in greater detail in Raanan Eichler, “The Priestly Asherah,” Vetus Testamentum 69.1 (2019): 33–45. The piece was edited extensively by the TABS editors in consultation with the author.

Aaron’s staff is the third of three objects said in the priestly pentateuchal literature to have been placed in front of the Testimony. The first is a container with an omer (a unit of capacity equaling about one to two liters) of manna, placed by Aaron “in front of the Testimony to be kept” (לִפְנֵי הָעֵדֻת לְמִשְׁמָרֶת: Exod 16:34). The second object is an unspecified amount of sacred incense that YHWH commands Moses to place “in front of the Testimony, in the Meeting Tent where I [YHWH] meet with you [Moses]” (לִפְנֵי הָעֵדֻת בְּאֹהֶל מוֹעֵד אֲשֶׁר אִוָּעֵד לְךָ שָׁמָּה: Exod 30:36).

HALOT: “stick, staff.” Aaron’s מַטֶּה is previously mentioned in the account of the wonders performed in Egypt: Exod 7:9, 10, 12 (crocodile), 19 (blood); 8:1 (frogs), 12, 13 (lice). However, the flowering staff is said to have originally been the staff of Levi, appropriated to Aaron only by virtue of the inscription of his name upon it (Num 17:18). Perhaps the purpose of this specification is precisely to indicate that the flowering staff was not the staff used in Egypt. Editor’s note: For a redaction critical approach to this problem arguing that Aaron was added in later, see David Frankel, “The Flowering Staff: Proof of Aaron’s or the Levites’ Election?” TheTorah (2019).

HALOT: “bud, blossom.” The singular forms obviously have a collective sense here; for this phenomenon see GKC §123b; Joüon §135b.

HALOT: “flowers, blossoms.”

HALOT: “almond tree, almonds.”

The closest image is the tabernacle lampstand, which is adorned with “almonded bowls” along with “knobs” and buds (גְבִעִים מְשֻׁקָּדִים … כַּפְתֹּר … פֶּרַח: Exod 25:31–39 = 37:17–24). For comparison, see Gen 40:10; Isa 18:5; 27:6; Jer 1:11–12; Ezek 7:10; Ps 92:8; Song 6:11; 7:13. See also Ezek 7:10.

Perhaps the peculiarity of the almonds is what spurred Josephus to posit (Ant. 4.65) that the staff was made of almond wood. See also Philo, Moses 2.180–186; Gordon J. Wenham, “Aaron’s Rod (Numbers 17_16-28),” ZAW 93 (1981): 280–281 [281].

Hugo Gressmann, Mose und seine Zeit: Ein Kommentar zu den Mose-Sagen (Göttingen, 1913), 281; A. H. J. Gunneweg, Leviten und Priester: Hauptlinien der Traditionsbildung und Geschichte des Israelitisch-Jüdischen Kultpersonals, FRLANT 89 (Göttingen, 1965), 184; Samuel E. Loewenstamm, “מטה” [Staff], אנציקלופדיה מקראית [Encyclopaedia Biblica] (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1962), 4.825–832 [831]; Michael V. Fox, “The Sign of the Covenant: Circumcision in the Light of the Priestly ’ôt Etiologies”, RB 81.4 (1974): 557–596 [581–582]; Karol van der Toorn, “Did Jeremiah See Aaron’s Staff?” JSOT 43 (1989): 83-94; Jacob Licht, פרוש על ספר במדבר [A Commentary on the Book of Numbers], (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1991), 2.120. And see already b. Yoma 52b; Midrash Hagadol on v. 25, in Z. M. Rabinowitz, ed., Midrash Haggadol on the Pentateuch: Numbers (Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1967), 287.

The closest extrabiblical parallels to this narrative, the story of Heracles’ wild-olive club that took root in the earth and grew (Pausanius, Description of Greece 2.31.10) and the story of Romulus’ spear that turned into a rooted tree with leaves (Ovid, Metamorphoses 15.560), also seem to be etiologies, but of living trees. Aaron’s staff is not a rooted tree but a portable object.

For relatively recent introductions to the vast scholarly literature on asherim, see John Day, “Asherah,” ABD 1:483-487; Nicholas Wyatt, “Asherah,” DDD, 183-195; Paolo Merlo, “Asherah,” EBR 2:975-980.

Merlo, “Asherah,” 976: “it is now generally held that the object [i.e., the asherah] was a stylized tree or a pole made of wood”. See also Day, “Asherah,” 486; Wyatt, “Asherah,” 187.

Day, “Asherah,” 486.

Mordechai Cogan, “Chronology: Hebrew Bible,” ABD 1: 1002-1011 [1010]: Jehoahaz reigned 817–800.

I. Carmi and D. Segal, “¹⁴C Dates from Kuntillet ‘Ajrud” [1995], in Kuntillet ’Ajrud (Horvat Teman): An Iron Age II Religious Site on the Judah-Sinai Border, ed. Ze’ev Meshel (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 2012), 61–63 [p. 61]: “The average range of calibrated dates indicates that the site was occupied from the end of the 9^th to the beginning of the 8^th century B.C.E. (about 830–750 B.C.E.).” See also Ze’ev Meshel, “The Nature of the Site and Its Biblical Background”, in Meshel, Kuntillet ’Ajrud, 65–69 [ 69 ]: “the date of the site […] [is] around 800 BCE.”

In terms of size, its height is a little greater than the length of the ibexes flanking it, which is about the height one would expect for a staff.

Beck and Ornan both refer to the two elements at the top as “buds” and do not explain the dots with which they are speckled; see Pirhiya Beck, “The Drawings and Decorative Designs” [1982], in Meshel, Kuntillet ‘Ajrud, 143–203 [154]; T. Ornan, “The Drawings from Kuntillet ‘Ajrud,” in To Yhwh of Teman and His Ashera: The Inscriptions and Drawings from Kuntillet ‘Ajrud (‘Ḥorvat Tēman’) in Sinai [in Hebrew], ed. S. Ahituv and E. Eshel (Jerusalem: Magnes, 2015), 42-69 [62-63].

Israelite/Judahite cultic sites with asherim included ones dedicated to Yhwh (Deut 16:21; 2 Kgs 23:15), Ba‘al (Judg 6:25, 26, 28, 30), Be‘alim (2 Chr 34:3, 4, 7), Ashtoreth, Chemosh, and Milkom (2 Kgs 23:14).

cf. 2 Chr 33:3, 19.

Also,

^{דברים יב:ג} וְנִתַּצְתֶּם אֶת מִזְבּחֹתָם וְשִׁבַּרְתֶּם אֶת מַצֵּבֹתָם וַאֲשֵׁרֵיהֶם תִּשְׂרְפוּן בָּאֵשׁ וּפְסִילֵי אֱלֹהֵיהֶם תְּגַדֵּעוּן וְאִבַּדְתֶּם אֶת שְׁמָם מִן הַמָּקוֹם הַהוּא.

^{Deut 12:3} Tear down their altars, smash their pillars, put their asherim to the fire, and cut down the images of their gods, obliterating their name from that site.

This verse is part of a section that has usually been ascribed to J; see, e.g., B. J. Schwartz, “What Really Happened at Mount Sinai? Four Biblical Answers to One Question”, BR 13.5 (1997): 20-30, 46 [ 27 ]. Propp calls it “D-like”; see William H.C. Propp, Exodus 19–40: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, Anchor Bible 2B (New York: Doubleday, 2006), 50, 184. For further bibliography, see Shimon Gesundheit, Three Times a Year: Studies on Festival Legislation in the Pentateuch, FAT 82 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012), 12 [n2], 37 [n60].

Shmuel Ahituv, Echoes from the Past: Hebrew and Cognate Inscriptions from the Biblical Period, Carta Handbook (Jerusalem: Carta, 2008), 221–224. The waw in the angled brackets is a restoration by Ahituv.

Shmuel Ahituv, Esther Eshel, and Ze’ev Meshel, “The Inscriptions”, in Meshel, Kuntillet ‘Ajrud (Ḥorvat Teman), 73–142 [87–91].

Ahituv, Eshel, and Meshel, “The Inscriptions,” 95–97.

The formula appears also on Ketef Hinnom scrolls 1 and 2, as well as the Achish inscription from Ekron (where the blessing deity is ptgyh). See further Jeremy D. Smoak, The Priestly Blessing in Inscription and Scripture: The Early History of Numbers 6:24–26(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 12–42, 113–121.

Editor’s note: For more on the simile in Jeremiah, see Andrea Weiss, “Jeremiah’s Teaching of the Trees,” TheTorah (2018).

Othmar Keel and Christoph Uehlinger, Gods, Goddesses and Images of God in Ancient Israel, trans. Thomas H. Trapp (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress, 1998), 215; translation of, Göttingen, Götter, und Gottessymbole, QD 134 (Fribourg: Herder, 1992): The stylized tree flanked by caprids at Kuntillet ‘Ajrud is a religious depiction of blessing.

Tryggve N. D. Mettinger, No Graven Image? Israelite Aniconism in Its Ancient Near Eastern Context, Coniectanea Biblica, Old Testament Series 42 (Stockholm: Coronet Books, 1995), 130–132.

See discussion in Richard Lederman, “Nehushtan, the Copper Serpent: Its Origins and Fate,” TheTorah.com (2017). It is also a relative of the Deuteronomic and Deuteronomic-compatible account of the golden calf (Exod 32; Deut 9:12–21; Ps 106:19–23; Neh 9:18), which is a quasi-etiology for another central cultic institution during the monarchic era, the golden calves at Bethel and Dan (1 Kgs 12:26–32; 2 Kgs 10:29; 17:16; Hos 8:5–6; 2 Chr 11:15; 13:8).

The book of Kings implies that Josiah’s purge occurred in the eighteenth year of his reign (2 Kgs 22:3; 23:23). Chronicles states explicitly that it began in the twelfth year of his reign (2 Chr 34:3), which Cogan and Tadmor put at 628 bce; see Mordechai Cogan and Haim Tadmor, II Kings: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, Anchor Bible (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1988), 298.

Unfortunately, this insight cannot easily shed light on the composition of the rest of the priestly literature, the relation of this story to which is debated. Martin Noth, Numbers. A Commentary, trans. James D. Martin, Old Testament Library (London: SCM Press, 1968), 130–131; translation of: Das vierte Buch Mose, Numeri (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1966): the story of Aaron’s flowering staff is “phrased in the style of P, but is probably of somewhat later origin.” Budd (Numbers, 194): the story is “in all essentials … likely to be the work of the priestly author of Numbers.” Israel Knohl, The Sanctuary of Silence: The Priestly Torah and the Holiness School, trans. Jackie Feldman and Peretz Rodman (1995; repr., Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2007), 81–82; trans. of, מקדש הדממה עיון ברובדי היצירה הכוהנית שבתורה (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1992): the story is a product of the later Holiness School. Levine, Numbers, 431: the story “may derive from a different priestly archive [than the rest of Num 17].” For further bibliography, see Joel S. Baden, “Source Stratification, Secondary Additions, and the Documentary Hypothesis in the Book of Numbers: The Case of Numbers 17”, in Torah and the Book of Numbers, ed. Christian Frevel, Thomas Pola, and Aaron Schart, FAT II 62 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 233–247.