The Women of Asherah: Weaving Wickedness in 2 Kings 23:7

Abstract

In this essay, I examine a long-standing crux interpretum in 2 Kgs 23:7 that reads, “And he tore down the homes of the male prostitutes, which were in the temple of Yhwh; where the women were weaving there בּתִָּים for the Asherah.” Though a number of proposals have been offered for understanding the crux, most have opted for an ad sensum interpretation that renders בָּתִּים as a curtain, tent, vestment, or other woven object that one might find in a sacred precinct. Nevertheless, I submit that, while the passage indeed describes the role that women played in producing textiles for the Asherah cult, the pervasive association of weaving with spiders also evokes a widespread androcentric stereotype that associates weaving women with female sexuality, deception, and entrapment. In turn, this enables us to understand בּתִָּים as idiomatic for “webs.”