Asher

"Happy, Jacob's eigth son; his mother was Zilpah, Leah's handmaid" (Gen. 30:13). Of the tribe founded by him nothing is recorded beyond its holding a place in the list of the tribes (35:26; "46:17; Ex. 1:4, etc.) It increased in numbers twenty-nine" "percent, during the thirty-eight years' wanderings. The place of" this tribe during the march through the desert was between Dan and Naphtali (Num. 2:27). The boundaries of the inheritance "given to it, which contained some of the richest soil in" "Palestine, and the names of its towns, are recorded in Josh." "19:24-31; Judg. 1:31, 32. Asher and Simeon were the only tribes" west of the Jordan which furnished no hero or judge for the nation. Anna the prophetess was of this tribe (Luke 2:36).

"And pl. Asherim in Revised Version, instead of "grove" and" groves of the Authorized Version. This was the name of a "sensual Canaanitish goddess Astarte, the feminine of the" Assyrian Ishtar. Its symbol was the stem of a tree deprived of "its boughs, and rudely shaped into an image, and planted in the" "ground. Such religious symbols ("groves") are frequently alluded" to in Scripture (Ex. 34:13; Judg. 6:25; 2 Kings 23:6; 1 Kings "16:33, etc.). These images were also sometimes made of silver or" "of carved stone (2 Kings 21:7; "the graven image of Asherah," R.V.). (See [32]GROVE [1].).

Definition of Asher:
"happiness"