The twelve tribes of Israel

The Tribe of Asher

Son of Jacob by Zilpah (Leah's maid) · Name means Happy, or blessed (Leah said, happy am I) · Settled on the fertile northwest coast, from Carmel toward Sidon

Asher was a son of Jacob by Zilpah, Leah's maidservant, and his tribe settled along the rich coastal plain of the north, a land of olive groves and plenty. Jacob blessed Asher with fatness and royal dainties, a promise of abundance, and Moses said Asher would dip his foot in oil. From this quiet, prosperous tribe came Anna the prophetess, who greeted the infant Jesus in the temple.

Out of Asher his bread shall be fat, and he shall yield royal dainties.Genesis 49:20 (KJV)

Asher the man

Asher was the eighth son of Jacob, the second born to Zilpah, Leah's maid. At his birth Leah said, Happy am I, for the daughters will call me blessed, and she called his name Asher, which means happy, or blessed. The name set the tone for the whole tribe, which would be marked not by war or leadership but by contentment and plenty.

Scripture tells few stories of Asher's people. In the Song of Deborah the tribe is gently faulted for staying by the shore and remaining in its harbors rather than joining the battle, a hint of a comfortable people slow to leave their prosperity. But Asher was not without honor, and its abundance was itself a gift and a sign of the goodness of the land God gave.

Jacob's blessing: bread that is fat and royal dainties

Jacob's blessing over Asher is all abundance: Out of Asher his bread shall be fat, and he shall yield royal dainties. It is the promise of a land so rich that its produce would be fit for a king's table, olive oil and grain and the finest of foods. Where other blessings speak of battle or rule, Asher's speaks of a full harvest and a laden table.

Moses added to it: Let Asher be blessed with children; let him be acceptable to his brethren, and let him dip his foot in oil. To dip the foot in oil is to walk in such plenty of olives that oil runs like water underfoot. Thy shoes shall be iron and brass, Moses went on, and as thy days, so shall thy strength be, a promise of security and lasting strength to match the abundance.

The tribe and its land by the sea

Asher's inheritance lay along the fertile coastal plain of the far northwest, stretching from the slopes of Mount Carmel up toward the great trading cities of Tyre and Sidon. It was a land of olive orchards and grain, of harbors and trade, one of the richest portions in all Israel, and it made Asher a prosperous and peaceable tribe.

That very prosperity, and its position out on the coast near the Phoenician cities, kept Asher somewhat apart from the center of Israel's life and mingled it with its neighbors, so that at first it failed to drive out all the Canaanites of the coast and dwelt among them. Like the other northern tribes, Asher was eventually swept away in the Assyrian conquest. Yet the tribe was not wholly lost to faith, for when King Hezekiah of Judah called the scattered north to keep the Passover in Jerusalem, some of Asher humbled themselves and came. The tribe's name, happy or blessed, and its inheritance of plenty, remained a testimony to the generous hand of God.

Asher in God's plan: a prophetess of the Redeemer

The tribe of Asher steps quietly but beautifully into the Gospel story. When Mary and Joseph brought the infant Jesus to the temple, an aged widow named Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Aser, was there. She had served God with fasting and prayers night and day for many years, and coming in that hour she gave thanks unto the Lord, and spoke of the child to all who looked for redemption in Jerusalem.

So it was a daughter of Asher who was among the very first to recognize and proclaim the Messiah. The tribe named happy, blessed, brought forth a woman who found the true blessedness, not in the fatness of the land but in the sight of the Redeemer. Asher's abundance, in the end, points past itself to the one who is the bread of life, in whom alone the soul is truly satisfied and truly blessed.

This is Asher's gift to the church: a reminder that every good thing, the fat bread and the royal dainties, the oil and the harvest, is meant to lead the heart upward to the Giver. The happiness of the tribe of Asher was only a shadow of the blessedness Jesus preached on a Galilean hillside, the deep joy of those who hunger and thirst after righteousness and are filled. The truly blessed are not those with the fullest tables but those who have found the Lord.

A note on counting the twelve: Jacob had twelve sons, but the tribes are reckoned in more than one way in Scripture. The tribe of Levi was set apart for the priesthood and received no territory of its own, and Joseph, given the double portion of the firstborn, was counted as two tribes through his sons Ephraim and Manasseh. So when the land was divided the tribes still numbered twelve, with Levi outside the count. Different lists in the Bible reflect this: the blessing of Moses in Deuteronomy leaves out Simeon, and the sealed tribes in Revelation 7 omit Dan and Ephraim while naming Levi, Joseph, and Manasseh. The number twelve is preserved as a sign of the whole people of God.

Related: The Tribe of Gad · The Tribe of Zebulun · Who is Jesus? · All twelve tribes