Commentary - Deuteronomy 16:21-22

Bird's-eye view

In this brief but potent passage, Moses concludes a section on the proper administration of justice and the centralisation of worship by issuing two sharp prohibitions. These commands get right to the heart of Israel's covenant fidelity. The issue is not merely avoiding the overt worship of foreign gods, but rather the insidious temptation of syncretism, of blending the worship of Yahweh with the polluted religious furniture of the Canaanites. God is not interested in having His altar accessorized with the idolatrous paraphernalia of the surrounding pagans. This is a command for liturgical purity. The altar of Yahweh must stand alone, unadorned by the trinkets of Baal and Asherah. This is because worship is warfare, and the first rule of warfare is to know who your God is, and to refuse any and all attempts to broker a peace treaty with the enemy.

The Lord here forbids the planting of an Asherah pole and the erection of a sacred pillar. These were common elements in Canaanite fertility cults, representing the female and male principles of their debased pantheon. To place such an object beside the altar of Yahweh would be to create a grotesque hybrid, a spiritual mule that is both sterile and an abomination. God's hatred for these objects is stated plainly. This is not a matter of aesthetic preference; it is a matter of covenant loyalty. God is a jealous God, and He will not share His glory with another, nor His worship space with the idols of the nations He is driving out.

Outline

Context In Deuteronomy

These verses come at the end of a chapter that has dealt with the three great annual feasts (Passover, Weeks, and Booths) and the appointment of judges and officers. The common theme is the right ordering of Israel's national life around the worship and law of Yahweh. After establishing the central place of worship and the necessity of true justice, Moses now turns to the most basic threat to that order: liturgical corruption. If Israel allows the worship of Yahweh to be contaminated with pagan elements, then the feasts will become debaucheries and the courts will become dens of injustice. You cannot mix holy water with sewage and expect the result to be anything other than sewage. The purity of worship is the fountainhead from which a righteous culture flows. Pollute the fountainhead, and the entire downstream civilization will be poisoned.

Key Issues

Verse by Verse Commentary

Deuteronomy 16:21

"You shall not plant for yourself an Asherah of any kind of tree beside the altar of Yahweh your God, which you shall make for yourself."

You shall not plant for yourself an Asherah... The prohibition is direct and personal. The temptation is to domesticate paganism, to make it "for yourself." An Asherah was typically a wooden pole, sometimes carved, representing a Canaanite fertility goddess. To plant one was an act of worship, an appeal to the powers of nature and procreation that the Canaanites deified. But Israel was to look to Yahweh alone for fertility, for blessing, for life itself. To plant an Asherah is to hedge your bets, to try and serve two masters. It is an act of profound faithlessness, suggesting that Yahweh might not be sufficient for all of life's needs.

...of any kind of tree... The specification "of any kind of tree" closes any potential loopholes. One can imagine the rationalizing Israelite saying, "Well, the Canaanites use oak, so I will use poplar. It's different." No. God is not interested in our clever distinctions when it comes to idolatry. The material is irrelevant; the act of setting up a rival to God is the offense. Whether it is a crude stick or a finely carved idol, the sin is the same. It is an attempt to supplement the worship of the one true God with man-made religious junk.

...beside the altar of Yahweh your God... This is the critical point. The abomination is amplified by its location. It is one thing to be a pagan out in the boondocks, worshiping your stump. It is quite another to drag your stump into the sanctuary and set it up next to the place of blood sacrifice, the very place where atonement is made. This is high-handed spiritual adultery. It is bringing the mistress into the marriage bed. The altar of Yahweh is holy ground, and it is defined by what happens there, the sacrifices ordained by God. To place an Asherah next to it is to claim that the blood of bulls and goats needs to be supplemented by a fertility symbol. It is, in embryonic form, a denial of the sufficiency of the atonement. The cross of Christ must stand alone. You don't get to nail a dreamcatcher to it.

...which you shall make for yourself. This final clause reminds them of their responsibility. They are the ones building the altar. It is their act of worship. And because it is their act, they are responsible for its purity. You cannot blame the culture, you cannot blame the Canaanites, you cannot blame peer pressure. You are the one building the altar, and you are the one commanded not to defile it. Worship is not a passive activity; it is a moral and spiritual construction project, and God holds us accountable for what we build.

Deuteronomy 16:22

"And you shall not set up for yourself a sacred pillar which Yahweh your God hates."

And you shall not set up for yourself a sacred pillar... The second prohibition parallels the first. The sacred pillar, or matstsebah, was a stone obelisk, often a phallic symbol, representing the male deity, frequently Baal. Like the Asherah, this was standard issue furniture in a Canaanite high place. The act of "setting it up" is an act of establishing a rival claim on the territory. Where the pillar stands, a god is being honored. But God had commanded that His name alone be honored in the place He would choose. There is no room for a second name on the marquee.

...which Yahweh your God hates. Here we have the divine motive laid bare. This is not an arbitrary rule. God is not a celestial decorator with quirky tastes. He hates these things. The language is stark and emotional. Hate is not too strong a word for God when it comes to idolatry. Why? Because idolatry is treason. It is a lie about His character, His power, and His glory. It reduces the transcendent Creator to a block of wood or a stone post. It trades the glory of the immortal God for a cheap substitute. And it leads people into degradation, slavery, and death. God's hatred of idolatry is a function of His love for His people and His zeal for His own name. He hates what destroys His creatures and what defames His character. We are to regulate our worship not by what we find stimulating, or what is culturally relevant, or what seems to work, but by what God loves and what He hates. His affections are our rubric.

Application

We may not be tempted to plant literal Asherah poles next to our church buildings, but the principle of this text is perennial. The temptation to engage in religious syncretism is a constant in every age. It is the temptation to supplement the simple gospel with something else, something more exciting, more relevant, or more palatable to the surrounding culture.

Modern evangelicalism is shot through with this syncretistic impulse. We take the altar of God, which is the preaching of Christ and Him crucified, and we set up our own pillars and poles next to it. We set up the pillar of marketing savvy, believing that the gospel needs our branding expertise to be effective. We plant the Asherah of therapeutic deism, turning the worship of the holy God into a self-help session designed to make us feel better about ourselves. We erect the pillar of political ideology, whether of the left or the right, and demand that the gospel baptize our partisan agendas.

In every case, the sin is the same as the one condemned here in Deuteronomy. It is the attempt to blend the holy with the profane, to make the worship of God more "effective" by borrowing from the world's playbook. But God's altar needs no such help. The cross is sufficient. The simple means of grace, Word and sacrament, are the tools God has given us. Our task is not to decorate the altar with the world's idols, but to call the world to come and die at the one, true altar. We must learn again to hate what God hates, and to love what He loves. And that begins with a fierce and jealous purity in our worship.