In the historical and prophetic books of the Old Testament we have repeated evidence that the Hebrew worship was a mixture of Paganism and Judaism, and that Jehovah was worshipped in connection with other deities. Hezekiah is recorded in 2 Kings xviii. 3, to have “removed the high places, and broken the images, and cut down the groves (Ashera), and broken in pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had made, for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it.” The Ashera, or sacred groves here alluded to are named from the goddess Ashtaroth, which Dr. Smith describes as the proper name of the goddess; while Ashera is the name of the image of the goddess. Rawlinson, in his _Five Great Monarchies of the Ancient World_, describes Ashera to imply something that stood straight up, and probably its essential element was the stem of a tree, an analogy suggestive of the Assyrian emblem of the Tree of Life of the Scriptures. This stem, which stood for the emblem of life, was probably a pillar, or Phallus, like the Lingi of the Hindus, sometimes erected in a grove or sacred hollow, signifying the Yoni and Lingi. We read in 2 Kings xxi. 7, that Manasseh “set up a graven image in the grove,” and, according to Dr. Oort, the older reading is in 2 Chron. xxxiii. 7, 15, where it is an image or pillar. During the reigns of the Jewish kings, the worship of Baal, the Priapus of the Greeks and Romans, was extensively practised by the Jews. Pillars and groves were reared in his name. In front of the Temple of Baal, in Samaria, was erected an Ashera (1 Kings xvi. 31, 32) which even survived the temple itself, for although Jehu destroyed the Temple of Baal, he allowed the Ashera to remain (2 Kings x. 18, 19; xiii. 6). Bernstein, in an important work on the origin of the legends of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, undoubtedly proves that during the monarchial period of Israel, the sanguinary wars and violent conflicts between the two kingdoms of Judah and Israel were between the Elohistic and Jehovahic faiths, kept alive by the priesthood at the chief places of worship, concerning the true patriarch, and each party manufacturing and inserting legends to give a more ancient and important part to its own faith. It is not at all improbable that the conflict was between the two portions of the Phallic faith, the Lingam and Yoni parties. The cause of this conflict was the erection of the consecrated stones or pillars which were put up by the Hebrews as objects of Divine worship. The altar erected by Jacob at Bethel was a pillar, for according to Bernstein the word altar can only be used for the erection of a pillar. Jacob likewise set up a Matzebah, or pillar of stone, in Gilead, and finally he set one up upon the tomb of Rachel. A great portion of the facts have been suppressed by the translators, who have given to the world histories which have glossed over the ancient rites and practices of the Jews.