Vetus Testamentum 67 (2017) 1-11 brill.com/vt Vetus Testamentum © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2017 | doi 10.1163/15685330-12341279 Jeremiah and the Assyrian Sacred Tree Raanan Eichler Hebrew University of Jerusalem raanan.eichler@mail.huji.ac.il Abstract Jeremiah 10:5 contains the collocation tomær miqšāh, which has been interpreted in a variety of ways ranging from “scarecrow in a cucumber field” to “plated pillars”. It is argued that the collocation should rather be interpreted as “palm sculpture” and that it refers to a known type of object from the ancient Near East whose depictions are designated by scholars as the “Assyrian sacred tree”. Keywords Jeremiah 10 – Assyrian sacred tree – tree – date palm – iconography – aniconism 1 Introduction: tomær miqšāh Jeremiah 10:1-16 is a diatribe against idolatry that, like a number of other bibli- cal passages,1 mocks the inertness of idols as contrasted with the agency of the true God Yhwh and argues that venerating or expecting any benefit from them is absurd. Verse 5 in this passage reads: א֥ שָׂ רוּ נֵ֔ בַּ דְ א י֣ ֹ לְ ו֙ הָ מּ֙ ֵ ה הָ֥ שְׁ קִ ר מֶ מ֨ ֹ תְ כּ םָֽ ת ין אֵ֥ יב אֵ֖ יטֵ ם־הַ גְ עוּ וֵ֔ רָ א י֣ ֹ י־לִ כּ֙ םֶ הֵ וּ מ֤ אְ ירִֽ דוּ אַל־תָּ֑ עְ צִ א י֣ ֹ י לִ֣ וּא כּ֖ שָׂ נִּ י. It can be trans- lated provisionally as follows: “Like a tomær miqšāh are they [i.e., idols], and * Many people offered helpful comments during the preparation of this paper. The author wishes especially to thank Irene J. Winter, Baruch J. Schwartz, Chanan Ariel, and David Knoll, while emphasizing that none of them would necessarily agree with everything written here. The paper was written during a Rothschild postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University funded by Yad Hanadiv. 1  Deut 4:28-29; Isa 40:12-26; 42:14-17; 44:6-20; 45:18-46:2; Jer 16:19-21; 51:15-19; Hab 2:18-20; Pss 115:3-11; 135:5-21; see also Wis 13:10-15:17; Sir 30:19; Bel.