Ashtaroth is one of the pagan gods in the Canaan region, a goddess of love and fertility. 
This goddess worship ideology passed into Greece and became Aphrodite. She is usually worshipped as a pair with Baal, with the belief that the sexual intercourse between Baal and Ashtaroth would lead to abundant harvests from the land. As a result, in the temples of Baal and Ashtaroth, female priests engaged in promiscuous orgies disguised as rituals.
Judges 2:13Yahweh’s anger burned against Israel, and he delivered them into the hands of raiders who plundered them. He sold them into the hands of their enemies all around, so that they could no longer stand before their enemies.Judges 2:14Wherever they went out, Yahweh’s hand was against them for evil, as Yahweh had spoken, and as Yahweh had sworn to them; and they were very distressed.Judges 2:15Yahweh raised up judges, who saved them out of the hand of those who plundered them.
솔로몬은 말년에 다른 이방신과 함께 이 아스다롯을 섬겼고 이것이 결정적인 계기가 되어 나라가 갈라지게 되었다.
1 Kings 11:5Solomon did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, and didn’t go fully after Yahweh, as David his father did.
1 Kings 11:33“ ‘However I will not take the whole kingdom out of his hand; but I will make him prince all the days of his life, for David my servant’s sake whom I chose, who kept my commandments and my statutes;
이후 요시야왕 때 이르러서야 솔로몬 시대에 세워진 아스다롯 단과 산당을 헐어버리는 개혁을 단행했다.
2 Kings 23:13He broke in pieces the pillars, cut down the Asherah poles, and filled their places with men’s bones.2 Kings 23:14Moreover the altar that was at Bethel, and the high place which Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin, had made, even that altar and the high place he broke down; and he burned the high place and beat it to dust, and burned the Asherah.2 Kings 23:15As Josiah turned himself, he spied the tombs that were there in the mountain; and he sent, and took the bones out of the tombs, and burned them on the altar, and defiled it, according to Yahweh’s word which the man of God proclaimed, who proclaimed these things.
바산왕 옥이 다스리던 주요 도시중 하나로, 아스다롯의 이름을 따와서 도시의 이름으로 만들었다.
Joshua 13:12Nevertheless the children of Israel) didn’t drive out the Geshurites, nor the Maacathites: but Geshur) and Maacath live within Israel to this day.