ASER (Hebrew 'āšēr' «happy»). — 1. Eighth son of Jacob, born in Mesopotamia, after Gad, to Zilpah, Leah’s maidservant.
Gen. 30:13 explains his name with Leah’s words: “Because the women called me happy!” He had four sons: Imnah, Ishvah, Ishvi, and Beriah, besides the daughter Serah (Gen. 46:17; 1 Chron. 7:30). The narrative of Jacob’s family never mentions A.; Jacob’s blessing (Gen. 49:20) assigns his descendants agricultural prosperity (“richest grain and choice wine in abundance”).
2. Like the other sons of Jacob, A. gave his name to one of the twelve tribes of Israel. This tribe, which appears in various census lists with a fluctuating number—sometimes 41,500 (Num. 1:41), sometimes 53,400 (Num. 26:47) men—never exerted much influence in the history of the Hebrew people and is therefore rarely mentioned (Judg. 5:17; 7:23; 1 Chron. 12:36; 1 Kings 4:6). Its territory occupied the northwest of Palestine, from Carmel (inclusive) to Phoenicia, namely the western slopes of the hills descending from the foothills of Lebanon to the plain of Esdraelon; it was bounded (Josh. 19:24–31) on the north by the Nahr el-Qasimiyeh (the border of Tyre), on the west it extended along the Mediterranean coast as far as the river Labanath (today Nahr ez-Zerqā’), and on the east a line of Galilean hills separated A. from the tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali. Of the 22 cities listed in Josh., few have been archaeologically identified. The prophetess Anna belonged to the tribe of A. (Luke 2:36).
3. A border city of the tribe of Manasseh (Josh. 17:7), probably modern Teiasir “on the road from Neapolis to Scythopolis” (St. Jerome, *Liber de situ et nominibus locorum hebr.:* PL 23, 871), about 15 miles (ca. 22 km) north of Nablus.