ASER (Heb. 'Āšēr — Happy —). - 1. Eighth son of Jacob, born in Mesopotamia, after Gad, by Zilpah, Leah's maidservant.
Gen. 30:13 explains his name with Leah's words: "In my happiness, yes, the women call me happy!" He had four sons: Imnah, Ishvah, Ishvi and Beriah, besides his daughter Serah (Gen. 46:17; 1 Chron. 7:30). The narrative of the fortunes of Jacob's family never mentions A.; Jacob's blessing (Gen. 49:20) assigns to his descendants agricultural prosperity ("rich bread and oil 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 the lists of the various censuses with a number now of 41,500 (Num. 1:41), now of 53,400 (Num. 26:47) men, never exercised much influence in the history of the Hebrew people: hence it is rarely mentioned (Judg. 5:17; 7:23; 1 Chron. 12:36; 1 Kings 4:6). Its territory occupied the north-west of Palestine, from Carmel (included) to Phoenicia, that is, the western slope of the hills that descend from the foothills of Lebanon down to the plain of Esdraelon; it was bounded (Josh. 19:24-31) to the north by the Nahr el-Qasimiyya (frontier of Tyre), to the west it extended along the coast of the Mediterranean as far as the river Labanath (today Nahr ez-Zerqa'), to the east a line of hills of Galilee divided A. from the tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali. Of the 22 cities listed by Josh., few have been archaeologically identified. To the tribe of A. belonged the prophetess Anna (Luke 2:36).
3. A border city of the tribe of Manasseh (Josh. 17:7), probably the present-day Teiasir "on the road from Neapolis to Scythopolis" (St. Jerome, L. de situ et nomin. locorum hebr.; PL 23, 871), 15 miles (about 22 km.) north of Nablus.
Angelo Penna