Elijah says disturbing things. A third is that he is describing somebody teetering on a tightrope and trying to maintain his balance. Now the word isai, simply means music in Tamil. 33 Bible Verses about Baal Worship, History So Israel joined themselves to Baal of Peor, and the Lord was angry against Israel. Today Baal churches preach and teach Baal doctrines; prosperity, harvest, sex and fertility. They used the name of God frequently, saying they trusted Him, but they filled the nation with stealing, lying, and murder. Looking at these two definitions we can say . 28:2); Hezekiah attempted to eliminate it; Manasseh his son again gave it royal support (II Kings 21:3); and Josiah in his turn purged the Temple of YHWH of the utensils made for Baal and Asherah (II Kings 23:4). If you will not be committed to Him, you are going to die.". 19Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. To accommodate Baal ideology to Yahwism required some radical transformations. Now that He has announced Israel's imminent calamity, God begins to show how His punishment would alter the lives of the people. In correlating the sequence of events, Baal's victory over the sea-god, Yamm, is probably to be placed near the beginning of the action, since it was presumably this exploit which gained him the dominant position among the gods, just as *Marduk achieved preeminence by defeating the sea-monster Tiamat. 3:8; Ps. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. Baal's house was constructed in an extraordinary fashion. But Baal was not exclusively a fertility god. . This viewpoint was developed as the basic and final argument against Baalism. But not all years are good, and in a bad year, or a series of bad years, when the rains fail, the skies become like iron, the land like brass, and man's toil is futile for the earth will not yield its increase (Lev. What happens if a person, trying to establish a religion, mixes falsehood with the truth of God? Join the BAS Library today. The Berean: Daily Verse and Comment Sign up for the Berean: Daily Verse and Comment, and have Biblical truth delivered to your inbox. A general understanding about the bamah and . 114) or with eschatological victory (Isa. By the time of the prophet Hosea (mid-8th century bce) the antagonism to Baalism was so strong that the use of the term Baal was often replaced by the contemptuous boshet (shame); in compound proper names, for example, Ishbosheth replaced the earlier Ishbaal. It proved extremely hard for a monotheistic faith to compete against the Canaanite fertility cult. And Asherah and Baal led the way together (Judges 3:7, 1 Kings 18:19, 2 Kings 23:4). The eschatological traits were taken over with the Canaanite myths. "Whatever is not of faith is sin" (Romans 14:23). Groves and high places were places of worship erected to Canaanite gods and goddesses. His overall conduct may not be too bad, but his poor self-analysis persuades him that he has no urgent need to seek God any further. 3:10; cf. Elijah is quite instructive here. The judge Gideon was also named Jerubbaal (Judges 6:32), and King Saul had a son named Ishbaal (I Chronicles 8:33). What Tamils are you speaking of? John W. Ritenbaugh Baal worship is something I associated only with Old Testament Bible days. Ginsberg, Kitvei Ugarit (1936); J. Oberman, Ugaritic Mythology (1948); A.S. Kapelrud, Baal in the Ras Shamra Texts (1952); M. Dahood, in: Studi Semitici, 1 (1958), 7578; N. Habel, Yahweh Versus Baal: A Conflict of Religious Cultures (1964); J. He replaced the Levitical priesthood with men of his own choosing. (NASB). Today Jezebel has built Baal altars in the name of 'church' and led many to Baal worship. Download our mobile app for on-the-go access to the Jewish Virtual Library, Encyclopaedia Judaica, 1998 - 2023 American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise. Thus, according to Sakkunyaton, Baal's natural father was Ouranos and Dagn became his foster-father, while El-Kronos effected the transfer. These soldiers would surrender themselves to the other side to be given a bit of favor and put into prison. 19 Now therefore, call to me all the prophets of Baal, all his servants, and all his priests. Since the root tr in Arabic is connected with artificial irrigation, it is apparent that Ashtar's failure to measure up to Baal represents the inadequacy of irrigation as a substitute for natural rainfall. See what over 150,000 subscribers are already receiving each day. Baal's objection to the window somehow concerned his three daughters and the sea-god (Yamm), but the text is broken at this point. The latest archaeological discoveries shed light on Biblical Sidon and provide a window into the Sidonians polytheistic religion and worship practices during the Bronze and Iron Ages. The conflict of Yahwism and Baalism reached a crisis with Elijah's challenge to Baal's prophets to settle the question whether it was Baal or YHWH who really supplied the rain (I Kings 18). As such, Baal designated the universal god of fertility, and in that capacity his title was Prince, Lord of the Earth. Our god is what we give our lives over to. The Assyrians deported the population en masse from its homeland in Canaan, transplanting it virtually in toto to the southern shores of the Caspian Sea. He is deceived into thinking that his material prosperity proves that God approves of his conduct and attitudes. Jesus says, "They are blind leaders of the blind. In daily life, they conformed to and reflected the Babylonish system just as Israel does today. And one of the most famous instances of Israel going head to head with the prophets of Baal comes from 1 Kings 18. In the Old Testament, many of the kings and eventually the whole nation of Israel rebelled against God and chose opposing belief systems. The Bible speaks of the destruction of Baal's temples and the idols associated with him. Baal worship is and has always been pagan; today it is replacing the laws and beliefs based upon Judaeo-Christian roots, which honours the GOD of the Bible, His laws and His ways. Canaanite worship often took place in open-air sites at the tops of hills, referred to in the Bible as "high places." . The Israelites displayed a pandemic failure to love their fellow man. He describes Israel as a luxuriant grape vine sending runners in every direction, indicating a bountiful crop. The only trouble is that people like to feel comfortable in moral mediocrity. guilty of adopting the ghastly Canaanite practice of child sacrifice. A religion with such a beginning was doomed to fail, bringing the nation down with it. The practice of Baal worship was wide spread in Bible times and was very evil. . Most of the information they gave turned out to be wrong, to be lies. ; contact address: [emailprotected]. Yet such fluidity in the use of the term baal did not prevent it from being attached to a god of distinct character. The spectacular victory for Yahwism did not have a lasting effect. That made God so angry that a plague spread through their ranks; Phinehas stood up and pled their case and the . 3:23). Baal worship spread rapidly when the king of Israel, Ahab, married Jezebel, the princess of Tyre (1 Kings 16:31-32). (Jeremiah 7:8-10). Moffatt renders this, "They worshipped the Eternal, and they also served their own gods.". Indeed, religion flourished, as Amos, Hosea's contemporary, clearly reports (see Amos 5:21-27). Various forms of Baal worship are still going on in the Catholic church; even though these pagan idols were incorporated into Catholicism centuries ago, the worship of the sun still exists to this day. The association of the name Baal-Zephon with Israel's exit from Egypt (Ex. In distress some would naturally revert to the old ways of reviving or reactivating the rain-god prayer, mourning, self-laceration, dancing, and water-pouring (I Kings 18:2628; Hos. In another room was a round base that likely supported a wooden pillar. 74:1314, 89:910, 93:1ff. To become moral, we must kill our selfish egos through the use and guidance of God's Holy Spirit. More than 1400 of her works have been featured in various publications. Extra-biblical evidence for the flourishing Baal cult at Samaria in the ninth and eighth centuries B.C.E. In the Bible, the followers of the one true God encounter other gods, or previously worshipped idols themselves. Your email address will not be published. In the books of Kings and Chronicles, we can read the record of a given king who turned away from God and served the Baals, and the foolishness sounds quick and casual because we are reading a summary. Recall God's prophecy in Deuteronomy 32:15, predicting that when Israel prospered, then it would rebel. From Easton's Bible Dictionary:Baal-peor: lord of the opening, a god of the Moabites (Numbers 25:3; 31:16; Joshua 22:17), worshipped by obscene rites. Asherah, mother of the gods, was prevailed upon to intercede with El to gain permission for the building. He may have replaced the Sabbath with Sunday worship. Photo: Courtesy of Claude Doumet-Serhal. In the Hebrew Bible, Moloch is presented as a foreign deity who was at times illegitimately given a place in Israel's worship as a result of the syncretistic policies of certain apostate kings. Apparently in anticipation of developments the artisan god Koshar had cast furnishings of gold and silver. 1:711). Val is related to valimai in Tamil. So the word Poeni can be rewritten as Peyeni or as Payani or as Payan. The open-air altar shrine, called a bamah (plural bamot), is known through several books of the Biblical canonbut none more so than the Book of Kings, where they play a prominent role in assessing the performance of a king.Often referred to as "high places" in translations of the Bible, bamot were worship sites that usually contained an altar. Today, some evangelicals attempt to prepare the people for what is to come, but their teaching is a mixture of right and wrong. The Sovereign Creator is not a God who allows His favor to be bought with crumbs. The heyday of Baal worship in Israel came in the days of Elijah, when the Phoenician princess Jezebel launched a massive campaign to promote Baal. Israel's false religion, represented by the altars of Bethel, is at the root of her problems. The myths also tell of Baals struggle to obtain a palace comparable in grandeur to those of other gods. Who were the Sidonians of the Bronze Age (c. 30001200 B.C.E.)? Your email address will not be published. For this reason, God shows that the preacher, not the civil authority, is the most vital part of the community. (The Book of Amos) (Part Two). 19:5ff.). The religion of Israel began with a man, Jeroboam I, who changed the true worship of God (I Kings 12:26-33). The word bal, common Semitic for "owner, master, husband," became the usual designation of the great weather-god of the Western Semites. The prophet Haggai attributed the drought and scarcity in his day to the failure to rebuild the Temple (Hag. There was, therefore, continuity in Sidons population from the Bronze to the Iron Age. because they sell the righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of sandals. In popular and syncretistic religion in Israel, Yahweh could be equated with both El and Baal. In the mysterious tablets of Ugarit, discovered by Claude Schaeffer, Baal is the God of rain, thunder, and extraordinary bolts of lightning. This is the crux of our salvation through Jesus Christ. 13:2) such as Baal himself performed in the Ugaritic myth are depicted in the prophetic tirades. Whoever is missing shall not live.". Prepare to Meet Your God! The Sidonians were the inhabitants of ancient Sidon, a seaport on the Mediterranean Sea in modern Lebanon. While they gave lip service to the Creator, they adopted most of the Canaanitish religion with its lewd immorality, and in actual practice, patterned their life after it. Sidons Phoenician Temple. Doumet-Serhal explains the significance of the handles iconography: The dragon epitomizes the most fundamental ancient mythical perception of the Mesopotamian storm god. The prophet turns the heat on, and they become angry with him when he is actually working to make them better. . Rejection of God's Law. But when a falling away happens around us, perhaps even beginning before we were born, it is easy for our minds to adjust to the point that we almost forget the continuing rebellion against God and His way. THIS IS A PROFILE OF PRACTICES, DOCTRINES, AND SYMBOLS OF BAAL WORSHIP . Gray, The Legacy of Canaan (rev. ), from an original Baal-Zebul, which is preserved in this form in the New Testament (Matt. The name Baal in the Bible is most commonly associated with the Canaanite and Phoenician god of fertility, the rain, the sun, and the storm. Baal Peor, or the Baal of Peor, was a local deity worshiped by the Moabites. The worship of Baal penetrated Jewish religious life during the period of the Judges ( Judges 3:7 ), became common in Israel during the rule of Ahab ( 1 Kings 16:31-33 ), and also influenced Judah ( 2 Chronicles 28:1-2 ). He was to be an aid in getting them from their state of being merely "churched" to that of being truly religious and servants of the Most High God. JezaBel can be respelLt as JezaVel ~ JezaVAl ~ IezaVAL ~ Isaval-lavi ~ an expert in music. The continued worship of Baal was given as one of the causes for the destruction of Judah (Jer. They too had blended the worship of the true God with outright paganism, utterly corrupting the relationship He had established with them. Baal is a Canaanite and Phoeniciandeity and the son of the chief god El. a little T-shaped mark that stands for the long-A vowel (like a in father). Baal's 450 prophets worked themselves into a frenzy, cutting themselves, dancing, and chanting to their god. It indeed produces great material prosperity, but it is consumed through self-indulgent gorging. Verse 15 points out that the people "rejected [God's] statutes and His covenant that He had made with their fathers, and His testimonies which He had testified against them." In the Bible, Jezebel is notorious for persecuting the worship of Yahweh and for demanding that the Israelites worship Baal. Ashtar the Awful (ttrr) was then nominated to replace Baal, but when he ascended the throne, his feet did not reach the footstool nor his head the top and so he declined to reign on the heights of apn and descended from Baal's throne, but ruled over all El's earth. Archaeologists at Sidon have uncovered a 12th-11th-century B.C.E. Or about Yahweh? Given Jezebels religious fervor in the Bible, one would expect to find evidence of Baal worship at Sidon. The word bel can be transformed into vel or val. That Baal appears to be a relative newcomer in the Ugaritic pantheon has been generally recognized, and it may be that Sakkhunyaton's story about Baal's paternity reflects a mythologizing of the process by which Baal was integrated into the family of El. Remember, this falling away sets the stage for the man of sin, who will have tremendous influence over humanity. They think that what they are doing is right, but they are deceived. Jehu's massacre of the Baal worshipers (II Kings 10:1828) did not eradicate bull worship (II Kings 10:31). Learn about the Canaanite-Phoenician deities who were called Baal, which means Lord. After a sortie against the sea-god, Baal returned to his house and ordered Koshar to install a window; Koshar laughed, reminded Baal of the debate, and complied. Near Baals temple was that of Dagon, given in the tablets as Baals father. Baal was a cruel, sensuous, and revolting false god whose worship involved sexual degradation and lewdness. Since Baal was, like almost all ancient deities, a fertility god, the human act of intercourse demonstrated that they wanted Baal to prosper them. Christ's purpose is to cure, not merely to comfort, so pain will be often involved when dealing with a prophet. Dated to c. 1750 B.C.E., the handle pictures the storm god as a leonine dragon. Baal, god worshipped in many ancient Middle Eastern communities, especially among the Canaanites, who apparently considered him a fertility deity and one of the most important gods in the pantheon. Biblical narrative incorporates tales of Baal worship into the traditions of the wilderness wandering, thus tracing Baal worship to the earliest period of Israel's existence. linked to Molech (also called Milcom in the Bible). The variant form Hadad (hdd) is attested to only once in Ugaritic. Claude Doumet-Serhal of the British Museum details recent excavations at Sidon in her article SidonCanaans Firstborn, published in the July/August 2017 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review. Since their rejection of the house of David under Jeroboam I, the Israelites had practiced a syncretistic religion (Amos 5:21-26; 8:14; I Kings 12:25-33). Baal was the title of the "god" worshiped in ancient Canaan and Phoenicia. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). Baal (/ b e. No doubt, we cant cover the breadth of verses on Baal here, but we should make a note that Baal becomes a big player in the book of Judges and during the time of the kings when Israel appears to succumb most to the foreign pantheons. Even as the Canaanite religion waned, Baal took on a new role as Zeus in the Ancient Greek pantheon. The Tetragrammaton should be rendered as Yahoah, with the vav being pronounced as the o in Torah, menorah, Eloah (singular form of Elohim), and Yehoshua (=Joshua, Christs REAL name). Whether it turns out to be the falling away remains to be seen. In some cases, they attempted to attach this practice to worship of the Lord (Ezek 23:39). The divine child was named Demarous, one of the cognomens of Zeus-Baal-Hadad. Baal was the god of agriculture and fertility in Canaan, becoming a fallen angel and a demon. Baal persuaded Asherah to intercede with her husband El, the head of the pantheon, to authorize the construction of a palace. For instance, Amos 2:7 describes a deliberate act of ritual prostitution in a pagan temple: "A man and his father go in to the same girl, to defile My holy name." Psalm 68 may have been written, in part, as a polemic against Baal worship wherein it is indicated in verse 4 that YHWH is the one who rides the clouds. The biblical allusions to YHWH's victory over the sea preserve echoes of the older exploit of Baal (cf. . He was also called the Lord of Rain and Dew, the two forms of moisture that were indispensable for fertile soil in Canaan. Even those who have vaguely heard of the name Baal in the Bible know it doesnt have a good connotation. He bowed down to all the starry hosts and worshiped them (2 Kings 21:3). Kings Ahaz and Manasseh, Article Images Copyright 2023 Getty Images unless otherwise indicated. Baal was a false god the feckless Jewish King Ahab and his wicked wife, Jezebel, attempted to force upon the nation of Israel during the time of Elijah the prophet (see 1 Kings 18). In short, Scripture has nothing positive to say about Baal.