The wide-spread and primitive Semitic root (“ba'al”) may be most nearly rendered in English by “possess.” The term “Ba'al,” therefore, which is usually explained as meaning “lord,” is properly “possessor” or “owner,” and is so used in a great variety of applications in common Hebrew speech. Thus we read of the “ba'al” of a house, of land, of goods, of a woman (that is, as a husband). It is also generalized so far as to be a mere noun of relation. Thus a “ba'al of dreams” is a dreamer; a “ba'al of anger” is an angry man; a “ba'al of wings” is a bird; a “ba'al of edges” is two-edged; “ba'alim of a covenant” are allies; “ba'als of an oath” are conspirators. Further, a “ba'al” may be the owner of animals (Isaiah 1:3; Exodus 21:28 et seq.), but not of men as slaves or subjects, for the phrase in Isaiah 16:8, the “ba'alim” of the nations, implies dominion over regions rather than over people. “Ba'al” in Hebrew is therefore essentially different from “adon,” which implies personal sway and control. When any divinity is called “ba'al” or “a ba'al,” the designation must be understood to imply not a ruler of men, but a possessor or controller of certain things. On the other hand, the Assyrian (Babylonian) “bēl,” originally the same word, implies especially lordship over men, though it is also, as in all north-Semitic languages, used as a mere noun of relation. In Arabic “ba'al,” as applied to persons, is confined to the meaning of “husband.”
The question as to the origin of the Worship of Ba'al among the Hebrews can only be settled by tracing it among the Semites in general and especially among the Babylonians. Here the name (Bel) is that of one of the earliest and most honored of national deities. Bel was the special god of Nippur, perhaps the oldest of Babylonian cities. Nippur was in the earliest known times a religious center, and the prestige of Bel was so great that when the city of Babylon became supreme his name was imposed upon that of Merodach, the patron deity of the capital, who was thenceforth known as Bel-Merodach or simply Bel (compare Isaiah 46:1). There is, however, nothing to show that Bel was a universal object of Semitic worship before he became the god of Nippur. Moreover, Nippur, like other Babylonian cities, had its own local deity under whose auspices the city itself and its temple were founded, and who seems to have received the name Bel, “lordly, dominant,” by reason of the renown and influence of this central shrine.
This, however, will hardly account for the place held by Bel in the Babylonian pantheon, where he appears as the god of the earth, distinguished from Anu, the god of the heavens, and Ea, the god of the lower world. Bel seems to have been honored on similar grounds in Lagash in southern Babylonia, and it is reasonable to suppose that it was a combination of the several leading cults of such Bels that led to the unification indicated in the position of the great Babylonian Bel. It appears probable that it was the gradual assimilation of cities and petty states that raised the leading local deities to national prominence. Thereafter other influences, sacerdotal, theological, and administrative, cooperated to make a favorite cult predominant. Bel, accordingly, became a distinct national god, with a proper name, at an early date, though at a comparatively late stage of religious development.
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Author: Jewish Encyclopedia
Keywords: worship Baal, baal, baal worship, strange god, idols, idol baal, baalim, possessor, owner
Bible reference(s): Numbers 22:41, Judges 2:11, Judges 2:13, Judges 3:7, Judges 6:25, Judges 6:28, Judges 6:30, Judges 6:31, Judges 8:33, Judges 10:6, Judges 10:10, Judges 10:16, 1 Samuel 7:3, 1 Samuel 7:4, 1 Samuel 12:10, 1 Kings 16:31, 1 Kings 16:32, 1 Kings 18:18, 1 Kings 18:19, 1 Kings 18:25, 1 Kings 18:26, 1 Kings 18:40, 1 Kings 19:18, 1 Kings 22:53, 2 Kings 3:2, 2 Kings 10:18, 2 Kings 10:19, 2 Kings 10:20, 2 Kings 10:21, 2 Kings 10:22, 2 Kings 10:23, 2 Kings 10:25, 2 Kings 10:26, 2 Kings 10:27, 2 Kings 11:18, 2 Kings 17:16, 2 Kings 21:3, 2 Kings 23:4, 2 Kings 23:5, 1 Chronicles 4:33, 2 Chronicles 14:3, 2 Chronicles 17:3, 2 Chronicles 23:17, 2 Chronicles 24:7, 2 Chronicles 28:2, 2 Chronicles 33:3, 2 Chronicles 33:15, 2 Chronicles 34:4, Psalms 44:20, Psalms 81:9, Isaiah 43:12, Jeremiah 2:8, Jeremiah 2:23, Jeremiah 5:19, Jeremiah 7:9, Jeremiah 9:14, Jeremiah 11:13, Jeremiah 11:17, Jeremiah 12:16, Jeremiah 19:5, Jeremiah 23:13, Jeremiah 23:27, Jeremiah 32:29, Jeremiah 32:35, Daniel 11:39, Hosea 2:8, Hosea 2:13, Hosea 2:17, Hosea 11:2, Hosea 13:1, Zephaniah 1:4, Malachi 2:11, Acts 17:18, Romans 11:4, Baruch 1:22, 2 Esdras 1:6
Source: Isidore Singer (editor), The Jewish Encyclopedia (12 Volumes), (1906).
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