BAAL bāl (בַּ֫עַל֒, H1251, meaning owner, master, lord or husband). The word appears infrequently in the OT as a personal name (1 Chron 5:5; 8:30; 9:36). Generally, it designates the Canaanite deity, either local, when it is qualified by the place-name (e.g. Baal-peor, Num 25:3; Baal-gad, Josh 11:17; Baal-hermon, Judg 3:3, etc.) or some other limiting characteristic (e.g. Baal-berith, “Baal of the covenant,” Judg 8:33; Baal-zebub, possibly an intentional corruption of Baal-zebul, “Baal-prince,” 2 Kings 1:2), or the great cosmic nature-god. The etymology of the word suggests that Baal was regarded as the owner of a particular locality, thus limiting the use of the word to people who were no longer nomads, but settled on the land. These local baals were believed to control fertility in agriculture, beasts, and mankind. It was highly important to secure their favor, therefore, particularly in an area like Pal. with few natural streams or springs and with an uncertain rainfall. This led to the adoption of extreme forms in the cultus, including the practice of ritual prostitution (Judg 2:17; Jer 7:9; Amos 2:7) and child-sacrifice (Jer 19:5). The plurality of local gods led to the Heb. prophets grouping them under the pl. form (Heb. בְּעָלִֽים), as in 1 Kings 18:18.

The most important use of the title in the OT is its reference to the great active god of the Canaanite pantheon, who controlled rain and fertility. An equation with Hadad, the Amorite god whose nature and functions were almost identical, seems clear. The probability is that Amorite settlers brought their gods with them in the great westward migratory movement early in the second millennium b.c., the name of Hadad changing to Baal as they settled in Canaan. In process of time Baal became the region’s chief deity. Some scholars believe that part of this process can be traced in the Ugaritic texts. El was doubtless the original head of the Canaanite gods, but Baal is described, not as the son of El, but as the son of Dagon, another Amorite deity, prob. a vegetation or grain god. Temples to both Baal and Dagon have been discovered at Ras Shamra (the site of ancient Ugarit), but not one dedicated to El himself. In the Ugaritic texts El is a rather nebulous figure, a “father of years” who dwells at the “Source of the Two Deeps” and conveys his instructions by messengers, suggesting both his age and his remoteness. Moreover, Ashirat (the Biblical “Asherah”), the consort of El, appears to be in process of transfer to Baal, which hints further at the latter’s displacement of El. It is perhaps of significance that the OT links Baal and Asherah together (e.g. Judg 3:7).

Baal’s importance at Ugarit is unquestioned. His name appears more than 150 times in the texts published to date, the form Aliyan Baal (Baal the Strong) is found seventy times and the compound Baal-hadad on approximately twenty occasions. He is connected with Mt. Sapon, the “mountain of the gods of the north,” usually identified with the modern Jebel el-Aqra, N of Ras Shamra, in a way which is reminiscent of Mt. Olympus, the home of the Gr. pantheon (cf. the reference to Yahweh in Ps 48:1, 2). Another frequent description of Baal is “the rider of the clouds,” which echoes the reference to Yahweh in Psalm 68:4 (cf. Ps 104:3). In the sculptures Baal is shown with a helmet adorned with the horns of a bull, the symbol of strength and fertility. In one hand he grasps a club or mace, possibly symbolic of thunder, and in the other a spear embellished with leaves, which may portray both lightning and vegetation. In Aramean sculptures Baal stands upon a bull, which may connect with the calf-images made by Aaron and Jeroboam I (Exod 32:4; 1 Kings 12:28), these being regarded, in all probability, as pedestals for the invisible Yahweh. Anath, often referred to somewhat euphemistically as “the virgin Anath,” was both consort and sister to Baal and shared his several adventures.

In the numerous texts discovered at Ras Shamra two main myth-complexes concerning Baal may be distinguished. The first concerns a crucial conflict with Prince Sea-Judge River (prob. only one god is indicated, the Lord of Waters) who has tyrannized the gods. Baal, with the assistance of the artificer-god, Kothar wa-Khasis (“the Skillful and Percipient One”), defeated his opponent, who was henceforth confined to his proper realm. Some scholars would equate Prince Sea with Lotan “the twisting serpent,” the Leviathan of the OT. This conflict with the dragon or chaos monster is a recurring element in the mythology of the Fertile Crescent which has influenced the language and thought-forms of the OT. They have been thoroughly demythologized, however, and connected with Yahweh’s absolute sovereignty over all the forces of this world. This Canaanite myth concerning Baal’s victory provided a convenient, as well as a graphic illustration of that sovereignty. The origin of the Day of the Lord may be the occasion when Yahweh’s victory over the forces of chaos was celebrated, possibly at the New Year Festival in the Jerusalem Temple, in a rite which developed from a Canaanite prototype.

The second myth-complex has no such echo in the OT. It is in the realm of the fertility cult with its dying-rising god motif. Aliyan Baal, at the height of the summer drought (i.e. when vegetation is dying and the land parched) was slain by Mot (Death). Anath searched for the body with the assistance of the sun goddess, Shapsh. She found it, and after numerous animal sacrifices (seventy each of buffaloes, neat, small cattle, deer, mountain goats, and roebucks) Baal was restored to life and reigned over Mot, thus assuring life and fertility for the year ahead. This myth was acted out with a background of sympathetic magic at the Canaanite New Year Festival and, with its vital connection with the desired fertility, was doubtless the most important feature of the cultic year. It was attended by the appropriate response from the worshipers, culminating in the grossly sensuous rites accompanying the sacred marriage, in which ritual prostitution of both sexes was a prominent feature.

There is evidence that Baal and other Canaanite deities were worshiped in Egypt, but without becoming a serious menace to the native Egyp. religion. The situation was otherwise in Israel, where, through the processes of syncretism, the worship of Yahweh was profoundly influenced and threatened by alien elements from the Baal cults. This was due to two main factors: (1) The Israelites did not drive out the Canaanites, but intermarried with them, thus raising the problem of the inter-relationship of Yahweh and Baal. (2) Yahweh had given Israel a considerable victory over the Canaanites and his supremacy was unquestioned. The average Israelite associated Him with the wilderness in which they had spent the major portion of their lives. In Canaan they were dependent upon the fertility of the land, which, in popular thought, was controlled by the Baal gods. Many, therefore, conceived it wise to pay deference to the Baal gods. This tendency was prob. accelerated by the sensuous appeal of the Canaanite cultus. In process of time their Yahweh worship became Canaanized, and although Yahweh continued to be worshiped, the attributes and even the name of Baal became attached to Him. These syncretistic tendencies are illustrated, both in editorial comment and actual example, in the Book of Judges (e.g. 2:1-5, 11-13, 17, 19; 3:5-7; 6:25, 26, etc.). They also are reflected in such theophoric names as Jerubbaal (Judg 7:1), Beeliada (1 Chron 14:7), Esh-baal and Merib-baal (1 Chron 8:33, 34). Such usage was prob. in all innocence, Yahweh being regarded as the “owner” or “husband” of Israel. The Samaria ostraca, dating from c. 780 b.c., show that this tendency was particularly prominent in the northern kingdom; for every two names in the lists compounded with the name of Yahweh, one was formed with Baal. The northe rn kingdom was more susceptible to the inroads of the native Canaanite cults than was the more isolated and largely agricultural kingdom of Judah. Thus Israel sustained the deliberate attempt by the Phoen. princess Jezebel to obliterate Yahweh worship (cf. 1 Kings 18:4) and make Baal (prob. Baal-melqart) the official god. Only 7000 Israelites remained true to Yahweh (19:18), but the crisis was averted by the decisive action of the prophet Elijah (ch. 18).

The 8th cent. prophets recognized the dangers inherent in the situation and called the people back to a belief in Yahweh alone and to a cult purified of its Canaanite accretions. Hosea proposed that the name of Baal be no longer employed of Yahweh (Hosea 2:16, 17) and he and Jeremiah, of all the prophets, pointed out the dangers of a Canaanized Yahweh cultus to a people who were quite unaware of their apostasy (e.g. Jer 2:23). Once this was realized, the name of Baal was regarded with abhorrence, and editorial treatment was applied in many instances to names in which it occurred. Often the word for “shame” (Heb. בֹּ֫שֶׁת, H1425) was substituted, as in the forms Jerubbesheth (2 Sam 11:21), Ish-bosheth (2:8), Mephibosheth (9:6), and even where the Canaanite deity himself was involved (e.g. Jer 3:24; 11:13; Hos 9:10). Only after two major reformations aimed at the elimination of Baal worship (2 Kings 18:4-6; 23:4-15) and the chastisement involved in the national disaster of 587 b.c., did a majority of the Jews finally forsake the last vestiges of Baal worship and turn in contrition to Yahweh, the covenant-God.

Bibliography W. R. Smith, The Religion of the Semites (1927); A. S. Kapelrud, Baal in the Ras Shamra Texts (1952); C. F. Pfeiffer, Ras Shamra and the Bible (1962); J. Gray, The Canaanites (1964); A. S. Kapelrud, The Ras Shamra Discoveries and the Old Testament (1965).