JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

aal worship
Baalim,” appears to designate minor local gods (Judg. 2:11;
3:7; 8:33), while the singular of the word in combination with
other terms apparently designated minor or local gods, such
as Baal-Berith, Baal-Gad, Baal-Hamon, Baal-Hazor, Baal-
Hermon, or, in the feminine form, a goddess, Baalat-Beer,
Baalat-Gebal. Further, in biblical usage when applied to the
great weather-god, the singular regularly has the article, “the
Baal,” which suggests that the word was not regarded as a
proper name. Nevertheless, despite the biblical tendency to
avoid the use of the word as a proper name, it is now quite
clear that by pre-Israelite times the term had become the
usual name of the weather-god of Syria-Palestine. In the El-
Amarna letters the logogram for the weather-god is conventionally
read Addu, but that it is sometimes to be read Baʿlu
is indicated by the addition of the phonetic complement-lu,
as well as by the names like Mut dIm written syllabically as
mu-ut-ba-ah ̆ -lum. In the El-Amarna letters Canaanite clients
addressed the Egyptian king as “My Baal, my Addu.” In the
Ugaritic mythological texts Baʿlu (bʿl) is the name of the god
which is used more than twice as often as his next most frequent
name, Haddu (hd). The latter name (Amarna, Addu)
is to be related to Arabic hadda (“break,” “crash”) with reference
to thunder. The variant form Hadad (hdd) is attested to
only once in Ugaritic.
That there were minor Baalim also at Ugarit is indicated
by a god list in Akkadian (see Ugaritica, 5, p. 44 ll. 4–10; reconstructed
text) which after the great “Weather-god, Lord of
Mount H ̆ azi” presents six other “weather-gods,” numbered two
through seven. In the parallel Ugaritic list, which is unfortunately
very fragmentary, the “Weather-god, Lord of Mount
H ̆ azi” apparently corresponds to Baal Ṣapān, while those following
are termed simply Baalim (bʿlm). It may be, however,
that these extra Baalim are Baal’s attendants, mentioned as the
seven or eight lads whom Baal is ordered to take with him in
his descent into the netherworld.
Other Titles and Epithets
Besides the names Baal and Haddu, the Ugaritic texts furnish
a variety of other titles, such as “Mighty Baal” (ʾaliyn bʿl)
and “Prince, Lord of Earth” (zbl bʿl arṣ). The latter title has
a biblical echo in the corrupted form Baal-Zebub (II Kings
1:2ff.), from an original Baal-Zebul, which is preserved in
this form in the New Testament (Matt. 10:25, 12:24; Mark
3:22; Luke 11:15, 18). A frequent epithet is “Cloud Rider” (rkb
ʿrpt) which has an almost identical parallel in Psalms 68:5. A
vivid description of theophany in a thunderstorm is found
in Psalms 18:7–15 (= II Sam. 22:8–16). Of special interest is
the designation ʿAliy(ʿly) which is twice applied to Baal in
the Krt Epic:
To the earth Baal rained,
To the field rained ʿAliy.
Sweet to the earth was Baal’s rain
To the field the rain of ʿAliy.
Before the discovery and recognition of this name in
Ugaritic, H.S. Nyberg had restored it in Deuteronomy 33:12;
I Samuel 2:10; II Samuel 23:1; Isaiah 59:18, 63:7; and Hosea 7:16.
Since the Ugaritic verified the antiquity and authenticity of
this divine name, additional instances have been alleged in
the Psalter and in Job.
A common designation of Baal in the Ugaritic myths is
bn-dgn “son of Dagān”; but Baal is also considered the son
of El who is called “Bull El his [i.e., Baal’s] father; El King
who begot him [Baal]” (tr il abh; il mlk dyknnh). Since El and
Dagān are distinct deities, this seeming confusion over Baal’s
paternity needs explanation. A solution has been supplied by
a tradition ascribed to the ancient Phoenician priest Sakkunyaton
(Greek Sanchuniathōn) that when El-Kronos defeated
Ouranos, he captured in the battle Ouranos’ pregnant concubine
and gave her to Dagān. The divine child was named
Demarous, one of the cognomens of Zeus-Baal-Hadad. The
Semitic original of this name has been recognized in one of
Baal’s names in Ugaritic:
Then said Mighty Baal:
Foes of Hadd why haste ye?
Why haste ye opponents of Dmrn?
(The name is to be connected with the root ‡dmr, “be
strong, brave,” and is probably the same as that of Abraham’s
son Zimrān (‡damarān), the -n afformative being preserved
in the genitive case of the Greek form Demarountos). Thus,
according to Sakkunyaton, Baal’s natural father was Ouranos
and Dagān became his foster-father, while El-Kronos effected
the transfer. 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.
Baal’s Residence
Baal’s abode was Mount Ṣapān, identified as Jebel el-Aqraʿ
(“Mount Baldy”) some 30 mi. north of Ugarit. A god Baal
Ṣapān was known from Egyptian and Akkadian sources before
the discovery of the Ugaritic documents. In an Akkadian
catalogue of Ugaritic deities Baal Ṣapān is listed as dIM be-el
h ̆ uršān h ̆ a-zi, “Storm-God, Lord of Mount H ̆ azi” (see above;
H ̆ az [z] i being the Hurrian name of Mount Ṣapān which
survives in the Greek and Latin Kasios/Casius as the name
of the storied mountain of the gods). Isaiah 14:13 alludes to
this divine abode as “the Mount of Assembly in the recesses
of ẓafon” (har moʿed be-yarkete ẓafon), the latter phrase being
the equivalent of Ugaritic mrym ṣpn or ṣrrt ṣpn, the height or
fastness of Ṣapān. The cosmic character of ẓafon leads to its
use as a synonym for “sky” in Job 26:7: “who stretched out
ẓafon on emptiness who suspended earth on naught.” That
ẓafon designated the “north” in Hebrew is presumably due to
the fact that Mount Casius lies directly north of Palestine. In
Psalms 89:13 ẓafon and yamin, in parellelism with Tabor and
Hermon, hardly designate the directions north and south; yamin
is almost certainly a corruption of Amana, the southern
portion of the Taurus mountains, the alteration of ʾamanah to
yamin being occasioned by the misunderstanding of ẓafon as
10 ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 3