JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

aal worship
YHWH Versus Baal
The worship of Baal in Syria-Palestine was inextricably bound
to the economy of the land which depends on the regularity
and adequacy of the rains. Unlike Egypt and Mesopotamia,
which depend on irrigation, the Promised Land drinks water
from the rain of heaven (Deut. 11:10–11). During the summer
months the rains cease, but the temporary drought is
no threat unless it is abnormally prolonged. Figs and grapes
ripen during the dry season and the grain harvest also takes
place before the rains resume. In a normal good year, when
the rains come in due season, there is no hiatus in productivity,
for the land yields its increase, the trees produce their
fruit, the threshing overlaps, the vintage overlaps the sowing,
and there is food aplenty, prosperity, and peace (Lev. 26:4–6).
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. 26:19–20). A series of bad years, which were
apparently believed to come in seven-year cycles (cf. Gen. 41;
II Sam. 1:21), would be catastrophic. Thus in any year anxiety
about the rainfall would be a continuing concern of the
inhabitants which would suffice to give rise to rites to ensure
the coming of the rains. Thus the basis of the Baal cult was
the utter dependence of life on the rains which were regarded
as Baal’s bounty.
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. At Shittim
they attached themselves to Baal-Peor, ate sacrifices for
the dead, and indulged in sacred sexual orgies (Num. 25:1–11;
Ps. 106:28). Life in a land dependent on rainfall enhanced
the appeal of the Baal cult and its pervasive influence persisted
through the centuries, as the unrelenting protests of the
prophets and the sporadic efforts at reform attest. Horrendous
and repulsive aspects of the worship – sexual excesses and
perversions (Isa. 57:3–10), perhaps including copulation with
animals (Hos. 13:2) such as Baal himself performed in the Ugaritic
myth – are depicted in the prophetic tirades. Virtually all
reference to Baal’s consort, the violent “Virgin Anath” – with
whom Baal copulates by the thousand in one of the Ugaritic
mythological fragments – has been excluded from the Bible,
but the goddesses Ashtart (Judg. 2:13) and *Asherah (Judg.
6:30; II Kings 16:32–33) are associated with him.
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). The spectacular victory for Yahwism did not have
a lasting effect. Extra-biblical evidence for the flourishing Baal
cult at Samaria in the ninth and eighth centuries B.C.E. was
furnished by Harvard University excavations in the form of
personal names containing Baal as the theophorous element,
such as bʾybʿl, “Baal is my father,” bʿl zmr, “Baal sings” or “Baal
is strong,” bʿl zkr, “Baal remembers,” bʿl mʿny, “Baal is my answer,”
etc. Jehu’s massacre of the Baal worshipers (II Kings
10:18–28) did not eradicate bull worship (II Kings 10:31). In
Judah the murder of the queen mother, *Athaliah, and of Mattan,
priest of Baal, and the smashing of the altars and cult images
in the Baal temple (II Kings 11:18) did not wipe out the
cult (II Kings 12:3–4). Ahaz fostered Baal worship (II Chron.
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).
The contest on Mount Carmel was reported as demonstrating
that Baal was an impotent non-entity and that the
rain came only from YHWH. This viewpoint was developed as
the basic and final argument against Baalism. With Baal’s
functions accredited to YHWH, it was natural and fitting that
some of Baal’s titles would also be taken over. Portions of ancient
Baal liturgy were adapted to the praise of Israel’s God, as
the Ugaritic poems have shown. To accommodate Baal ideology
to Yahwism required some radical transformations.
The summer drought did not mean that YHWH had died
(like Baal), nor did the return of the rains signal the resurrection.
The rains were fully controlled by YHWH who called
them from the sea and poured them out on the surface of
the earth (Amos 5:8b; 9:6b). He could, and did, withhold
the rain from one city and lavish it on another (Amos 4:7).
None of the foolish practices of the heathen could bring the
rains; only YHWH could and did (Jer. 10:11–13; 14:22). If the
rains failed and drought and death came upon the land and
people, it was not because Mot had mangled Baal and made
the glowing sun-goddess destructive; it was rather YHWH’s
way of meting out merited punishment to a faithless and sinful
people (Deut. 11:17; I Kings 8:35–36; Jer. 3:2–3). The continued
worship of Baal was given as one of the causes for the
destruction of Judah (Jer. 19:5ff.). Payment of the full tithe to
the food stores of the Temple, some thought, would guarantee
that YHWH would open the windows of heaven and pour
down overflowing blessings (Mal. 3:10; cf. Avot 5:11 on the
connection between tithing and rain). The prophet Haggai
attributed the drought and scarcity in his day to the failure to
rebuild the Temple (Hag. 1:7–11).
When the rain failed, it was inevitable that some would
question YHWH’s power and resort to Baal. 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 18:26–28; Hos. 7:14–16). The right
remedy, according to Israel’s prophets, was to repudiate Baal
completely and to seek and return to Israel’s true God (Isa.
55:6–13; Jer. 4:1–2; Hos. 14:2).
Bibliography: O. Eissfeldt, Beitraege zur Religionsgeschichte
des Altertums I (1932); H.L. 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), 75–78; N. Habel,
Yahweh Versus Baal: A Conflict of Religious Cultures (1964); J. Gray,
The Legacy of Canaan (rev. ed., 1965); H.B. Huffmon, Amorite Personal
Names in the Mari Texts (1965), 174; W.F. Albright, Yahweh and
the Gods of Canaan (1968); Albright, Arch Rel; S.M. Paul, in: Biblica,
49 (1968), 343–6; U. Oldenburg, The Conflict Between El and Baʿl in
12 ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 3