We may now pass to the miestion whether the common view is correct, that 15. was the name for the supreme deity of the Canaanites. It is a serious objection to this view, that, except in names, neither on the monuments nor in the OT can we find B. as a proper name standing by itself. We frequently have B. with the article, the B., or B. followed by the name of a place, quality, etc. In the former case the use of the article precludes us from treating B. as a proper name : it means the divine owner or landlord of the district in question. Similarly in the latter case the particular B. in- tended IS distinguished from other Baals by the addition of the qu.alifying words. It is said by some that B. was originally one and the same deity, but for the consciousness of the people, the B. of one place was a difTerent god from the B. of another (cf. Baethgen, Beitrage, p. 19). But if that had been so, we should have expected to find traces of this original deity, whereas all we find is the Baals into which he has been differentiated. Nor is it easy on this view to account for the use of the plural 'the Baalim.' This has been inter- preted as an emphatic plural 'great B.,' or as images of B., or li. under his various manifesta- tions. But, taken with the facts already men- tioned, by far the most natural explanation is that the word is a collective plural, and means the local Baals. And if this he so, it follows that B. can hardly be the sun for it is the same everywhere, while the Baalim were distinct from each other.
and thus our previous conclusion is confirmed by an independent line of argument.
The evidence seems to warrant the following statement. There was originally no supreme deity called B., nor is B. to be identified with the sun. There was only the Baal (or Bajils) of particular places distinct from each other. The worship probably arose in connexion with ap-iculture. The local Baals fertilised each his own district by his streams and springs, and hence they were the owners of these naturally fertile spots. Tribute was therefore due to them, whether for the crops raised on the fertile ground, or for the water used in making land fertile by irrigation. By a natural extension the fertility of land watered by rain was also ascribed to the Baals. But by a process, to which we have abundant parallels in the cults of the powers of fertility, the giving of animal fruitfulness was attributed to them, and their worship was thus debased by repulsive immorality. These Baalim seem from Hos 2" to have had their individual names. It is admitted by W. R. Smith that ' in later times B. or Bel became a proper name, esp. in con- nexion with the cult of the Bab. Bel ' (iJS^ 95).
When Israel entered Canaan the worship of the Baalim was everywhere present. As it was esp. associated with agriculture, which the Israelites learnt from the Canaanites, there was danger lest they should take over also the religious festivals connected with the various agricultural seasons, and thus succumb to the deadly fascination of the sensual nature-worship of the older inhabitants. That this actually happened we learn from the history. Matters were made worse by the custom, which we find among the Israelites, of speaking of J" as Baal. Since B. was not a proper name, but only an appellative, this custom was perfectly innocent, and all that was meant was that J" was the divine owner of His people, or the husband of Israel. But this double use of the term Baal for the local deity and for J" tended to produce confusion between them, and by this syncretism the conception of J" was debased by elements borrowed from nature-worship, and the lapse into idolatry was made much easier. The fact referred to, that the Israelites spoke of J" as Baal, has been disputed, but rests on very strong evidence. We have names such as Ishbaal and Meribbaal, and even such a name as Bealiah (1 Ch 12°), 'J" is Baal.' Further, we learn from Hosea that the Israelites called J" Baali, i.e. my Baal (Hos 2"^ ; see Driver, Sam. 186, 195 f., 279 ; Gray, Heb. Prop. Names, Ulif.).
With Ahab a new phase emerges. The B. whose worship he established was Melkart, the B. of Tyre, his wife's home(l K 16'-). We have here an instance of a local B. worshipped in a foreign country. The worship of Melkart was not in- tended to supersede the worship of J", but to exist side by side with it. Elijah forced on the popular mind the conviction that J" and Melkart were mutually exclusive. The worship was discontinued by Jehoram, the son of Ahab (2 K 3-), but stamped out by .Jehu's treacherous slaughter of its adherents (2 K lO"'-''). In Judali it seems to have been estab- lished by Jehoram, the son of Jehoshaphat, and continued by Ahaziah (2 K 8'"- '■"). We find it in the reign of Athaliah, and it was suppressed at her death (2 K 11'*). The later B.-worship, to which we find several references in the prophets ( Hosea, Jeremiah, Zejihaniah), seems to have been the worship of the local Baalim rather than of Melkart.