Baal In the Name And Asherah In The Temple—Saul, David, Solomon, And Other Biblical Kings Had Links To The Canaanite Gods

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thehistorianshut
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In the Bible, the most ancient and foundational Hebrew kings (like Saul, David, Solomon, and others) had a complicated relationship with the West Semitic, or Canaanite, gods (such as the high-god El, the storm-god Baal, the consort goddess Asherah, and the fertility goddess Astarte), who were worshipped by the linguistically and literarily similar peoples of ancient Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria. Kings Saul and David, the first and second king of Israel, both had children with names that honored the storm-god, Baal—a provider of life-giving rains who was titled by his believers as Baal the Conqueror, Prince Baal, the Most High, Rider on the Clouds, and Lord of the Earth. King Saul (said to have ruled approximately c. 1021–1000 BCE), is known to have had a son named Esh-baal or Ishbaal (meaning ‘Man of Baal’), and Saul’s grandchildren also had names with Baal references. On this curious family, the Bible states, “Ner became the father of Kish, Kish of Saul, Saul of Jonathan, Malchishua, Abinadab, and Esh-baal; and the son of Jonathan was Merib-baal; and Merib-baal became the father of Micah” (1 Chronicles 8.33-34, NRSV translation). King David (flourished c. 1000 BCE), for his part, named one of his children Baalyada (which means ‘Baal knows’), and is also spelled Beeliada. The Baal and Beel discrepancy is explainable in the same way Baal-zebub (from 2 Kings 1.2) is alternatively called Beelzebub (Mark 3.22). Furthermore, many names in the Bible that end with -bosheth or -boset (meaning shame), are replaced, edited, or censored names that originally contained references to Baal or other Canaanite gods. For example, Saul’s son, Ishbaal, and grandson, Merib-baal, were posthumously renamed Ishbosheth and Mephibosheth when later Hebrew theologians and kings began to criticize, and crack down upon, the presences and references to anything besides Yahweh worship in the kingdom. It could be argued that Saul and David used the word “baal” in its more mundane meaning of “lord” or “owner,” but if that was the case, why were the names of their family members later altered and stamped with shame. Names aside, the early kings coexisted with the Canaanite gods and interacted with them in interesting ways.

If one reads the Bible carefully, it is not surprising that Canaanite gods had a presence in the families of King Saul and King David, for the West Semitic deities appeared again and again in stories about the ancient Hebrew civilization and its earliest kings. Both the early Hebrews and the Canaanites identified God as El. The first kings and their subjects believed in El Shaddai (or Shadday), often translated to God Almighty, but it could also be translated to El of the Mountain. More frequently used was Elohim (another word translated to God), and the word was also used to describe the heavenly beings, or sons of God (běnê ‘ělōhîm). Angel names also reference El, for it is not a coincidence that angelic names like Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Uriel, Sariel, and others, all end in “el.” Eventually, the word, El, was replaced with YHWH (Yahweh). As told in the bible, “God also spoke to Moses and said to him, ‘I am the Lord. I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as God Almighty [El Shaddai in Hebrew], but by my name ‘The Lord’ [YHWH; aka Yahweh] I did not make myself known to them” (Exodus 6.2, NRSV translation). The Canaanites, for their part, believed in a high-god, El, a creator deity who was seen as a god whose mountain home was the main source of the world’s fresh bodies of water. His titles included El the Bull, the Father of Time, the Creator of Creatures, the Kind and Holy One, as well as El the Kind, the Compassionate. Furthermore, Canaanite and Hebrew characterizations of death were similar, and they shared a belief in Rephaim, kingly shades that hold prominence in the underworld.

In the stories of the Bible, worship of the Canaanite gods, Baal, Asherah, and Astarte was particularly prevalent among the Hebrews, and there was also a following for an enigmatic deity known as the Queen of Heaven (which was likely another title for Astarte). The author of the Book of Judges criticized this trend, stating, “Then the Israelites did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals, and they abandoned the Lord, the God of their ancestors, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt; they followed other gods, from among the gods of the peoples who were all around them and bowed down to them, and they provoked the Lord to anger. They abandoned the Lord and served Baal and the Astartes” (Judges 2.11-13). Asherah, a West Semitic goddess who was the consort of El or Baal in the Canaanite religious traditions, also made appearances in scripture. Also called Ashimah in the Bible, she was known to have had a stronghold of followers in Samaria and her worship was associated with a sacred pole or tree. In the Second Book of Kings, it was said, “the sacred pole also remained in Samaria” (2 Kings 13.6), and in the Book of Amos “Those who swear by Ashimah of Samaria” (Amos 8.14) were mentioned. As for the mysterious Queen of Heaven, the author of the Book of Jeremiah wrote, “Do you not see what they are doing in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? The children gather wood, the fathers kindle fire, and the women knead dough, to make cakes for the queen of heaven, and they pour out drink offerings to other gods, to provoke me to anger” (Jeremiah 7.17-18). After this quote, when the worshippers of the Queen of Heaven were challenged by Jeremiah, they responded in this way:

“’As for the word that you have spoken to us in the name of the Lord, we are not going to listen to you. Instead, we will do everything that we have vowed, make offerings to the queen of heaven and pour out libations to her, just as we and our ancestors, our kings and our officials, used to do in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. We used to have plenty of food and prospered and saw no misfortune. But from the time we stopped making offerings to the queen of heaven and pouring out libations to her, we have lacked everything and have perished by the sword and by famine.’ And the women said, ‘Indeed we will go on making offerings to the queen of heaven and pouring out libations to her; do you think that we made cakes for her, marked with her image, and poured out libations to her without our husbands’ being involved?’” (Jeremiah 44.16-19).

Like Saul and David, other early kings were associated with the West Semitic gods. On King Solomon, famous for his wisdom, the authors of the Bible wrote: “when Solomon was old, his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not true to the Lord his God, as was the heart of his father David. For Solomon followed Astarte the goddess of the Sidonians and Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites” (1 Kings 11.4-5). God later elaborated further on Solomon’s transgressions, stating, “he has forsaken me, worshiped Astarte the goddess of the Sidonians, Chemosh the god of Moab, and Milcom the god of the Ammonites, and has not walked in my ways, doing what is right in my sight and keeping my statutes and my ordinances, as his father David did” (1 Kings 11.33). King Ahab was another notable example. On him, the Bible states, “he took as his wife Jezebel daughter of King Ethbaal of the Sidonians and went and served Baal and worshiped him. He erected an altar for Baal in the house of Baal that he built in Samaria. Ahab also made a sacred pole. Ahab did more to provoke the anger of the Lord, the God of Israel, than had all the kings of Israel who were before him” (1 Kings 16.31-33). King Manasseh was even more prolific in his worship. He supported deities such as Baal and Asherah, worshipped the host of heaven, dealt with spiritual mediums, and supported obscure rites involving fire that were carried out in connection to the dead, the underworld, and the afterlife. On this figure, the author of the Second Book of Kings wrote:

“Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign; he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hephzibah. He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, following the abominable practices of the nations that the Lord drove out before the people of Israel. For he rebuilt the high places that his father Hezekiah had destroyed; he erected altars for Baal, made a sacred pole, as King Ahab of Israel had done, worshiped all the host of heaven and served them. He built altars in the house of the Lord, of which the Lord had said, ‘In Jerusalem I will put my name.’ He built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord. He made his son pass through fire; he practiced soothsaying and augury and dealt with mediums and with wizards. He did much evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger. The carved image of Asherah that he had made he set in the house of which the Lord said to David and to his son Solomon, ‘In this house and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put my name forever’” (2 Kings 21.1-7).

If Saul’s and David’s kingly successors were adherents of Astarte, and had depictions of Asherah in the temple of God, and if the earliest Hebrews were not opposed to worshipping Baal and Astarte, to some extent, alongside El, then it is not surprising that members of the early royal families were named after Baal. The presence of Baal, Astarte, Asherah and other West Semitic deities seemed to only have begun to disappear when rulers such as Manasseh’s grandson, King Josiah (r. 640–609 BCE), cracked down with an iron fist against the worshippers, priests and shrines of other gods within the bounds of the kingdom.

Written by C. Keith Hansley

Picture Attribution: (Saul, sculpted by William Wetmore Story (c. 1819-1895), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons and the Smithsonian).

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1 COMMENT

  1. thank you for this. these are the stories that both religious groups and occult groups i feel could benefit from talking about more- how there is a crossover between their figures.

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