<span class="SFPTagline"> From SCIFIPEDIA </span>

For other uses, see: Baal (disambiguation)

Baal is the principal god of the Phoenician and Canaanitish nations, among whom Ashtoreth was the principal goddess.

He was the god of the sun, as ruling and giving life to nature, while Moloch represented the sun as a destroyer, and both these ideas were united later in the god Melkarth.

The oldest form of his worship was on the tops of mountains; thus the Midianites and Amalekites worshiped him on Mount Peor; the Phoenicians on Carmel and the Canaanites on Hermon.

His worship spread among all the towns of Phoenicia, including their distant colonies, such as Malta, Carthage and Cadiz.

The Greeks connected him with Hercules, calling him the Tyrian Hercules. The worship of Baal was very attractive to the Jews, and many years of punishment were necessary to banish it from Israel.

The word Baal is often used in connection with some epithet; as Baal-Berith (the Covenant Lord), and Baal-Zebub or Beelzebub (the Fly-God or Lord of the Flies), the idol of the Philistines at Ekron, where he had a temple.

Other common names as Jezebel and Hannibal are compounds with the word Baal shortned into a suffix.