GEMS FROM JEREMIAH (37) Yahweh’s rival for Romance, part II: Baal, the seducer of Israel

 


“How can you say, “I am not defiled,
    I have not gone after the Baals”?
Look at your way in the valley;
    know what you have done—
a restive young camel interlacing her tracks,
     a wild ass at home in the wilderness,
in her heat sniffing the wind!
    Who can restrain her lust?
None who seek her need weary themselves;
    in her month they will find her.” (Jeremiah 2.23-24)

     From the time that the Israelites entered the Promised Land under the leadership of Joshua until the days of Jeremiah, Yahweh had a forbidding rival to contend with for the affections (i.e., loyalty) of the people He claimed as his own – “Baal”, the chief god of the Canaanite pantheon, who controlled rain and fertility.  The cult of Baal involved sacred prostitution (cf. Judges 2.17; Jer. 7.9; Amos 2.7) and even child-sacrifice (Jer. 19.5).  In Aramean sculptures, Baal stands upon a bull, which may connect with the calf-images made by Aaron and King Jeroboam I (cf. Ex. 32.4; 1 Kings 12.28), these being regarded, in all probability, as pedestals for the invisible Yahweh.  There are two principal reasons why Canaanite and Israelite religion were often syncretized, with Baal and Yahweh being worshipped side-by-side or even conflated[1] – firstly, intermarriages between Israelites and Canaanites and secondly, the identification by the Israelites of Yahweh with the period of wandering in the wilderness with Moses, and the desire to ensure agricultural success in Canaan by rendering Baal, master of fertility, his due.  With time, their Yahweh worship became Canaanized, and the attributes and even the name of Baal became attached to Him.[2]

     The climax of Baal worship in Israel occurred in the Northern Kingdom during the reign of King Ahab in the 9th century B.C., and was greatly encouraged by his Phoenician wife, Jezebel (cf. 1 Kings 16.29-33).  Indeed, the cult of Baal became so widespread that only 7,000 subjects of the Northern Kingdom were said to be faithful to Yahweh (1 Kgs 19.18).  Ahab’s devotion to Baal provoked the appearance in the royal court of the Yahwistic prophet Elijah, who proclaimed a drought throughout the land (1 Kgs 17.1; cf. Letter of St. James 5.17-18).  As Yahweh’s battle with the gods of Egypt had been played out through Moses’ series of confrontations with Pharaoh (cf. Exodus chapters 7-12), so Yahweh’s lengthy campaign against Baal began to be waged via the conflict between Elijah, on the one hand, & Ahab and Jezebel on the other.  A great showdown occurred on Mt. Carmel, when Elijah challenged the 400 prophets of Baal to a theological “duel” – both he and the false prophets would prepare altars with sacrifices upon them; the god who would send fire to consume the sacrifices would be shown to be the true God (cf. 1 Kgs 18, esp. 18.38-39).  Once Yahweh had been acknowledged as the true Lord of Israel, the drought came to an end with a torrential downpour (1 Kgs 18.41-46).

     Later, Elijah’s successor Elisha sent one of “the sons of the prophets” to anoint Jehu to be king of Israel, prophesying that Jehu will be Yahweh’s instrument to destroy the line of Ahab and to avenge the sins of the idolatrous king and his treacherous queen who had survived her husband by several years (2 Kings 9.1-10; cf. 1 Kgs 19.16-17).  The record of Jehu’s purge of the Baal worshippers and the assassination of Jezebel can be found in chapters 9-10 of the book of 2 Kings.  Following the efforts of Elijah, Elisha and Jehu, there would be two further (unsuccessful) attempts to cleanse the people of God of Baal worship – one by Hezekiah (8th century) and another by Josiah (7th century), both monarchs of the Southern Kingdom of Judah (cf. 2 Kgs 18 & 23).  Sadly, by the time Jeremiah began to prophesy, the worship of Baal (and Moloch) was still widespread (cf. Jer. 3.6-14).  Only the exile in Babylon would succeed in uprooting Baal from the minds and hearts of the people of Yahweh.


[1] “Baal” can mean “lord” or “husband”; this most probably led to confusion among many Israelites as to who the true “lord” or “husband” of Israel was… Following attempts at religious reform, the names of places/people were often changed by replacing the word “Baal” with the word “boshet” (i.e., shame: cp. Judges 7.1 & 2 Sam. 11.21); cf. Merrill C. Tenney, ed. The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible Vol. 1, Grand Rapids: Regency, 1976, p. 433.

[2] Merrill C. Tenney, ed. The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible Vol. 1, Grand Rapids: Regency, 1976, pp. 431-33.

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