In light of this data, Baal-theophorics in HB and in Hebrew seals are more probably to be connected with Yhwh, as "the baal", than with some alien god. The onomasticon is otherwise virtually without reference to other gods (Tigay 1986). Most of the identifiable references to other gods include Egyptian names (Horus, Bes), quite possibly in historical, rather than devotional, use, especially among priestly families (Pashhur, etc.). The Tyrian baal of Jezebel is the one major exception, where "the baal" refers to a determinate god other than Yhwh with a distinctive identity (but also Judg 6:31); and, the name Adoram/Hadoram, of Rehoboam's tax collector, includes the divine name, Haddu (the name of Samson has the sun god as its theophoric; cf. Beth Shemesh, in the vicinity of his activity). Several names with baal- theophorics occur in the Samaria ostraca -- b`l', 'bb`l, mrb`l, b`lzmr, b`lm`ny (a geographical point of origin), b`lzkr (see 39:3, not b`l`zkr as 37:3) (Reisner 1924). Notably, all other texts concerning foreign gods, especially of neighboring kingdoms, either name those gods explicitly (1 Kgs 11:1-3, e.g., with the names of the gods of the Transjordanian Hebrews; 2 Kgs 1:2,3,6,16 with Baal Zebub as the chief god of Eqron) or call them "other gods". A collection of names in Jerusalem at the start of the 6th c. contains no names with baal-theophorics; but this is in the aftermath of the era of reform, when the epithet was in patent disrepute (Avigad 1986). The only late name with a baal-theophoric occurs in an ostracon at Mesad Hashavyahu (b`l, Naveh 1962), and in light of the probable connection of the site with corveé may not represent a Judahite (see also Na'aman 1987:7, 12-14).[8]
In sum, until the seventh century, at least, Yhwh was probably "the baal" par excellence in the Israelite pantheon of baals (as Hos 2:18; c.f. Jer 31:32): there is a parallel here to the usage, El Shadday, for Yhwh in P's protohistory, as a class of subordinate deities known as the sedim (Shaddayim) is known from the Deir Alla plasters and from Deut 32:17; Ps 106:37 -- Yhwh is again the archetype after whom the pantheon is denominated (and the Shaddayim are doubtless either the host/baals or the chthonic pantheon; cf. also KAI 15; 16, where sd qds is an epithet of Eshmun; the divine name Shad-rapa', parallel to Biblical El-Rapa', at Sarepta -- Pritchard 1978:100-102).
An illuminating related phenomenon is the use of the 3 m.s.
possessive suffix on the term, asherah (so, 'srth), as at
Kuntillet `Ajrud (Meshel 1978)
and Khirbet el-Qom (esp. Lemaire
1977). Asherah here cannot be a proper noun -- proper nouns in
Hebrew do not take possessive suffixes. Yet it surely
denominates a goddess rather than a sanctuary or cult object (the
Biblical asherah that is erected, planted or cut down):[9] S. M.
Olyan (1988a:23-33) plausibly relates the inscription, lyhwh smrn
wl'srth at Kuntillet `Ajrud to the asherah-icon Ahab is said to
have "made" (1 Kgs 16:33; 2 Kgs 13:6), taking the epigraph as a
dedication to Yhwh of Samaria and to Samaria's asherah-icon.
Still, the same reading does not apply convincingly to the
parallel Kuntillet `Ajrud dedication, lyhwh tmn wl'srth -- Teman
is the south generally, not a specific site with a specific
asherah-icon (Weinfeld 1977:284 compares Hab 3:3). Moreover, the
correct reading of the Khirbet el-Qom epigraph, "(blessed is
Uriahu) to Yhwh and [...] to his asherah
"[10] leaves no doubt as
to the referent of the 3 m.s. possessive suffix on the term,
asherah: it is neither Samaria nor Teman, nor yet Uriah, but
Yhwh. In this case there is absolutely no indication which
particular asherah-icon is the source of blessing -- is it the
one (better, one of the ones) in Samaria? the one in the
Jerusalem temple? the one in the Arad temple? the one at
Bethel, or Dan, or Gilgal? Is it a hypostatized version of the
icon, an idealized icon? Yet what is the icon except a
representation (whether figurative or not) of the goddess, and
thus what is the goddess herself but the idealization of the icon
(see McCarter 1987:149)?
In other words, Yhwh's asherah is indeed the goddess.
Recent finds of direct dedications to Asherah ("sacred to [the?]
Asherah
", "to [the?] Asherah
") in a 7th-century stratum (IB) at
Tel Miqneh should put paid to the idea that asherah cannot
function as a noun for or name for a goddess. Here, she is no
one's asherah but her own, and it is all but inconceivable that
one should have agricultural goods "dedicated to the pole": such
a notion regresses to the level of taking literally prophetic
polemic against idolatry -- assuming that the worshippers being
accused of it could not distinguish at all between the sublime
deity and the concrete representation standing in front of them.
Indeed, in Biblical usage, "sacred to ...
" can be completed only
with the name of Yhwh, with the word "priest" or with a term
denoting Israelites.[11] "Asherah" in the Miqneh inscriptions
therefore almost certainly functions as a name for or soubriquet
of a goddess.
Recognizing that the asherah in the inscriptions is the goddess (see also Dever 1984), D. N. Freedman (1987) proposes that the suffix implies the asherah is Asherah of Yhwh, much as Athiratu Yammi in Ugaritic can so be denominated (or is this an objective, rather than genitive, relationship -- the Lady who treads the sea?). Ashtar Kemosh, the recipient of sacrificed captives, is the parallel in the Mesha inscription (KAI 181:17), the gods Atargatis (Astarte-Anat) and Anatyahu (Porten and Yardeni 1989: B7.3:3) other examples of compounds. On this logic, the goddess is Asherat Yhwh. Against Freedman's construction, however, there is no other case where a suffix is used as a substitute for the second component of a compounded theonym.[12]
A preferable alternative, in the light of HB usage, where
asherah, as a term for a god, like baal, is always determined, is
to conclude that asherah denotes a class of deities (the Asherot
or Ashtarot of HB), and that the suffix here stipulates precisely
which member of the goddess-class, asherah, is meant. The text
is a dedication to Yhwh of Samaria and his asherah, as opposed to
any of the other asherahs/ashtorets, that is, goddesses. The
usage of Akk istar, istarate is parallel: the term does not
denote only Ishtar, nor yet, when plural, the various cultic
manifestations of Ishtar (as Ishtar of Nineveh and Ishtar of
Arbela), but goddesses generally, just as ilu, ilani denotes gods
generally (including ancestral spirits).[13] Thus, in one text
from the time of Esarhaddon, two distinct figures, Ninlil and
Ishtar, together announce, aninu distaratu, "we are the
goddesses
".[14]
Given the fact that in Biblical usage, asherah in the singular is not the name of a goddess, but a common noun sometimes denoting a goddess, it is understandable that a possessive suffix might be employed -- in place of a definite article -- to indicate precisely which goddess is being mentioned. For the same reason, the definite article is attached to the term, baal, to stipulate which of the baals is under discussion. And Yhwh, for example, is distinguished with a possessive suffix when he appears as "my baal" in Hos 2:18: Yhwh, here, is the baal who presides over the other baals. Yet there is another dynamic at work as well in connection with the noun, baal, and probably with asherah as a term for goddess.
In 8th-century and later literature, hab-ba`al, "the baal",
appears alongside the plural, "the baals", "the gods of the
class, baals". Hosea abjures the use of the term, "my baal" as
an epithet of Yhwh, and speaks of dedications made to "the baal"
(2:10)[15] in the same breath as promising to wipe the name of
the baals, plural, from Israel's tongue (2:15,19; 11:2). His
complaint about "the days of the baals
" seems to be that devotion
to them eclipsed the loyalty due Yhwh (2:15)
Later, Jeremiah speaks of the baals in the plural: in
2:23, he asks, "How can you say 'I am not profaned, I have not
gone after the baals?' Look at your way in the Valley,
" just
after denouncing prophets who prophesy "by the baal
" (2:8,
singular), then accusing his people of abandoning him, the
(singular) "source of living waters to cut themselves cisterns
[plural], broken cisterns that don't hold the water
" (2:13). The
cisterns and the baals are identical, and plural, yet the
prophets prophesy by the formally singular baal. 2:23 is of
special interest in that the prophet presupposes his audience
would deny its allegiance to "the baals": the suggestion is that
the term, baals, has an expanded semantic range in Jeremiah's
rhetoric, including (ancestral?) elements that earlier would not
have been covered by the same word.
Tying this polemic to the iconographic tradition in the
cult, Jeremiah refers to those -- including people, kings,
officials, priests and prophets -- "who say to a tree, 'You are
my father,' and to a stone, 'You gave birth to me'
" (2:27), where
one might take the reference to be to a single pair of icons.[16]
Yet in the very next line, Jeremiah complains, "Where are your
gods, which you made for yourself; let them rise up, they will
not save you in your time of evil, for as numerous as your towns
were your gods, Judah
" (2:28: G adds: and as many as were the
streets of Jerusalem they sacrificed to the baal
). The multiple
gods are identical to the cisterns and the baals in Jeremiah's
rhetoric. Yet the references to the baal, and to the tree and
stone, in the singular, accompany those in the plural.
In 7:9, in the context of a litany of wrongdoing
reminiscent of Hos 4:2, Jeremiah introduces this interesting
juxtaposition: the cultic offenses are two, "burning incense to
the baal, and going after other gods whom you do not know.
"
Again, the ritual act is oriented to the (singular) baal, the
general accusation of apostasy is connected with gods, plural.
Some insight into the specific valences of this sort of
rhetoric is to be had from Jer 7:18. Here, Yhwh accuses the
children of gathering the firewood, the fathers of kindling the
fire and the women of preparing the dough to make "cookies"
(kawwanim) for the Queen of the Heavens, and "to pour out
libations to other gods.
" Is it possible that the ritual
discussed in Jeremiah 44 is generalized here, and that the
accusation of cultic activity for other gods is triggered by
devotion to one particular "other" deity? More likely, the cult
of the Queen of Heaven involved invoking her (and Yhwh's) retinue
-- the Host of Heaven. As Jer 9:13 remarks, "They went
... after the baals, whom their fathers had taught them.
"
The plural other gods, as in 7:18; 2:28, and
chap. 44, are admittedly traditional deities
(so, too, 11:10; 16:11,13; contrast
7:9; 19:4).
Even more important is Jeremiah's reiteration of the
multiplicity of Judah's gods: he correlates this to the
multiplicity of its "altars to burn incense to 'the baal'
"
(11:12-13). Clearly, the "gods to whom they
burn incense
" are the gods for whom they built "altars to
burn incense to 'the
baal'"
: again, the ritual act is oriented toward the (singular)
baal; again, a multitude of actual gods is at issue. The same
relation -- of a ritual act -- to a formally singular baal
obtains in Jer 11:17 (sacrifice); 12:16
(invocation in oaths, cf. Hos 2:19);
19:5 (building altars, burning sons); 23:13
(prophesying by the baal), 27 (speaking in the name of
the baal); 32:29 (sacrificing), 35
(building high places and sacrificing children). Yet Jeremiah
plainly equates these activities with sacrifice and building high
places for, prophesying in the name of and invoking "other gods"
or "non-gods" (2:11, devotion to non-gods;
5:7, oaths invoking non-gods; 7:9,
incense burning for the baal // going after other gods; cf.
11:10; 13:10; 25:6; 35:15, going after other gods;
16:11, 13 bowing to and serving other gods; 1:16;
19:4; 44:3,5,8,15, burning incense for other gods; 7:18;
19:13; 32:29, pouring out libations for other gods).
Particularly, Jeremiah identifies child sacrifice as a rite
directed toward "the baal". In 7:32-8:3 he predicts
that "It will no longer be called, 'the Tophet' and 'the Valley
of ben-Hinnom', but the Valley of Killing....
" When punishment is
visited upon Jerusalem, "they will bring out the bones of the
kings of Judah and the bones of its officials and the bones of
the priests and the bones of the prophets and the bones of the
inhabitants of Jerusalem from their graves. And they will
slaughter them to the sun and to the moon and to all the Host of
the Heavens whom they loved and whom they served and whom they
went after and whom they sought and whom they bowed down to...
"
The beneficiaries of the human sacrifice, from Jeremiah's
perspective, were "the sun and the moon and all the host of
heaven
".
The contrast is to Jer 19:5,11-13. Here,
the prophet
declaims, on site, the accusation that in the Valley of
ben-Hinnom, the Judahites burned incense to other gods, whom
their fathers did not know (19:4, cited above). They
"built the
high places of the baal to burn their children in fire as burnt
offerings to the baal, which I did not command and did not speak
and which never entered my mind
" (19:5).
In his peroration,
Jeremiah observes that Yhwh will shatter the people like an
unmendable pot, "making this city like the Tophet. And the
houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah will be
like the profaned Tophet, all the houses where they burned
incense on their roofs to all the Host of the Heavens and poured
out libations to other gods
" (19:11-13).
Against this background, the parallel text (32:29) which
speaks of "the houses on the roofs of which they burned incense
to the baal and poured out libations to other gods
" is decisive,
prose or not. The rituals of the Valley (c.f.
2:23, cited above) are dedicated to the baal, to the
Host, to other gods. Micah (6:6-7) portrays child
sacrifice as the highest order of devotion
to Yhwh, as does Genesis 22
(where adventitious substitution is
legitimated, but where the intention to sacrifice the child is
indispensable). Isaiah (30:33) speaks of Yhwh
himself preparing
a Tophet beside Jerusalem in which to slaughter the Assyrians.
Yet Jeremiah identifies the Tophet, in a variety of passages,
with the Host (including Sun and Moon), with other gods (plural),
and with the baal (singular). He explicitly denies that the rite
is oriented toward Yhwh (19:5):
evidently, the worshippers
claimed that it was, and denied, despite their activities in the
Valley (i.e., the Tophet), that they followed the baals
(plural,
2:23), as distinct from Yhwh. Jeremiah employs the term, baal,
to denote a class of deities, the baals, which includes the Host
of Heaven, and which, though subordinate to Yhwh in the
traditional theology, are the beneficiaries of child sacrifice
(compare Ashtar Kemosh in the Mesha stela; and c.f.
Deut 4:19 where the astral cult is proscribed
in identical language): in
Jeremiah's mind, the "host" and "the baal" are identical. "The
baal" is a collective noun.
Another constellation of texts buttresses this inference.
Jer 3:17 enunciates a standing motif of the book of
Jeremiah, and more particularly of chapters 1-25:
the Israelites "go each after the srrwt (imagining?)
of his own heart
". This clause
occurs again in 7:24, following an accusation of service
to the Queen of the Heavens (7:18). It is succeeded by
a judgment predicated on the accusation that the Israelites introduced
abominations into the temple, "and built the high places of the
Tophet in the Valley of ben- Hinnom to burn their sons and
daughters in the fire, which I never commanded, and which never
entered my mind
" (Jer 7:30-8:3). The same passage,
as noted above, links the Tophet to the Host of Heaven.
The locution, "went after the imagining of their hearts,
"
recurs in 9:13. Here, it is explicitly linked to worship of the
baals. In 11:8, the same expression, in a generalized accusation
of covenant violation, is immediately followed by the specific
indictment of Israel for "going after other gods to serve them
"
(11:10). The same referent for the phrase appears in 13:10 and
in 16:11-13. In 18:12; 23:17, where the phrase recurs, there is
no further explanation of its meaning. Yet the valence, by now,
is clear. Going after the imaginings of one's heart means
abandoning Yhwh: what one abandons him for are other gods,
baals, the Queen of Heaven and the Host. Jeremiah's equation of
these terms may be a moral one, but the terms "baals", and "other
gods" seem to include the Host, just as service to "the baal"
seems to imply going after other gods, the baals, and the Host.
Jeremiah's poetry accounts for 8 of 10 occurrences of
"imaginings" in HB. Of the other two, Deut 29:18 (cf. Jer 23:17)
refers to "going after the gods of those nations" to which the
Israelites had been exposed (v 17). Ps 81:13 (cf. Jer 7:24)
speaks of more general apostasy, but is probably related.
"The baal," in sum, seems to be a collective plural. That
this is the case, and that the noun in the singular can embrace a
variety of gods, is reflected grammatically in several texts. 2
Kgs 23:5 speaks of those "who burn incense lab-ba`al (to the
baal), to the sun and to the moon and to the constellations and
to all the host of heaven.
" Here, hab-ba`al is set into
apposition with the succeeding objects of worship: the absence
of the conjunction before the first element of the astral list is
not inadvertent, anymore than its presence before each element
succeeding the first in that list is inadvertent. This text,
like Jeremiah, identifies the baal with the Host. Moreover, the
baal is a collective noun: to burn incense to the baal is to
adore the sun, the moon, the constellations and all the host.
In the same period, and in the same setting, Zephaniah
includes priests and worshippers of the host of heaven among the
"remainder of hab-ba`al.
" This expression implies a collective
plural (1:4-5) -- elsewhere "remainder" (s'r) always implies
plurality within an overarching unity -- the remainder of Israel,
or a people (Isa 10:20-22; 11:11,16; 17:3; 28:5), of the trees of
the forest (Isa 10:19), of the silver (2 Chr 24:14), and the
like. On rare occasion, it refers to descendants (Isa 14:22),
or, rather, to a surviving part of a lineage able to generate
descendants, but for the most part this semantic function is
fulfilled by the alloform, "remnant" (s'ryt, as Gen 45:7; 2 Kgs
21:14; Am 1:8; Mic 2:12 > Jer 23:3; Jer 11:23; 39:3; 44:7; 40:15;
50:26).[17] One cannot thus take the passage to refer to some
relict of the baal, such as his (their) iconography: it is the
survival of the baal(s), or of their memory, or the survival of
some of the baals, in contradistinction to others, that is in
point.
In light of the usage, one might choose to argue that the
"remainder of the baal
" in Zeph 1:4 are those who perpetuate the
name of the baal, and thus conclude that it is the plural
adherents who are under attack, while "the baal" is a single god.
However, this violates the pattern of usage in that the
"remainder of the baal" are, by the very argument, divorced from
"the baal" (singular). More important, Zephaniah stipulates what
the extirpation of the "rest of the baal" entails: "the name of
the kmrym with (that of) the priests, and those who prostrate
themselves on the roofs to the Host of the Heavens...
"
Spieckermann (1982:83-85) identifies the kmrym of Hos 10:5; Zeph
1:4; 2 Kgs 23:4 with the astral priests of KAI 225-226 (see KAI
2.275). That they are integral to the worship of "the baal" here
is indisputable. Yet what is it that those who worship "the
baal" devote themselves to? The Host of Heaven. Moreover,
Zephaniah adds to his list of votaries of "the baal" "those who
prostrate themselves,[18] who swear to Yhwh and who swear by
Milcom
"[19] (1:5). Is it a coincidence that Milcom, like
Ashtoret, is one of the baals to whom Solomon constructed a high
place on the Mount of Olives? Rather, like Ashtoret and the
Queen of Heaven, Milcom was probably regarded as an important
astral underling of Yhwh, corresponding to one of the planets.
Under the circumstances, the context in which Jer 7:22 cites Am 5:25 -- both deny the efficacy of sacrifice with an allusion to the absence of a sacrificial cultus during the wilderness era (contra P, and c.f., significantly, 2 Sam 7:7) may be significant. Jeremiah's citation comes in a segment sandwiched between his accusation about worship of the Queen of the Heavens and his prediction about the Tophet that was dedicated to the Host. The source-text in Amos succeeds a segment in which Yhwh is named, among other things, as the creator of the constellations. More important, it leads directly to a prediction of exile for the Israelites together with their astral images (latterly, Andersen and Freedman 1989). Amos's reference to "your king" (mlkkm) may even represent a pun on or error for (G: Molech) the name of Milkom (mlkm). In that case, the god's astral connections would be confirmed. Such a reading draws some support from Hosea's reference to kmrym in connection with the exile of Samaria (10:5), supposing Spieckermann's identification of these figures as astral priests (above) to be correct.
In Zephaniah's text, the identity of interest among the
kmrym, the priests of "the baal" and the rooftop worshippers of
the Host is organic: for reformationists of the Josianic period,
the Host and the "baal" are identical. These and other texts
suggest that the baals were included, at least in Josianic
theology, among the host of heaven. They also indicate that
hab-ba`al, formally singular, could serve as a collective -- not
just grammatically, but for a multiplicity of gods such as
composed the heavenly host. Such a collective plural is also
witnessed in Mesopotamia: Enuma Elish 6:116 speaks of mankind's
DINGIR (var. i-la-)-si-na [formally singular]
istarsina [formally
singular] -- their gods and goddesses -- who should bring tribute
to Marduk. A text of Esarhaddon's speaks of messages for the
gods and goddesses, nasparti DINGIR distar (formally singular --
Borger 1956:45 ii 6). An inscription of Nabopolassar speaks of
him "who in his mind has understood the worship due the gods and
goddesses
" (sa palah DINGIR u INNIN litmudu surrussu),
where both "gods" and "goddesses" are formally singular (Langdon
1912:60:17).
The equation of "other gods" with "baals" is not restricted
to Jeremiah. Thus, in 1 Sam 7:3, Samuel urges the Israelites to
remove the "foreign gods...and the ashtorets....So the Israelites
removed the baals and the ashtorets.
" In the book of Judges,
more particularly, whatever its editorial history (Halpern
1988:121-143, 220-228 for a Josianic date, with bibliography), a
very revealing sequence occurs. Israel have failed to supplant
the inhabitants of some of the tracts Joshua conquered. Yhwh
therefore decrees his unwillingness to evict these peoples --
leaving their gods in place as snares (2:3). The Israelites of
the next generation, who had not witnessed the conquest, "did
service to the baals
". Specifically, "they went after other gods
from the gods of the nations which were around them
". "They did
service to the baal [singular] and to the ashtorets
" (2:11-13).
Who is the baal Israel served? "The baal" represents the baals,
the male gods of the nations of Israel's environs. These are the
"other gods" to whom the nation's cultic attentions relapse even
when "judges" arise (2:17,19): the other gods are the snares
intentionally left by Yhwh. Intermarrying with the surrounding
nations, the Israelites "did service to their gods
" (3:6). After
2:13, "other gods" alone represents a term inclusive of the baals
and ashtorets. Arguably, "baals" in 2:11, and, more certainly,
"other gods" in 2:12, are also inclusive of the ashtorets. It is
not to be assumed, on the basis of 1 Sam 7:3, that the ashtorets
are identified by H(Dtr) as indigenous.