Chapter 6: The Worship of Baal — Religious and Superstitious Rites

The worship of Baal — Religious worship twofold — Moral; instituted — Among the superstitious, arbitrary worship takes the place of the instituted — Baal worshiped with both — Faith and hope placed in him — Solemn invocation of his name — Swearing by the name of Baal — Genuflection; adoration; kisses — Temples of Baal — The occasion for building them — Altars — Images — Sacred groves, natural; artificial — The occasion for making them — Who the priests and worshipers of Baal were — Servants, priests, prophets — Chemarim; from where called — Priestly vestments — High priest — Sacrifices — Oil, new wine, grain, incense — Bullocks fattened for that purpose — Human sacrifice — Who Baal is — Not a common noun — The sun — The sole god among the Phoenicians — Sacrifices to Baal — To the sun — The sun's participation — Whether the Israelites understood the sun in Baal.

I. It remains for us to show briefly how the apostate Israelites venerated this Baal in the holy land, and then who he himself was, for whose cause they declared war against the God of their fathers. All divine worship is either moral — whether natural or instituted according to God's good pleasure by Himself — and among the apostates, arbitrary worship takes the place of the instituted. The Holy Spirit teaches us this in the example of Jeroboam (1 Kings 12:31-33), who in performing sacred rites did "as he had devised in his own heart." See 2 Chronicles 13:9. The deserters attributed both kinds of worship to Baal, having taken them away from God.

II. Moral worship is fulfilled by faith, hope, love, and religious submission of the soul in all things. Those affections of the soul are expressed through invocations — that is, prayers, vows, and solemn attestations of the deity as though present and beholding all things

and governing — sacred and solemn attestations. They also express themselves simply and almost naturally in genuflections, in prostrations of the body,

in adorations, and in other similar external tokens of the mind's feeling. With all these things, therefore, the idolaters rendered religious honor to Baal.

III. That they placed faith and hope in him they made plain through the solemn invocation of his name: 1 Kings 18:26 — "They called upon the name of Baal," saying, that is, "Baal, hear us." And that they had chosen him as their God, Elijah showed by that choice which

he permitted to the people, whether they would follow Jehovah or Baal, v. 21.

Then they swore by his name, thereby establishing him as the most present God, the searcher of hearts, and the supreme governor of all actions: Jeremiah 12:16, "They taught my people to swear by Baal," or by the name of Baal. To these things they added genuflection, or prostration of the body with kisses: 1 Kings 16:31, "He served Baal and bowed down to him." Hence God distinguishes the remnant who feared Him from the deserters, in that they "had not bowed the knee, nor given kisses to Baal" (1 Kings 19:18).

IV. In the arbitrary worship which they rendered to the idol, they appear to have fashioned a kind of image of the whole divinely instituted worship, and in addition they added very many things devised by themselves or borrowed from the neighboring Baal-worshipers. They built temples or sacred houses for him: 1 Kings 16:32, "Ahab built a house of Baal in Samaria." Mention of these houses occurs everywhere; and they were at length demolished by Jehu with all their theatrical apparatus and superstitious furnishings, and made into latrines (2 Kings 10:27). But it was Ahab who first built a temple for him. The more ancient idolaters were content with groves and altars, as appears from the history of Gideon's reformation (Judges 6:28). But after Solomon had at God's command prepared a temple for Him, the ancient rival and ape of God, seizing the next opportunity, took care that a sacred house should be erected for himself as well.

V. In that temple they dedicated altars for offering sacrifices to him: 1 Kings 16:32, "He set up an altar for Baal in that house of Baal." That there were multiple altars in the same temple is shown by 2 Chronicles 23:17; and that there were images along with the altars, by 2 Kings 1:2; 2 Chronicles 23:17. What form, however, these images were fashioned into is entirely uncertain.

VI. To the preparation of idolatry there also belonged groves. There were two kinds of these: some were natural, consisting of planted trees, which idolaters used far and wide throughout the whole world in their sacred rites; such was the grove that Gideon cut down (Judges 6:28), and such as it was customary to plant on the high places. There were also artificial groves, that is, fabricated images and likenesses of natural ones, which they brought into their sacred temples and used in some manner in religious worship. Such was the grove that King Josiah removed from the house of God and burned (2 Kings 23:6). What is called here simply by the Hebrew word for "grove," is called in ch. 21:7 by the Hebrew term for a carved image, that is, an "image of a grove." It seems to me that, just as when the Jerusalem temple was built they brought into it the tabernacle which they had previously used in celebrating divine worship (1 Kings 8:4), so likewise the idolaters, after they had taken care to build a temple for Baal, because they could not bring into it the actual groves with which they had long been accustomed to venerate him, brought in instead images of those groves, whether fashioned or painted.

VII. Moreover, to provide for the Baalitic worship they assembled a great multitude of priests. Eight hundred and fifty are mentioned (1 Kings 18:19). Of these, 450 performed sacred rites in the Samaritan temple of Baal; the rest did so town by town and village by village in the groves. These were commonly called by the Hebrew term meaning "servants of Baal," that is, servants or worshipers of Baal (2 Kings 10:21). They were distributed into three categories: for some were properly so called servants, who performed menial tasks, submitting themselves to the nod and will of their superiors; others were priests, to whom was entrusted the care of regularly performing sacrifices; and others were prophets, whose office it was to deceive the people by doctrines and the princes by predictions. See 2 Kings 10:19.

VIII. All of these were called by the special name Chemarim: Zeph. 1:4, "I will cut off the name of the Chemarim," that is, the Chemarim themselves, the priests of Baal, of whom he had just made mention. The same word is used in 2 Reg. 23:5 and Hos. 10:5 in the same sense. And the Chaldean term is rendered by Buxtorf as "a minor sacrificing priest, a pagan priest, an idolatrous hierophant, a sacrificing minister of idols." Nor is it used in any other sense anywhere in the sacred text; and wherever it is attributed to the priests of idols, the Chaldean renders it by the corresponding Aramaic term, as in Jud. 17:5. By the Syriac paraphrast, however, the name is taken two or three times in a good sense for the priests of God. And in the Epistle to the Heb. 2:17, Christ Himself is called by that name. Most scholars think the priests of Baal were called by this name from the black or dark garment which they were accustomed to wear; but the Hebrew root also means "to grow hot" and "to burn." Why then should we not conclude that they were called by this name from that most savage office which they performed in the burning of infants — an office which also encompasses the other meaning of the word, in that they would contract blackness of face in that work? That they used a distinctive garment in their sacred rites is suggested by the history of Jehu, 2 Reg. 10:22.

Over all of them one man presided as a kind of high priest. His name was Mattan, at the time when Jehoiada was bringing about the reformation of divine worship, 2 Reg. 11:18.

They offered to this idol every kind of sacrifice. God complains through the prophet that they gave oil, new wine, and grain to Baal (Hos. 2:8). We have shown elsewhere that these were the chief offerings to idols. Jeremiah testifies several times that they made incense offerings to him (ch. 7:9, 11:13, 17). And that they offered young bulls, 1 Reg. 18:26. The Hebrews teach, with respect to Jud. 6:25, 26, that some of these were fattened for several years for that purpose, so that more handsome victims might be slaughtered. To these they added human sacrifice (Jer. 19:5, 32:35) — concerning which crime we will say more in the following chapter.

IX. Let us now briefly consider who it was whom they venerated with such great apparatus. Some think that Baal is an appellative name, denoting any idol to which superstitious worship has been paid. But that notion is most clearly refuted by these words of Elijah: 1 Reg. 18:21, "If Jehovah is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him." For just as Jehovah was the proper name of the God of Israel, so Baal was the proper name of that false god whom the idolaters worshiped. I will say in a single word who he was: namely, the Sun. We have shown that the Phoenicians taught them this Baalitic worship. Among them, however, the Sun was the only heavenly God, and Beel-samen, that is, "lord of heaven." For the Sun was called Baal, or "lord," from that dominion which he appeared to hold over the light, and therefore over all things. He was esteemed the first among creatures to be regarded as God. Nor does it stand in the way that, in 2 Reg. 23:5, they are said to have offered sacrifices to Baal, to the Sun, and to the Moon — as if Baal were different from the Sun; for since there is no distinguishing mark between Baal and the Sun in the Hebrew, the name of the Sun can be placed there by way of explanation, as if he had said: to Baal, that is, to the Sun — nor does the multiplication of names always indicate a distinction between things. For the same idols were worshiped under various names. We have shown above the many names of the Sun. Moreover, since that foolish and stubborn people had taken upon themselves to worship the idols of all nations, it could not but happen that the same idols were venerated under various names and with various rites. I do not, however, wish to assert that the Israelites always expressly understood the sun by Baal, since they had only in their minds to worship the gods of those nations which they saw prospering and having things go according to their will. For this reason that impious Ahaz sacrificed to the gods of Damascus, suspecting that they had given aid to his enemies against him.