Tool Beta
The Gods of the Bible
Every named divine being in Scripture, what the text calls it, and what the ancient world thought it was.
Baal-zebub / Beelzebul
A Philistine god whose name Israel deliberately misspelled into lord of the flies.
2 Kings 1:2, in every translation this tool compares.
His actual title meant something like prince, or lord of the exalted house. The Hebrew writers changed one letter and turned it into lord of the flies. The Greek New Testament keeps the dignified spelling, so the insult belongs to Kings and not to the Gospels.
The Hebrew form at Ekron reads "lord of flies," almost certainly a deliberate insult replacing zebul, "prince" or "exalted dwelling." The Greek New Testament keeps the dignified form, so the mockery belongs to Kings and not to the Gospels.
H1176, 8 occ; G954 (Βεελζεβούλ), 7 occ
Treating "lord of the flies" as the god's actual name, instead of Israel's joke about him, runs the pun backward. The scholarly emendation takes "Baal-zebub" back to "Baal-zebul," "Baal the prince," with the insult made by changing one consonant. DDD traces the title behind it to the Ugaritic zbl b'l ars, "Prince, Lord of the Underworld," an epithet of Baal in his chthonic role as a healer invoked against disease demons. On that reading Baal-zebul was a working title for Baal the healer at Ekron, and the New Testament's Beelzeboul preserves the real form that Kings bent into an insult.
- 2 Kings 1:2,3,6,16
- Matthew 10:25
- Matthew 12:24-27
- Mark 3:22
- Luke 11:15-19
- W. Herrmann, DDD s.v. "Baal Zebub," 154-155
- Kelley, "Hadad," *Lexham Bible Dictionary*, note-to-build: `Beelzebub` exists as `kind: person`
- the Hebrew form is missing entirely
