Beel´zebul, the name assigned (Matthew 12:24) to the prince of the demons. There is no doubt that the reading Beelzebul is the one which has the support of almost every critical authority; and the Beelzebub of the Peshito (if indeed it “is not a corruption, as Michaelis thinks), and of the Vulgate, and of some modern versions, has probably been accommodated to the name of the Philistine god Baalzebub. Some of those who consider the latter to have been a reverential title for that god, believe that Beelzebul is a willful corruption of it, in order to make it contemptible. [BAAL].