Bible Lexicons

בֵּל contr. from בְּעֵל i.q. בַּעַל Bel, a domestic and chief god of the Babylonians, worshipped in the tower of Babel; Isaiah 46:1; Jeremiah 50:2, 51:44, and Dan. chap. 14, LXX. The Greek and Roman writers (Diod. Sic. ii. 8, 9; Plin. xxxvii. 19; Cic. De Nat. Deorum, iii. 16) compare him with Jupiter; but however, we are not to understand this to be the father of the gods, of whom the Orientals knew nothing, but in accordance with the peculiar Babylonian theology, in which all rested on the worship of the stars, the planet Jupiter, stella Jovis (Cic. De Nat. Deor. ii. 20), which [some of] the Shemitic nations worshipped supremely as a good demon and the author and guardian of all good fortune. It is therefore called by the Arabians السعد الا كبر “Greater Fortune.” The planet Venus was worshipped with this planet (see אֲשֵׁרָה, עַשְׁתֹּרֶת ). Comp. גַּד, מְנִי, and see בַּעַל No. 5. The devotion to this worship is shewn by the proper names of the Babylonians compounded with the name Bel, as בֵּלְשַׁאצַּר, בֵּלְטְשַׁאצַּר, Belesys, Belibus, etc.