Baalim

The Baalim are the plural Baals — the local Canaanite deities, each worshiped at his own high place under his own title, treated together as a class. The plural form names the cult as Israel's recurring failure mode rather than as a single rival figure: not one Baal opposite Yahweh but a multiplicity of village-and-nation gods to whom Israel turns whenever its memory of Yahweh fails. The standalone topic Baal covers the named figure (Baal-peor, Baal-berith, Baal-zebub, the Baal-house at Samaria); this page collects the verses that speak in the plural and traces the Baalim cycle through the judges, the kings, and the prophets.

Doing evil and serving the Baalim

The narrator of Judges sets the verdict in fixed verbal form. The opening of the cycle reads, "the sons of Israel did that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh, and served the Baalim" (Jud 2:11). The serve-verb takes the plural Baalim as object; the doing-verb is evaluated in Yahweh's own eyes; the subject is the corporate sons of Israel. Within the same paragraph the narrator pairs the cult with its goddess-counterpart — "they forsook Yahweh, and served Baal and the Ashtaroth" (Jud 2:13) — and a chapter later doubles the male and female sides into the plural across both — "the sons of Israel did that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh, and forgot Yahweh their God, and served the Baalim and the Asheroth" (Jud 3:7).

Each return to the formula adds another nation's gods to the list. By Jud 10:6 the catalogue has spread to a seven-fold pantheon: "the sons of Israel again did that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh, and served the Baalim, and the Ashtaroth, and the gods of Syria, and the gods of Sidon, and the gods of Moab, and the gods of the sons of Ammon, and the gods of the Philistines; and they forsook Yahweh, and didn't serve him." The Baalim head the list and the gods of Syria, Sidon, Moab, Ammon, and the Philistines stand under them — the plural form opens out into a maximal pantheon-service drawn from every surrounding nation.

After the deliverer dies

The Baalim recur most reliably at the death of the judge. After Gideon — the very man whose name became Jerubbaal because he broke down a Baal-altar — "as soon as Gideon was dead, that the sons of Israel turned again, and went whoring after the Baalim, and made Baal-berith their god" (Jud 8:33). The whoring-verb takes the plural Baalim as cult-object; the make-their-god clause then installs a single named Baal-berith as the elected head of the relapse. The plural cult is the soil from which the named cult grows.

The confession at Bochim and the cry to Yahweh

The cycle's interior is a confession. After the seven-fold pantheon-service of Jud 10:6, "the sons of Israel cried to Yahweh, saying, We have sinned against you, even because we have forsaken our God, and have served the Baalim" (Jud 10:10). The forsake-clause names Yahweh as the abandoned object; the serve-clause names the Baalim as the chosen replacement; the confession joins the two as one fault.

Putting away the Baalim

Samuel's reform at Mizpah translates the confession into action: "Then the sons of Israel put away the Baalim and the Ashtaroth, and served Yahweh only" (1Sa 7:4). The put-away verb takes the same plural Baalim and Ashtaroth that the Judges narrator had repeatedly fixed as cult-objects, and the served-Yahweh-only restorative-clause sets Yahweh in the place those plural names had occupied.

A nation that has followed the Baalim

By the ninth century the plural form has migrated into the prophetic indictment of the kingdom. When Ahab calls Elijah a troubler of Israel, Elijah refuses the charge and re-routes it: "I haven't troubled Israel; but you, and your father's house, in that you⁺ have forsaken the commandments of Yahweh, and you have followed the Baalim" (1Ki 18:18). The plural-you ⁺ on the verb extends the fault out beyond Ahab's own person to his father's house; the forsaking of Yahweh's commandments and the following of the Baalim are the same act stated twice.

Inherited fathers' instruction

Jeremiah's diagnosis ties the cult to the household. Yahweh's verdict is that the people "have walked after the stubbornness of their own heart, and after the Baalim, which their fathers taught them" (Jer 9:14). The Baalim are an inheritance — taught by fathers, walked after by sons — and the parental relative-clause makes the home itself the transmission line for the cult. The opposite case is just as clearly traced: "Yahweh was with Jehoshaphat, because he walked in the first ways of his father David, and did not seek to the Baalim" (2Ch 17:3). One king walks after his father's path and does not seek the Baalim; another generation walks the path their fathers taught and finds the Baalim at the end of it.

A swift dromedary

Jeremiah doubles the indictment with a denial. "How can you say, I am not defiled, I haven't gone after the Baalim? See your way in the valley, know what you have done: [you are] a swift dromedary traversing her ways" (Jer 2:23). The denial is registered, then refused; the valley-evidence is held out as the proof; the swift-dromedary image grades the going-after as eager and headlong rather than reluctant. The same prophet returns to it as a generational-leadership failure: "the prophets prophesied by Baal, and walked after things that do not profit" (Jer 2:8).

The Baalim and the household of Yahweh

Athaliah's reign turns the plural cult inward against Yahweh's own house. The Chronicler's verdict: "For the sons of Athaliah, that wicked woman, had broken up the house of God; and also they bestowed all the dedicated things of the house of Yahweh on the Baalim" (2Ch 24:7). The Yahweh-dedicated treasury is bestowed wholesale on the Baalim; the plural cult absorbs the very offerings designed for the singular God. Ahaz follows the same logic on the casting side: "but he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel, and also made molten images for the Baalim" (2Ch 28:2).

Days of the Baalim

Hosea names the cult's calendar. "And I will visit on her the days of the Baalim, to which she burned incense, when she decked herself with her earrings and her jewels, and went after her lovers, and forgot me, says Yahweh" (Hos 2:13). The plural Baalim host their own days, with their own incense, their own ornaments, and their own lovers; the forgot-me clause registers the cost. The same chapter then turns: "For I will take away the names of the Baalim out of her mouth, and they will no more be mentioned by their name" (Hos 2:17). The remedy mirrors the indictment — the plural names that filled the bride's mouth are taken out by name, leaving the singular name behind. A chapter further on Hosea reverses the prophetic call into a counter-call: "The more [the prophets] called them, the more they went from them: they sacrificed to the Baalim, and burned incense to graven images" (Hos 11:2). Where the prophets call Israel toward Yahweh, the Baalim and the graven images call her away.

The misdirected gift

Underneath the calendar is a misattribution. "For she did not know that I gave her the grain, and the new wine, and the oil, and multiplied to her silver and gold, which they used for Baal" (Hos 2:8). The grain, wine, oil, and silver-and-gold come from Yahweh; the use is for Baal. The plural cult is partly a bookkeeping error — the gifts of Yahweh, redirected by failure of recognition, end up in the hands and on the altars of the Baalim.