- [Narrator] Baal and Dagon, the ancient gods of the Bible.
During ancient times, a god known as Baal
was worshiped throughout Canaan and Phoenicia.
During the judges period, the practice of Baal worship
penetrated Jewish religious life.
Judges 3:7, New American Standard Bible.
"So the sons of Israel did what was evil
in the sight of the Lord,
and they forgot the Lord their God,
and served the Baals and the Asherah."
The practice of Baal worship became widespread in Israel
during the reign of Ahab.
The method of Baal worship also affected Judah.
2 Chronicles 28:1-4.
"Ahaz was 20 years old when he became king,
and he reigned in Jerusalem for 16 years.
He did not do what was right in the sight of the Lord
as his father David had done,
but he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel.
He also made cast metal images for the Baals.
Furthermore, he burned incense in the valley of Ben-Hinnom
and burned his sons in fire,
according to the abominations of the nations
whom the Lord had driven out from the sons of Israel.
He sacrificed and burned incense on the high places,
on the hills and under every green tree."
It's important to remember that the plural form
of the word Baal is Baalim, which means Lord.
In addition to being considered a fertility god,
Baal was also thought to help the earth produce crops,
and humans produce offspring.
Various locales emphasized one or another of his attributes
and designed particular sects of Baalism.
Numbers 25:3 depicts Baal of Peor,
while Judges 8:33 depicts Baal-berith.
The word's entomology shows that Baal was viewed
as the landlord of a specific location,
thereby restricting its use to people
who were no longer drifters, but had settled down.
These local Baals were thought to be
in control of agriculture,
creatures and humanity's fertility.
It was crucial to winning their favor,
especially in places like Pal
where there are few natural streams or springs,
and rainfall was unpredictable.
This led to the adoption of extreme practices.
Baal eventually ascended to the position
of preeminent deity in the region.
Part of this process, according to some researchers,
can be traced back to the Ugaritic scriptures.
Baal is identified as the son of Dagon.
Dagon is one of the Bible's most ancient gods.
We will cover this deity later in the video.
Scriptures of Baal depict him wearing a helmet
decorated with bulls horns,
representing fertility and strength.
He carries a club or mace in one hand,
probably meaning thunder,
and a spear embellished with leaves in the other,
possibly representing both lightning and vegetation.
In Aramean sculptures, Baal is depicted riding a bull.
Anat, referred to as the Virgin Anath,
was Baal's spouse and sister,
and shared many of his escapades.
The evidence indicates that Baal and other Canaanite deities
were worshiped in Egypt.
However, they didn't become a severe threat
to the religion of the Egyptians.
The situation was different in Israel where,
through the process of syncretism,
the worship of Yahweh was profoundly influenced
and threatened by alien elements from the Baal cults.
This was due to two main factors.
First, the Israelites did not drive out the Canaanites,
but intermarried with them,
thus raising the problem of the interrelationship
between Yahweh and Baal.
Second, Yahweh had given Israel a significant victory
over the Canaanites, and his supremacy was unquestioned.
Baal was considered the most powerful of all gods,
eclipsing El, who was seen as rather weak and ineffective.
In various battles, Baal defeated Yam, the god of the sea,
and Mot, the god of death and the underworld.
Baal's sisters/consorts were Ashtoreth,
a fertility goddess associated with the stars,
and Anath, a goddess of love and war.
Baal worship was rooted in sensuality
and involved ritualistic prostitution in the temples.
At times, appeasing Baal required human sacrifice,
usually the firstborn of the one making the sacrifice.
Jeremiah 19:5.
"And have built the high place of Baal to burn their sons
in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal,
a thing which I did not command nor speak of,
nor did it ever enter my mind."
Baal's priests worshiped their deity with riotous rites
that featured ecstatic shouts and self-inflicted harm.
1 Kings 18:28.
"So they cried out with a loud voice
and cut themselves according to their custom
with swords and lances,
until blood gushed out on them."
Before the Hebrews entered the Promised Land,
the Lord God forewarned against glorifying Canaan's gods.
But Israel bent to idolism anyway.
Deuteronomy 6:14-15.
"You shall not follow other gods,
any of the gods of the people who surround you,
for the Lord your God who is in the midst of you
is a jealous God, so follow him,
or else the anger of the Lord your God will be kindled
against you and he will wipe you off the face of the earth."
During the reign of Ahab and Jezebel,
at the height of Baal worship in Israel,
God directly confronted the paganism
through his prophet Elijah.
First, God showed that he, not Baal, controlled the rain
by sending a drought lasting 3 1/2 years.
Elijah then went public.
He set up a meeting with King Ahab.
Three years had passed since Elijah declared
that there would be no rain.
The stage was set for a showdown on Mount Carmel
between 850 Baal prophets and one God prophet.
"How long will you waver between two opinions?"
Elijah challenged the audience.
"If the Lord is God, follow him.
If Baal is God, follow him."
Here was Elijah's dare.
Let's have a competition.
Let the God who is God respond with fire from heaven.
That was a good test, and Baal, the storm God,
should be able to send down some lightning.
Elijah gave them every advantage
before mocking their futile efforts.
Baal's prophets spent hours pleading,
shouting, and cutting themselves, but he didn't respond.
Then, Elijah prepared the sacrifice
before asking God to show the people his glory.
Fire fell and consumed the sacrifice,
the water and the altar as soon as he said his prayer.
People fell to their knees yelling,
"The Lord, he is God, the Lord is God!"
They couldn't help but notice that God was alive and well.
But the Lord God wasn't done yet.
He reactivated the rain.
Elijah prayed seven times in a row
before the rain began to fall.
Elijah, drenched, dashed down the mountain.
He demonstrated that God is alive and well.
God is alive and well.
You can display it both privately and publicly in your life.
Finally, in Matthew 12:27,
Jesus refers to Satan as Beelzebub,
a reference to the Philistine god Baal-zebub.
Matthew 12:27.
"And if by Beelzebub I cast out the demons,
by who do your sons cast them out?
Therefore they will be your judges."
Jesus continues his response
to the Pharisees' charge that he cast out demons
by Beelzebub with a second short parable.
"Or again, how can anyone enter a strongman's house
and carry off his possessions
unless he first ties up the strongman?
Then he can rob his house."
The Baalim of the Old Testament were nothing more
than demons masquerading as gods,
and all idolatry is ultimately devil worship.
1 Corinthians 10:20.
"I imply that what pagans sacrifice,
they offer to demons, and not to God.
I do not want you to be participants with demons."
However, there was a God considered more ancient than Baal.
His name was Dagon.
Who was Dagon?
The Bible describes Dagon, also known as Dagon,
as one of the oldest deities in Mesopotamia,
He was represented as a half-man, half-fish creature.
Dagon was regarded as the father of all other gods,
so he was widely worshiped
in what we call the cradle of civilization,
where farming is thought to have first started,
also the area some call the Fertile Crescent.
Dagon's statue looks like a gigantic man,
and some representations of him
have him looking like a merman,
which is a human with fish features below the waist.
Some scholars have referred to him as a fish God,
which makes sense given his association
with the Philistines and their location along the coast.
In the Bible, the Philistines continued to worship Dagon
during the time of judges
and during the reign of Samuel and Saul.
As a biblical connection,
ancient texts from the region
connect Dagon as the father of Baal,
another false god highlighted
throughout later Old Testament history.
During the judges period,
the practice of Baal worship entered Jewish religious life.
During the reign of Ahab,
the practice of worshiping Baal grew across Israel,
and it was also prevalent in Judah.
The method of worshiping Baal had an impact on both nations.
Dagon's son, Baal, was worshiped in various ways
across the entire land.
Dagon was similar to many other idols
in that he personified natural forces
that had supposedly produced all things.
Throughout history, right into the days that we now live,
humans have always been fascinated with demon-driven gods
to do what looks extraordinary.
This temptation hasn't been limited
to the heathen that do not know God,
but has also crept into the hearts of those who once loved
and understood the god that made the seen or unseen world.
This lying to seek gods often stems from greed,
rebellion, or a soul that is too impatient
and feels God is too slow
for the supernatural change he desires.
Psalms 16:2-5.
"I said to the Lord, 'You are my Lord.
I have nothing besides you.
As for the saints who are on the earth,
they are the majestic ones.
All my delight is in them.
The pains of those who have acquired another god
will be multiplied.
I will not pour out their drink offerings of blood,
nor will I take their names upon my lips.
The Lord is the portion of my inheritance and my cup.
You support my lot.'"
What happened to Dagon in the Bible?
There are two primary passages
in the Old Testament that refer to Dagon.
The story can be found in Judges 16
as a component of the Samson narrative.
God chose Samson to be one of the deliverers or judges,
and he used his renowned power to triumph over Philistines
at every stage of the conflict.
The Philistines could not defeat him in combat,
so they targeted his Achilles heel,
his relationship with foreign women.
The famed Delilah coaxed Samson's secret confession
out of him and made him cut off his hair,
leading him to be captive by the Philistines.
As they worshiped Dagon and had a big party,
they decided to humiliate Samson by putting out his eyes
and making him work as an enslaved person.
Clearly, this was part of their worship of Dagon.
The nations went to war in polytheistic cultures.
It was also understood that their gods fought,
and the Old Testament confirms this
in many passages with Israel and other cultures.
With Samson, the Philistines were making a statement.
Due to the capture of Samson,
they believed Dagon had beaten Jehovah, Samson's God,
and therefore, Dagon was more potent than the God of Israel.
Judges 16:25-30.
"Now, when they were in high spirits, they said,
'Call for Samson so that he may amuse us.'
So they called Samson out of the prison
and he entertained them.
They made him stand between the pillars.
Then Samson said to the boy who held him by the hand,
'Let me feel the pillars on which the roof
of the house rests so that I may lean against them.'
Now, the house was full of men and women.
All the Philistine lords were there.
And on the flat roof were about 3000 men and women
who looked on while Samson was entertaining them.
Then Samson called to the Lord and said,
'Oh Lord God, please remember me
and please strengthen me just this one time,
oh God, and let me take vengeance
on the Philistines for my two eyes.'
Samson took hold of the two middle support pillars
on which the house rested and braced himself against them,
one with his right hand and the other with his left.
And Samson said, 'Let me die with the Philistines.'
And he stretched out with all his might,
collapsing the support pillars,
and the house fell on the lords
and on all the people who were in it,
so the dead whom he killed at his death
were more than those whom he had killed during his life."
Samson's plea to God to help him destroy
the Philistines makes sense.
God's assistance was not about Samson so much as proving
which God was more potent.
1 Samuel 5 is where we find the next instance
of Dagon being dealt with.
The sons of Eli, the priests and commander of Israel
were wicked religious men.
Despite the fact that the Ark of the Covenant went
into battle with Israel against the Philistines,
God handed Israel a defeat as punishment.
The Philistines succeeded in stealing
the Ark of the Covenant from its previous owner.
In a manner identical to that
which has occurred with Samson,
the Philistines brought the ark into the temple
of one of their city states, Ashdod.
1 Samuel 5:1-7, Amplified Bible.
"Then the Philistines took the ark of God
and they brought it from Ebenezer to Ashdod.
They took the ark of God and brought it into the house
of Dagon and set it beside the image of Dagon,
their chief idol.
When the people of Ashdod got up early the next day,
behold Dagon had fallen on his face on the ground
before the ark of the Lord.
So they took Dagon and returned him to his place.
But when they got up early the next morning,
behold, Dagon had again fallen on his face on the ground
before the ark of the Lord,
and his head and both palms of his hands
were lying cut off on the threshold.
Only the trunk portion of the idol of Dagon was left on him.
This is the reason neither the priests of Dagon
nor any who entered Dagon's house step on the threshold
of Dagon in Ashdod to this day.
Then the hand of the Lord was heavy on the people of Ashdod
and he caused them to be dumbfounded and struck them
with tumors, both Ashdod and its territory.
When the men of Ashdod saw what had happened, they said,
'The ark of the God of Israel must not remain with us,
for his hand is heavy on us and on Dagon our god.'"
How was Dagon worshiped?
Dagon was worshiped in temples
that could be found all over Mesopotamia.
According to the Bible, the cities of Beth-Dagon,
Gaza and Ashdod were home to some
of the most important temples.
He was worshiped by offering offerings
and participating in feasts.
His temple is destroyed, his image is laid prostrate
before the ark of God, with his hands and face cut off,
demonstrating that he is powerless
to resist the God of the Israelites.
There is a need to be cautious
about what we let into our lives.
Whether or not the Israelites worshiped Dagon
is not mentioned in the Bible.
However, we know they dabbled with Dagon's gods,
Baal and Asherah,
so we can assume that there is
a little bit of Dagon thrown in there.
It is essential to be highly cautious when dealing
with innocuous things, as they can be very insidious.