637 
Though the sun was adopted as a representation of Deity, 
as being the most direct and evident manifestation of Divine 
power, and the visible source of heat, life, vitality, and 
generation, still, as shown by the word for sun, " grian," or 
" Gri : ine," the " nature of fire," they did not regard the sun 
as the Deity himself, but as a manifestation of his power : 
they believed in one invisible, omnipotent, eternal Being — 
Beil, the source of all things — in common with Egyptians, 
Hindoos, Persians, Greeks, Phenicians, and Israel. 
Baal, Bel, or Beil, seems to have been a general name for 
God, and probably each people would select some one attri- 
bute as the prominent feature in divinity, according to their 
own peculiar habit of mind. Thus the Baal of North and 
South Syria differed greatly. The one was a stern, harsh, 
and bloody worship — even that of Moloch — offering sons 
and daughters to Baal ; the other, a soft, effeminate, and 
impure worship — such as that of Baal Peor, and in other 
countries the worship of Venus, and of which such fearful 
accounts are given us by Herodotus. After the time of Moses, 
the name of the Baal of Israel was Jehovah ; what it was before 
that time we are not told, only we are told in Ex. vi. 3 that 
it was not " Jehovah ; " and the frequent use of Baal in 
names, shows that at one period there was no disgrace, no 
semblance of idolatry in its use. Thus in the same chapter 
of Judges, the 18th, the same place is called Baal-beritii (4), 
and El-berith (36), as though no difference existed between 
El and Baal. Saul and Jonathan had sons, whose names 
were compounded with " Baal." Several of David's officers 
had the same, as though even in their lifetime the name 
Baal implied no sin or disgrace, as it did in after times ; nay, 
we have a more direct proof that " Baal," in itself, did not 
always imply idolatry, in Hosea ii. 16, Thou shalt call me 
Ishi, "my husband," and shalt call me no more " Baali," i.e., 
'•my lord." Thus Baal was the "deity of Canaan and Syria, 
