I. Name

The name Baal Zebub occurs only four times in the OT (2 Kgs. 1.2, 2 Kgs. 3, 2 Kgs. 6, 2 Kgs. 16). In 2 Kgs. 1 an accident of Ahaziah, the king of Israel, and his consulting the oracle of the god Baal Zebub of Ekron is described. For etymological reasons, Baal Zebub must be considered a Semitic god; he is taken over by the Philistine Ekronites and incorporated into their local cult. Zebub is the collective noun for ‘flies’, also attested in Ugaritic (W. H. van Soldt, UF 21 [1989] 369–373: dbb), Akkadian (zubbu), post-biblical Hebrew, Jewish…