Ba`al Shamîm

Ba‘al Shamîm 'Lord of Heaven' is a northwest Semitic god or a title applied to different gods at different places or times found in various ancient Middle-eastern inscriptions. The title is sometimes applied to Hadad who is also often titled just Ba‘al but often refers to a deity differentiated from him.

The earliest known occurrence of this title as "Ba‘l Shamêm" is in a treaty of the 14th century BC between Suppiluliumas I king of the Hittites and Niqmadu II, king of Ugarit. One might take this to be another name for Ba‘al Hadad and again when the name appears in a Phoenician inscription by King Yeḥimilk of Byblos. But other texts make a distinction between the two.

In the treaty of 677 BC between King Esarhaddon of Assyria and King Ba‘al I of Tyre a curse is laid against King Ba‘al if he breaks the treaty, reading in part:

May Baal-sameme, Baal-malage, and Baal-saphon raise an evil wind against your ships, to undo their moorings, tear out their mooring pole, may a strong wave sink them in the sea, a violent tide [. . .] against you.

The god Baal-malage is otherwise unexplained, Baal-saphon here and elsewhere seem to be Ba‘al Hadad whose home is on Mount Ṣaphon in the Ugaritic texts. But interpreters disagree as to whether theses are here three separate gods or three aspects of the same god, a god who causes stormy weather on the sea.

In any case inscriptions show the cult of Ba‘al Shamîm continued in Tyre from Esarhaddon's day until towards the end of the 1st millennium BC.

In Nabatean texts in Greek Ba‘al Shamîm is regularly equated with Zeus Helios, that Zeus as a sun-god. Sanchuniathon supports this:

... and that when droughts occurred, they stretched out their hands to heaven towards the sun; for him alone (he says) they regarded as god the lord of heaven, calling him Beelsamen, which is in the Phoenician language "lord of heaven," and in Greek "Zeus."

Unfortunately it is not clear whether Ba‘al Shamîm is here regarded both a sun-god and the bringer of rain or whether he is regarded as the cause of drought.

Writers in Syriac refer to Ba‘al Shamîm as Zeus Olympios.

At Palmyra a large temple to Ba‘al Shamîm has been excavated.

In Sanchuniathon's main mythology the god he calls in Greek Uranus 'Sky' has been thought by some to stand for Ba‘al Shamîm. Sky is here the actual father of Ba‘al Hadad (though Ba‘al Hadad is born after his mother's marriage to Dagon). As in Greek mythology and Hittite mythology Sky is castrated by his son who is in turn destined to be opposed by the thunder god. In Sanchuniathon's story Sky also battles Sea, and when Sky cannot prevail, he allies himself with Hadad.

External links

* [http://www.flat3.co.uk/levant/pages/index_palmyra.htm Stuart Whatling: Arbia Syria: Palmyra] ("Some pictures of the temple of Ba‘al Shamîm at Palmyra.")