Below is a diagram of Beelzebub‟s Temple at Ekron in Ancient Philistia:

Beelzebub was known as “Pir Bub” to the Yezidi Devil Worshippers of Iraq. They claim he was the

God of King Ahab. (Reference: Devil Worship 1919 by Isya Joseph, page 40)

The following is an Excerpt from “Encyclopaedia Biblica; a Critical Dictionary of the Literary, Political

and Religious History, the Archaeology, Geography, and Natural History of the Bible”

Volume I : A-D, by The Rev. T. K. Cheyne, M.A., DD and J. Sutherland Black, M.A. LL.D. New York,

The Macmillan Company; London: Adam and Charles Black, 1899

BAALZEBUB taking Zebub or Myla as the name Fly-god, a God of Ekron, whose oracle was

consulted by Ahaziah king of Israel in his last illness. The name is commonly explained “Lord of

Flies.” True, there is no Semitic analogy for this but Pausanias tells us of a God who drove away

dangerous swarms of flies from Olympia, and Clement of Alexandria attests the cult of the same God in

Elis and we may, if we will, interpret the title “A God who sends as well as removes a plague of flies.”

Let us however, look farther. Bezold thought that in an Assyrian inscription of the 12th cent. B.C.E.

“Baal-Zabnbi” was the name of the one of Zebub. Baal-Zebub was a widely known divine name,

adopted for the God of Ekron. The restoration of the final syllable, however, is admittedly quite

uncertain, and the reading Baal-Sapuna (see BAAL-ZEPHON, I) seems much more probable.

Winckler, therefore, suggests that Zebub might be some very ancient name of a locality in Ekron (no

longer to be explained etymologically), on the analogy of Baal-Sidon, Baal-Hermon, Baal- Lebanon. No

such locality, however, is known, and Ekron, not any locality in Ekron, was the territory of the Baal. It

is, therefore, more probable that Baal-Zebub, “Lord of Flies” (which occurs only in a very late narrative,

one which has a pronounced didactic tendency), is a contemptuous uneuphonic Jewish modification of

the true name, which was probably Baal-Zebul, “Lord of the High House

This is a title such as any God with a fine temple might bear, and was probably not confined to the God

of Ekron. “High house” would at the same time refer to the dwelling-place of the Gods “mountain of

assembly” in the far North. There is some reason to think that the Phoenicians knew of such a dwelling-

place. The conception is implied in the divine name Baal-Saphon, „Lord of the North‟ (see BAAL-

ZEPHON), and in the Elegy on the king of Tyre (Ezekiel 28 ) ; and the Philistines probably knew of it.

At any rate, the late Hebrew narrator or, if we will, an early scribe may have resented the application of

such a title as „“Lord of the high house” (which suggested to him either Solomon‟s temple or the

heavenly dwelling of Yahwi, to the Ekronite God, and changed it to “Lord of flies,” Baal- Zebub.

This explanation throws light on three proper names,- JEZEBEL, ZEBUL, and ZEBULON, “from thy

(high house) of holiness and glory.” The same term could be applied to the mansion of the moon in the

sky.

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