BEELZEBUB, BEELZEBUL, BAALZEBUB. Baalzebub was the name of the god of the Philistine city Ekron, to whom Ahaziah of Israel when sick sent to inquire whether he should re cover (II Ki. i. 1-18). The meaning of the name is obscure. Baal (q.v.) the common title for a Semitic deity, especially a local deity, is often found compounded with the name of the city where the deity was worshipped : cf. place-names such as Baal Hazor (II Sam. xiii. 23), Baal Hermon (Judges iii. 3), probably contracted from a fuller form Beth Baal X=Temple of the deity of X, as in Beth Baal Meon (Josh. xiii. 17) . But as no place Zebub is known, and the Baal of Zebub would in any case hardly be god of Ekron, such an explanation of Baalzebub is improbable. Zebub is found as a noun=flies (Isa. vii. 18, Eccles. x. 1), and the most probable explanation of Baalzebub is that it means "God of flies," i.e., the god who can bring or send away flies. Pliny records in his Natural History that the inhabitants of Elis in time of pes tilence cried to "the Disperser of Flies," and that as soon as sacri fice was offered to the deity the flies perished and the pestilence ceased. The epithet "Disperser of Flies" is attached in Greek literature to the names of Zeus and Hercules. Flies, like mice, were in ancient times recognized as bringers of disease, and it seems quite likely that a god who was able to drive away flies should be regarded as one who had power over disease : the fame of such a god in Ekron would doubtless be known to Ahaziah. Barton says that flies are still specially prevalent about Ekron (A Year's Wanderings in Bible Lands, pp. 216 seq.) .
The form Beelzebub, found in the English New Testament (Matt. x. 25, xii. 24, 2 7 ; Mark iii. 2 2 ; Luke xi. r 5 :18 seq.) is due to the influence of the Vulgate : the Greek form is 13Eq'Ei3obX or If the latter is accepted it has been explained as equivalent to the Rabbinic S131 In.; (betel zebul) =Lord of the Dwelling, i.e., of the region in which demons dwell. But the Rabbinic (zebul) is used only of the heavenly or earthly temple of God, which makes such an interpretation very unlikely. More probably, though not certainly, the name is really to be identified with the Old Testament Baalzebub, the final b having been corrupted to 1, as Bab-el-Mandeb in popular speech becomes Bab-el-Mandel. As a god of healing Baalzebub may well have been supposed to have power over demons, since in Semitic thought diseases were regarded as inflicted by demons (see Strack and Billerbeck, Das Evangelium nach Matthaus, pp. 631 sqq.).