BEKAH half a shekel. [WEIGHTS.] BEL (93, contracted from 1,/3, the Aramaic form of 912: ; Sept. BI7X and BijXos) is the name under which the national god of the Babylonians is cursorily mentioned in Is. xlvi. i ; Jer. 1. 2 ; li. 44. Besides these passages in the Bible, there are notices of this deity in Bar. vi. 40, and the apocryphal addition to the book of Daniel, in the Sept., xiv. T, sq., where we read of meat and drink being daily offered to him, according to a usage occurring in classical idolatry, and termed Lectistenzia (Jer. li. 44?) For fuller information we must turn to the tes timonies of profane writers. A particular account of the pyramidal temple of Bel, at Babylon, is given by Herodotus, i. 181-183. It is there also stated that the sacrifices of this god consisted of adult cattle Orpb(3ara), of their young, when sucking (which last class were the only victims offered up on the golden altar), and of incense. The custom of providing him with Lectisternia may be inferred from the table placed before the statue, but it is not expressly mentioned. Diodorus (ii. 9) gives a similar account of this temple ; but adds that there were large golden statues of Zeus, Hera, and Rhea on its summit, with a table, common to them all, before them. Gesenius, in order to support his own theory, endeavours to skew that this statue of Zeus must have been that of Saturn, and that that of Rhea represented the sun. Hitzig, however, in his note to Is. xvii. 8, more justly observes that
Hera is the female counterpart to Zeus-Bel, that she is called so solely because it was the name of the chief Greek goddess, and that she and Bel are the moon and sun. He refers for confirmation to Berosus (p. 50, ed. Richter), who states that the wife of Bel was called Omorca, which means moon; and to Ammian. Marcell. xxiii. 3, for a statement that the moon was, in later times, zealously wor shipped in Mesopotamia. The classical writers generally call this Babylonian deity by their names, Zeus and (Herod. and Diod. 1. c. ; Plin. Hist. Nat. vi. 30); by which they assuredly did not mean the planet of that name, but merely the chief god of their religious system. Cicero, however, (De Nat. Dear. iii. 16), recognizes Hercules in the Belus of India, which is a loose term for Babylonia. This favours the identity of Bel and Melkarth.
The question whether the sun or the planet Jupiter was the power of nature adored under the name of Bel, is discussed under the article BAAL.
The following engraving, taken from a Babylonian cylinder, represents, according to Miinter, the sun god and one of his priests. The triangle on the top of one of the pillars, the star with eight rays, and the half moon, are all significant symbols.- J. N.
BEL and DRAGON. [DANIEL, APOCRYPHAL ADDITIONS TO.]