the same as BEL or BELUS, an idol of the Chaldeans and Phoenicians or Cumanites. The word Baal, in the Punic language as well as in the Hebrew, signifies "lord" or "master," and doubtless meant the supreme Deity; yet there is no evidence that the Israelites ever called Jehovah by the name of Baal; for the passage in Hosea ii. 16, which has been cited as such, only contains the word baal as the sterner, less affectionate, representative of husband. Some learned men identify the Baal of the Phoenicians with the Saturn of the Greeks; others with the Phoenician or Tyrian Hercules, a god of great antiquity in Phoenicia.