Judges 8:33

And it came to pass, as soon as Gideon was dead, that the children of Israel turned again,.... from God, and the pure worship of him, to idolatry:

and went a whoring after Baalim; the gods of the Phoenicians and Canaanites, the several Baals of other nations, the lords many which they served; these they committed spiritual whoredom with; that is, idolatry: particularly

and made Baalberith their god; which was the idol of the Shechemites, as appears from a temple being built at Shechem for it, Judges 9:4 and had its name either from Berytus, a city of Phoenicia, of which Mela n and Pliny o make mention, and where this Baal might be first worshipped; it was fifty miles from Sidon, and was in later times a seat of learning p; of this city was Sanchoniatho, a Phoenician historian, who is said to receive many things he writes about the Jews from Jerombalus, supposed to be Jerubbaal, or Gideon;

Judges 6:32 and who tells q us, that Cronus or Ham gave this city to Neptune and the Cabiri, and who also relates r that Beruth is the name of a Phoenician deity. Though it may be rather this idol had its name from its supposed concern in covenants, the word "Berith" signifying a covenant; and so the Targum and Syriac version call him the lord of covenant; and the Septuagint and Vulgate Latin versions are,

"and they made a covenant with Baal, that he should be their god;''

as if he had his name from hence; though rather from his presiding over covenants, as Janus is said s to do, and from his avenging the breach of them, and rewarding those that kept them; the same with Jupiter Fidius Ultor, and Sponsor t with the Romans, and Horcius u with the Greeks.

n De Situ Orbis, l. 1. c. 12. o Nat. Hist. l. 5. c. 20. p Eunapius in Vita Proaeresii, p. 117. q Apud Euseb. Evangel. Praepar. l. 1. p. 38. r Apud Euseb. Evangel. Praepar. l. 1. p. 36. s Servius in Virgil. Aeneid. l. 12. "Latonaeque genus", c. Vid. Liv. Hist. l. 8. c. 5, 6. t Vid. Kipping. Antiqu. Roman. l. 1. c. 1. p. 48. u Pausan. Eliac. 1. sive. l. 5. p. 336. Sophocles in Philoctete, prope finem.