Background

Last week on Iron Age Prophet Smackdown!!!…

Ahab became king and pissed off God more than any of the kings who came before him (1 Kings 16:33) by marrying Jezebel and officially establishing worship of Baal in the kingdom. God responds with three years of drought befalling the land (1 Kings chapter 17).

Chapter 18 of 1 Kings begins with the prophet Elijah presenting himself before Ahab, and challenging the prophets of Baal to a spiritual duel. Ahab sends out word across all of Israel to gather at Mount Carmel to see a battle between the prophets of Baal (and Asherah – who are forgotten from the story after vs 19) and Elijah representing YHWH. It’s 450 prophets against 1.

Elijah challenges the assembled masses asking, “How long will you go limping with two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.” (vs 21) But the people remained silent.  So Elijah’s proposed a simple test: Each team would make a stone altar with a pile of wood, just like normal. Each team would also be given a sacrificial bull, which will ceremonially butchered, and placed on the altar, also, just like normal. The twist would be that neither team would light their altar on fire. Instead, Elijah said,“…you call on the name of your god and I will call on the name of the Lord; the god who answers by fire is indeed God” (vs 24). And all the people said, “Bet!”

Elijah let team Baal go first. They took the bull that was given to them, prepared it, and called out to their god from around 6 am until noon, crying, “O Baal, answer us!” But there was no answer. After six hours of parading around the altar, Elijah participated in a long tradition of prophetic discourse: he became a bit of a dick.

At noon Elijah mocked them, saying, “Cry aloud! Surely he is a god; either he is meditating, or he has wandered away, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened.” (vs 27)

{For the rest of the story…}

This is the verse our card is based on, and you may be asking, “what does this have to do with ‘shit’?

{Note: Before you read any further and get offended by our repeated use of the word “shit,” we’ve covered how and why we employ “foul language” in our game and in our Card Talks. Maybe you should take a look at those.}

 Elijah’s Shit Talking

Let’s investigate what Elijah actually said to the prophets of Baal:

At noon Elijah mocked them, saying, “Cry aloud! Surely he is a god; either he is meditating, or he has wandered away [וְכִֽי־שִׂיג לֹו], or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened.” (vs 27)

This is the only place in the Bible where the phrase וְכִֽי־שִׂיג לֹו is used, and as always, we love looking into how some Bibles have translated key words. 

• The (ye olde) King James Version translates this phrase “he is pursuing” (which of course leads us to the question pursuing, or chasing, what?).

• The Revised Standard Version says that “he is on a journey” (but to where?).

• The New Revised Standard Version suggests that “he has wandered away” (because he’s feeble-minded?).

Never content to stick with translations of the Bible, we Bible nerds refer back to lexicons for word meanings.

• Brown–Driver–Briggs’ A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (or BDB to her friends) gives two definitions for כִֽי־שִׂיג לֹו: “Withdrawing to a private place” and “dross,” as in waste product.

• Holladay’s A Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament is, no surprise, more concise, giving this succinct definition for כִֽי־שִׂיג לֹו: “bowel movement.”

Put them both together,

Baal was looking for a private place to take a shit.

And so you don’t think this is just our wacky, irreverence, consider:

• “Starting about noon, Elijah began to tease them: ‘Shout louder! He's a god, so maybe he's busy. Maybe he's relieving himself. Maybe he's busy someplace. Maybe he's taking a nap and somebody needs to wake him up.'‘“ (International Standard Version)

• “About noontime Elijah began mocking them. ‘You'll have to shout louder,’ he scoffed, ‘for surely he is a god! Perhaps he is daydreaming, or is relieving himself. Or maybe he is away on a trip, or is asleep and needs to be wakened!’" (New Living Translation)

• The New Oxford Annotated Bible (New Revised Standard Version) footnotes the verse saying, “a disrespectful euphemism meaning that Baal has to relieve himself.”  

• Everett Fox’s translation renders it “Maybe he is busy—maybe ‘doing his business’…” with an appropriate footnote about “scatological” euphemisms.

• Gregory Mobley renders the passage in this alliterated way: “‘Call with a louder voice. Perhaps Elohim is distracted or defecating or detoured. Perhaps he is asleep and will awaken.’”

But Why “Shit”?

In pouring over and translating this passage, one question kept coming to mind: why shit? Seriously: why does Elijah (or the biblical writer of Elijah’s voice) employ scatological humor in the middle of his taunts?

Sure, potty humor is always funny (“…if Baal shits in the forest and no one hears him, is he really a god?”), but is that it? Elijah is just the average bro throwing fecal funnies around? If so, are dick jokes next? (Actually, Paul makes some of those in the New Testament, but that’s a conversation for another Card Talk). We wondered if there was some deeper significance to this specific, shitty shot at Baal. And you know what? There is.

The Hebrew Bible (and later rabbinic source) use the motif of shit to denigrate worship of Baal.

This is not confined to this passage. To that end, allow us to provide two examples from within the context of Kings, and two from without, showing the scope of the biblical tradition of shitting on Baal.

ON BAAL AND SHIT

The Shit-God of 2 Kings Chapter 1

2 Kings begins with a story of Elijah confronting king Ahaziah of Samaria, who has just fallen off his roof (and no we don’t have a card for this story, but we really should). Ahaziah sends messenger to inquire consult the oracles of Baal Zebub, the god of the Philistine city of Ekron. The angel of the LORD tells Elijah to inform Ahaziah that there is only one God he is supposed to be consulting about his health, and that is not the god of his enemies. So now he’s going to die.

What does this have to do with shit? “Baal Zebub” doesn’t pass the linguistic or historical smell test for multiple reasons.

1. There is no archaeological evidence of a Philistine god named Baal Zebub.

2. Also, the name doesn’t makes sense. The word/name “Baal” means “lord,” “prince,” “master,” or “husband” (#patriachy). Thus, “Baal Zebub” means “Lord of Zebub,” and since “Zebub” was/is not a place, most scholars believe that the deity’s name was originally Baal Zebul, which means “The mighty Baal/lord” or “The exalted Baal/lord.”

3. Baal Zebub on the other hand, can be translated one of two ways: in Hebrew, “Lord of the flies,” or in Aramaic— the northwest Semitic language—(wait for it) “Lord of dung.”  

Yes, they changed the god’s name to “shit-god.”

The Shit-Temple of 2 Kings Chapter 10

2 Kings chapter 10 continues the narrative of the king Jeru, who was anointed by Elisha— Elijah’s prophetic successor— and spends most of his time destroying everything and everyone related to worship of Baal.

One specific account records how Jehu called together “all the prophets of Baal, all his worshipers, and all his priests; let none be missing, for I have a great sacrifice to offer to Baal… But Jehu was acting with cunning in order to destroy the worshipers of Baal.” (vs 19) “All the worshipers of Baal came, so that there was no one left who did not come… until the temple of Baal was filled from wall to wall.” (vs 21). Jehu had his men make sure that the only people inside the temple were Baal worshipers. Then he has everyone in the temple killed:

Now Jehu had stationed eighty men outside … As soon as he had finished presenting the burnt offering, Jehu said to the guards and to the officers, “Come in and kill them; let no one escape.” So they put them to the sword. The guards and the officers threw them out, and then went into the citadel of the temple of Baal. They brought out the pillar that was in the temple of Baal, and burned it. (24b, 25-26).

So where’s the shit?

It’s in what Jehu did next: turning the temple of Baal into the public toilet.

Then they demolished the pillar of Baal, and destroyed the temple of Baal, and made it a latrine to this day. (vs 27)

Yes, he turned the god’s palace into a temple of shit.

{Note: This isn’t just one isolated Bible story. It’s believed that other Jewish kings did the same. Archaeological evidence has been found that King Hezekiah might have followed Jeru’s lead when he enacted his own religious reforms (c.f. 2 Kings 18:1-6), as a site in Lachish was found with altars damaged in ways corresponding to the biblical description, and an ancient toilet was installed in the corner, the ultimate act of desecration.}

The Shit-God of Numbers Chapter 25

Numbers 25:1-15 tells the story of the children of Israel having sexual relationships with the people of Moab. This was a big no-no, because the Israelites were supposed to hate the Moabites for reasons we don’t have time to get into. Needless to say, God is upset by this, not (only) because of all the sex, but because of what the sex brought with it: worship of Baal:

These invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. Thus Israel yoked itself to the Baal of Peor, and the Lord’s anger was kindled against Israel. (vs 2-3)

God’s anger was made known to the people:

The Lord said to Moses, “Take all the chiefs of the people, and impale them in the sun before the Lord, in order that the fierce anger of the Lord may turn away from Israel.” And Moses said to the judges of Israel, “Each of you shall kill any of your people who have yoked themselves to the Baal of Peor.” (vs 4-5)

In addition to this death sentence, 24,000 die in a plague (c.f. Psalm 106:28-31), which ended when a guy named Phineas took a spear and ran it through an Israelite and a Midianite woman while they were having sex (of course we have this as a Card in the game!).

Okay, cool story, but where’s the shit? (This is a longer one…)

The word “Peor” means “open the mouth” (c.f. Isaiah 5:14). However, the rabbinic tradition has associated Baal Peor with ritual defecation. And they are VERY GRAPHIC when talking about it. Three examples:

1. Discussing this passage, and the worship of Baal Peor, Rashi wrote: “accounting for the name, they would open the ‘mouth’ of the rectum before him and bring forth excrement” (Source).

2. The Talmud says

“The Gemara relates another incident with regard to Ba’al-Peor. The Sages taught: There was an incident involving a Jew named Sabbeta ben Alas, who rented out his donkey and his services to a certain gentile woman. He was driving his donkey behind her, and when she arrived at Peor, she said to him: Wait here until I go in and come out. After she came out, he said to her: You too wait for me until I go in and come out. She said to him: Aren’t you Jewish? Why, then, are you worshipping idols? He said to her: And what do you care? He entered and defecated before the idol, and wiped himself with its nostril, as he wanted to demean the idol as much as possible. But he was unsuccessful, as the priests of Peor were praising him and saying: No person has ever worshipped it before with this excellent form of worship. Although he intended to demean Ba’al-Peor, he actually worshipped it.” (b. Sanh. 64a)

3. The Talmud also records

Rav Yehuda says that Rav says: An incident occurred involving a certain gentile woman who was very ill. She said: If that woman, referring to herself, recovers from her illness, she will go and worship every object of idol worship in the world. She recovered from her illness and subsequently worshipped every object of idol worship in the world. When she arrived at Peor she asked the priests: How does one worship this idol? They said to her: One eats spinach, which causes diarrhea, and drinks beer, which also causes diarrhea, and defecates before it. The woman said: Better for that woman, referring to herself, to return to her illness, and not worship an idol in such a manner. (b. Sanh. 64a)

Yes, to worship Ba’al means that you like kinky shit-play in many aspects of your life.

Shit-Stomping in Isaiah Chapter 25 

Isaiah chapter 25 describes God coming to the aid of His oppressed people. Verse 7-8 describe God “swallowing” the threat of death. In the Hebrew, “swallow” is an anagram for “Baal,” and in Canaanite mythology, Baal was a god who swallowed Death.

But where is the shit?

Notice the result of the enemies who rise against God’s people in this passage:

For the hand of the Lord will rest on this mountain.

The Moabites shall be trodden down in their place

as straw is trodden down in a dung-pit. (Isaiah 25:10) 

Yes, they get stepped on and squashed like the straw used to create manure (shit) in the Ancient Near East.

The Lesson

While there was more than one Baal worshiped in the Ancient Near East, the Bible largely conflates them into one being [and if you want to completely nerd out on this topic we highly recommend Mark S Smith’s The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel and And Frank Moore Cross’s classic Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel.].

However, it doesn’t matter which Baal we’re talking about: the Bible and later rabbinic literature uses a motif of shit to denigrate the worship of Baal.

Why? Because, in the Hebrew mindset:

Baal ain’t shit compared to God.

And what more is there to say?

But what do we know: we made this game and you probably think we’re going to Hell.

The End of the Duel

After Elijah’s holy shit talking, the prophets of Baal cried even louder. And “they cut themselves with swords and lances until the blood gushed out over them.” (vs 28). But as midday began to turn into evening, and their bloody cries went unanswered, and Elijah continued to slice away at their morale, they gave up.

Then it was Elijah’s turn. He rebuilt the altar of the Lord that had been torn down under Ahab and Jezebel’s reign, using twelve stones representing the twelve tribes of Israel. He made a huge trench, a moat, around the altar, and after placing the wood and his butchered bull on it, he had the people fill four jars with water, and had them poured on the burnt offering and on the wood. He had this repeated three time, twelve in total. So much water that the moat he had dug was filled with water also. Elijah prayed to his God and

 “Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering, the wood, the stones, and the dust, and even licked up the water that was in the trench.” When all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and said, “The Lord indeed is God; the Lord indeed is God.” (vs 38-39)

After the battle of divine wills was over, Elijah said to the people, “Seize the prophets of Baal; do not let one of them escape.” Then they seized them; and Elijah brought them down to the Wadi Kishon, and killed them there. (vs 40)

Team Baal: 0 / Team YHWH: 1