Baal-Berith- Canaanite GodDeity"Lord of the Covenant"
Also known as: El-Berith and בַּעַל בְּרִית
Description
At Shechem, where the central hills of Canaan commanded the crossroads, stood the fortified temple of Baal-Berith, Lord of the Covenant, the god who witnessed oaths and punished those who broke them. When Abimelech turned on the city, a thousand people fled into that stronghold. He burned it down around them.
Mythology & Lore
Lord of the Covenant
Baal-Berith's name means "Lord of the Covenant." The Hebrew Bible also calls him El-Berith, "God of the Covenant," both titles apparently designating the same deity at the same sanctuary. He presided over the ceremonies where binding agreements were sworn: the god whose presence made an oath unbreakable and whose wrath fell on those who broke it.
His temple stood at Shechem, in the central hill country of Canaan. Excavations at Tell Balatah have uncovered a fortress-temple with massive walls and a central courtyard, dating from the Middle Bronze Age through the Iron Age. It was a sanctuary built like a stronghold, its physical weight matching the weight of the oaths sworn inside.
Abimelech
In Judges, Abimelech took silver from Baal-Berith's treasury to hire mercenaries for his bid for power. He killed seventy of his own brothers on a single stone. When he later turned on Shechem itself, the city's people fled to the one place they trusted: the temple stronghold of the covenant god. A thousand of them packed inside.
Abimelech cut brushwood from the hillside, piled it against the walls, and set it on fire. Everyone inside died. The god of oaths and the sanctuary that had witnessed them were consumed together.
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