Mount Baal-hermon
Mount Baal-hermon is a mountain mentioned in the Old Testament, located in the region of Phoenicia in modern-day Israel. Known today as Mount Hermon. It appears across 1 verse in Scripture.
Biblical History
Mount Baal-hermon is mentioned in Judges 3:3 as part of the territory where the remaining Canaanite nations dwelt after Joshua's conquests, specifically the Hivites who lived from Mount Baal-hermon to Lebo-hamath. The name combines "Baal," the chief Canaanite deity, with "Hermon," indicating that this peak or a specific area of the Hermon range served as a center of Baal worship. The mountain marked the northernmost extent of Israelite settlement and served as a boundary marker. In 1 Chronicles 5:23, the half-tribe of Manasseh is described as settling in the land from Bashan to Baal-hermon, Senir, and Mount Hermon, suggesting that Baal-hermon may have been a specific peak or locality within the broader Hermon massif rather than Mount Hermon itself. The persistence of the Baal prefix in the name reflects the ongoing tension between Israelite worship of Yahweh and the entrenched Canaanite religious practices that characterized the northern frontier throughout the period of the Judges.
Archaeological & Historical Notes
Mount Baal-hermon is generally identified with a peak or locality within the Mount Hermon massif, which rises to 2,814 meters (9,232 feet) at the convergence of modern Lebanon, Syria, and Israel. Numerous ancient temples and high places have been documented across the Hermon range, confirming its long association with Canaanite and later Greco-Roman religious worship. Over thirty temple sites have been surveyed on Hermon's slopes, some dating to the Bronze and Iron Ages. The summit itself bears remains of a sacred precinct. These archaeological findings corroborate the biblical depiction of the Hermon region as a significant center of pagan worship throughout antiquity.
Verse Appearances (1)
Judg
References
- Orr, J. (ed.) (1915) The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. Chicago: Howard-Severance Company. [Public Domain]
- OpenBible.info (n.d.) Bible Geocoding. Available at: https://www.openbible.info/geo/. [CC BY 4.0]
- Bagnall, R. et al. (eds.) (n.d.) Pleiades: A Gazetteer of Past Places. Available at: https://pleiades.stoa.org. [CC BY 3.0]
- Wikidata contributors (n.d.) Wikidata. Available at: https://www.wikidata.org. [CC0]
- Lawrence, D. et al. (2025) Villages to Empires: a settlement dataset for the Southern Levant. doi:10.5281/zenodo.15111732. [CC BY 4.0]
- Church of England (1769) The Holy Bible, Authorized (King James) Version. [Public Domain]