Baal
Baal is an ancient city mentioned in the Old Testament, located in the region of Judea in modern-day Israel. Known today as Beer Yeroham. It appears across 2 verses in Scripture.
Biblical History
Baal as a place name, distinct from the widely attested Canaanite deity, appears in 1 Chronicles 4:33 as a settlement within the territory of the tribe of Simeon in the Negev. The passage lists a series of Simeonite villages and their surrounding settlements, with Baal among those inhabited by the clan of Shimei. The name may represent a shortened form of a longer compound toponym, such as Baalath-beer or Ramath-negeb, which appear in parallel lists in Joshua 19:8. The region of Simeon in the Negev was a sparsely settled frontier zone, and many of its towns served as pastoral bases for semi-nomadic clans herding flocks in the arid south. The presence of place names incorporating "Baal" in the Negev does not necessarily indicate Canaanite cultic influence; such names were often simply traditional designations inherited from the pre-Israelite inhabitants or referring to a local lord or owner. The Simeonite settlements in this region gradually diminished as the tribe was absorbed into Judah, and many of these towns faded from the historical record after the early monarchy period.
Archaeological & Historical Notes
The Simeonite city of Baal is tentatively associated with the general area of the northern Negev, possibly near Beer Yeroham or Ramat Negev. The Negev highlands have been extensively surveyed by Israeli archaeologists, particularly through the work of Rudolph Cohen and others, who documented hundreds of Iron Age I and II sites reflecting the pastoral and semi-sedentary occupation of Simeonite and Judahite clans. No site has been definitively identified as the Baal of 1 Chronicles 4:33 through inscriptional evidence. Surface pottery from the general area confirms Israelite-period occupation, consistent with the biblical list.
Verse Appearances (2)
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]