Beshalach - Exodus 13:17-17:16

Baal-Tzaphon vs YHVH-Elohim

In my post, "Who Are The Elohim?", I wrote about the number of different uses of the name "Elohim", as well as its development. I recommend reading that post as well to get a better understanding on how the names and attributes of the Hebrew God evolved, and how that has impacted Rabbinical Judaism to the present day.

The names YHVH and Elohim

Here's a short summary:

The Jews did not meet God and had a sudden unified view of what God was. This view evolved over time. And whether is was a schism in ideology or geography, several different views developed over different periods. One, at its extreme level, was that God was to be feared and obeyed. Asking God for favors was not even a consideration. As a servant, you acted without expectation of a reward. The other, at its extreme level, was that God cared about His special people, and that He would reward His faithful servants. He was the salvation and the provider. There were, of course, gradations between these two views.

The use of different names for this God expressed their differing views. And this is why you have the Rabbinical tradition that "Elohim is the name of strict justice and YHVH is the name of loving-kindness". Of course, that is too simplistic of an approach, since sometimes Elohim will do do acts of loving kindness, and YHVH could be nit-picky and kill for the slightest grievances. The truth is, that that the people of those period did not have a monolithic view of God, and when they told their stories, those differences would be expressed.

Of course, some of these stories were shared with those of the opposing view, and if they liked them, they made them their own, using a name for God that they could relate to, and giving Him attributes that was consistent with their views.

And at some point, in later generation, these two opposing views no longer were opposing. The bleeding over of legends and songs resulting in a homogeneous view of God, and they brought their tales together, stitched them into a written word, and the result is that we have dramatic examples of the same stories being repeated, but with changes to God names and attributes and a few details, in the same book. This accounts for some of the repeat tales in the Torah, as well as in Psalms. Psalm 14 and 53 are the two most dramatic examples, where it's the same short story with the same message, but only the name of God and the expectations of the people were changed.

At some point, YHVH and Elohim were no longer distinct, but became YHVH-Elohim.

But before I write about this hyphenating of names, I want to speak briefly about the name YHVH.

In modern Jewish Orthodox circles, the name יהוה (which I write as YHVH) is never spoken. Instead, a name is spoken in place of it out of respect. Originally, "Adoni" ("My Lord" or "Lord") was the word used, and in prayer, this is the name the the Jew utters. But due to the impulse to take things to extreme, even that name is now too holy to say, except in prayer, so "HaShem" (literally, "the name") is said in place when speaking to another person about YHVH.

Leaving people's nutty obsession aside, it is this use of "LORD" which is important, because in the Septuagint (LXX), that is exactly what they did with the name YHVH - they replaced it with "LORD" for the written text, and the Jews replaced YHVH with "Adoni" in prayer and speech, but kept "YHVH" in the text as-is...usually. The ultra-religion replace some of the Biblical use of "YHVH" with "יי" (YY) as an abbreviation for extra sanctity, and some go one step further and change "YY" for "Y'" (the letter yud with an apostrophe.)

I bring all of this up to show you how nutty the religious are when it comes to these names.

And this is relevant, because of what happens in the Book of Isaiah.

Hyphenating Names

In my post, "Isaiah - A Book that Changed God", I talk about how Elohim is barely mentioned, and is completely eliminated as the story goes on. In fact, YHVH-Elohim is never mentioned. And how the Elohim of others are systematically removed as well. And near the end, YHVH becomes known as "Adon YHVH" - LORD YHVH. And what you may not be aware of is that when an Orthodox Jew publicly reads this passage, he pronounces it as "Adoni-Elohim".

In other words, YHVH is treated as the second half of the hyphenated name in the same way as Elohim always was.

And this finally brings us to the point I wanted to make: hyphenated names.

There was a time when I read "YHVH-Elohim" as "YHVH of the Elohim", which is grammatically correct in Hebrew if you have two distinct nouns. In Hebrew, noun1 plus noun2 results in a translation of "noun1 of/belonging-to noun2".

However, is became clear to me that these were not to disconnected nouns, but were a connected single noun.

Yes, there is God names a YHVH and another group used Elohim, and later there's a view that unified these two, but there is one thing to keep in mind - the way that YHVH-Elohim was viewed was not exactly the same as YHVH or Elohim was viewed. Yes, it's the same God ideologically, but the attributes and the legends about it are different.

There are other hyphenated names as well, such as El-Shaddai and, as we will be reading, Baal-Tzaphon.

The prominent idea about these hyphenating of names is that the first name is the title, and the second name is the unique name. So "Adon YHVH" would make "Adon" (LORD) the title, and "YHVH" the personal name of God. And so too with Baal-Tzaphon, where "Baal" (which means "LORD") is the title, ans "Tzaphon" is the unique name. However, you don't refer to a God by His unique name, but by the complete hyphenated name.

Of course that brings us back to "YHVH-Elohim".

There was a time when the name "Baal" and "YHVH" were interchangeable. For example, King Saul named his son IshBaal, or "A man of the LORD" rather than, say, "IshYah" ("Yah" [יה] is the normal abbreviation for YHVH in names given to people).

Hadad is also often used as a form of "Baal" and is not only the name of a God, but is sometimes used as another name for "LORD" which appears in the Tanach as well, such as "Ben-Hadad, the King or Aram" or "Son-of-the-LORD".

In other words, "Baal-" and "YHVH-" were equivalent. And the Book of Isaiah was a text that eliminated that connection altogether, although prophesied that one day, people would refer to God as LORD-YHVH, giving YHVH back His honorific title.

In the same way, the God Baal, and Baal-Tzaphon, and Baal-Peor, and all of the other LORDS, may have some association to the original Canaanite "Baal" in aspect or legend, but these are names given to describe the views of the people who saw this LORD, with the private name being the unique identifier of how he was seen.

Of course, the Tanach is a propaganda text for a pro-YHVH narrative, and so any other God with "LORD" as an honorific will not be treated with the same respect. In fact, it is suspected that some of the unknown "Baal" God-names in the Tanach are polemic in nature, such as "Baal-Zebub" ("zebub" is a shit eating, bothersome, insect - a fly), and some say that it might be an insult to Baal-Tzaphon, although that too may also be an insult, since "tzaphon" is sometimes used to express a dark, scary, and gloomy place.

Baal-Tzaphon

So end this by finally talking about Baal-Tzaphon.

It should be noted that when the Torah uses the name "Tzaphon" in this week's parashah, it spells it defectively, meaning, missing a letter (Tz-Ph-N instead of TZ-Ph-O-N). Perhaps this is also meant as an insult, or perhaps not.

Rashi, always the apologist, says this about Baal-Tzaphon in 14:2:

"He along remained of all of the gods of Egypt to as to mislead them, so that [the Egyptians] should say, [that] their God is enduring. Regarding this, [the Bok of] Job explained, "He leads the goyim astray, and He destroys them." (Job 12:23).

Rashi has to come up with an explanation because YHVH said:

So how come there was a God left? Well, YHVH left one God so that the Egyptians would be misled and He could destroy them further.

What a God!

This begs the question: Was Baal-Tzephon as place or a God? Because if it was a God and the Hebrews needed to wait in front of Him, well, that causes some problems, at least to the modern mind.

It is debated if the Baal-Tzaphon God in the Torah is the same Baal-Tzaphon mention in other ancient texts is hard to determine, since it was not an Egyptian deity (Rashi did not know about the ancient texts that would be excavated centuries after he lived), but was worshiped far to the west, in Carthage, and would have been popular long after the Exodus story took place, which is a problem for some.

Now, Ba'al Tzaphon was a God for seafarers, and 14:2 tells the Hebrews to "...wait before Baal-Tzaphon, and camp opposite Him/it by the sea."

So perhaps this is the same Baal-Tzaphon, but written about by a much later author.

It is interesting to note that while Rashi is willing to call Baal-Tzaphon a God, he did not do the same for Ashteroth-Keranim in Genesis 14:5, when the Rephaim were fighting with Her.

So the question should come up, "Why did YHVH tell the Hebrews to wait at that particular spot?"

Ba'al-Tzaphon was the God who would protect people as they crossed the sea. And YHVH waited for all of the Egyptians to show up and then part that very "sea" ("yom suf"was likely a marsh) and be the Protector of His people!

Except, wouldn't the Egyptians think that this  was the doing of Ba'al Tzaphon?

Ah, that is where YHVH's plan: "He leads the goyim astray, and He destroys them."

Why did He do it? "So they will know I am YHVH" (14:4).

Or better, "So that will know that I am LORD, not LORD-Tzaphon!"

It was a power struggle of Divine intent.

YHVH knew that the Egyptians would think that it was safe, after all, there was Ba'al-Tzaphon! They went after the Hebrews and, "woosh"!, all of the waters pour over them and drown them all, showing that Ba'al-Tzaphon was an impotent God.

YHVH: 1, Baal: 0