****************************** 1.  In the earliest case where the feast of the ingathering, afterwards the chief feast of the Israelites, is mentioned, it is celebrated by Canaanites of Shechem in honour of Baal (Judges ix. 27). *****************************

This is confirmed by the fact that they took over from these the “Bamoth” or “high places” also, notwithstanding the prohibition in Deuteronomy xii.

It was natural enough that the Hebrews should also appropriate the divinity worshipped by the Canaanite peasants as the giver of their corn, wine, and oil, the Baal whom the Greeks identified with Dionysus.  The apostasy to Baal, on the part of the first generation which had quitted the wilderness and adopted a settled agricultural life, is attested alike by historical and prophetical tradition.  Doubtless Baal, as the god of the land of Canaan, and Jehovah, as the God of the nation of Israel, were in the first instance co-ordinated. 2

***************************** 2.  In Judges v.  Jehovah retains his original abode in the wilderness of Sinai, and only on occasions of necessity quits it to come to Palestine. ****************************

But it was not to be expected that the divinity of the land should permanently be different from the God of the dominant people.  In proportion as Israel identified itself with the conquered territory, the divinities also were identified.  Hence arose a certain syncretism between Baal and Jehovah, which had not been got over even in the time of the prophet Hosea.  At the same time the functions of Baal were more frequently transferred to Jehovah than conversely.  Canaan and Baal represented the female, Israel and Jehovah the male, principle in this union.

Had the Israelites remained in the wilderness and in barbarism, the historical development they subsequently reached would hardly have been possible; their career would have been like that of Amalek, or, at best, like those of Edom, Moab, and Ammon.  Their acceptance of civilisation was undoubtedly a step in the forward direction; but as certainly did it also involve a peril.  It involved an overloading, as it were, of the system with materials which it was incapable of assimilating at once.  The material tasks imposed threatened to destroy the religious basis of the old national life.  The offensive and defensive alliances among the tribes gradually dissolved under the continuance of peace; the subsequent occupation of the country dispersed those whom the camp had united.  The enthusiastic elan with which the conquest had been achieved gave way to the petty drudgery by which the individual families, each in its own circle, had to accommodate themselves to their new surroundings.  Yet under the ashes the embers were still aglow; and the course of history ever fanned them anew into flame, bringing home to Israel the truths that man does not live by bread alone, and that there are other things of worth than those which Baal can bestow; it brought ever again into the foreground the divineness of heroical self sacrifice of the individual for the good of the nation.