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Beelzeboul

Βεελζεβούλ

GreekG0954“Beelzebul, Beelzebub”

Appears 7 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Mat 10:25Mat 12:24Mat 12:27Mrk 3:22Luk 11:15Luk 11:18Luk 11:19
Word studyResearch-gradebeh-el-zeh-BOOLnoun

What Beelzeboul means

Beelzebul: a name for the prince of the demons, used by Jesus's accusers

TranslatabilityUntranslatableCertaintySettled

Beelzebul appears only in one dispute in the Gospels. After Jesus drives out a demon, his opponents charge that he does it in league with the chief of the demons, whom they call Beelzebul. All seven uses point to that one figure: the head of the evil spirits, the power the accusers say Jesus is secretly working for.

The name itself is an old title that once belonged to a Canaanite god, meaning something like "lord of the lofty dwelling" or "the prince." By Jesus's day Jewish speakers had turned that title into a name for the ruler of the demons. The wordplay in one saying makes the sense clear: Jesus warns that if people have called the master of the house "Beelzebul," they will say worse about his household, and the joke only works if the name means "lord of the house," not "lord of the flies."

When Jesus answers the charge, he does not repeat the name his opponents used. He swaps it for a different one, Satan (Σατανᾶς), meaning "the adversary," and argues that a kingdom or a household divided against itself cannot stand. The switch is deliberate: it moves the argument off the ground of pagan gods and onto the question of whose kingdom is arriving.

Mat 10:25Mat 12:24Mat 12:27Mrk 3:22Luk 11:15Luk 11:18Luk 11:19

What scholars say about Beelzeboul

The name occurs seven times, all in the Beelzebul controversy (Matt 10:25; 12:24, 27; Mark 3:22; Luke 11:15, 18, 19), where the narrators equate Βεελζεβούλ with ὁ ἄρχων τῶν δαιμονίων and Jesus's reply substitutes Σατανᾶς. Every Greek manuscript reads Βεελζεβούλ (or the Alexandrian Βεεζεβούλ in B and א); no Greek witness reads Βεελζεβούβ, which enters only through the Vulgate and the Syriac, harmonized to the Hebrew of 2 Kings 1. Metzger and the UBS committee, BDAG, and Foerster (TDNT) judge Βεελζεβούλ original. The dominant reading derives the name from בַּעַל זְבוּל, "Baal the Prince" or "Lord of the Lofty Dwelling," cognate with Ugaritic zbl bʿl in the Baal Cycle and with Hebrew זְבוּל (an exalted or heavenly abode); the Masoretic זְבוּב ("fly") in 2 Kings is widely taken as an early polemical distortion, part of the same pattern as the bošet-substitutions in personal names. The wordplay in Matt 10:25 (οἰκοδεσπότης / οἰκιακοί, mirroring בַּעַל הַבַּיִת) is the strongest internal support for the "dwelling/house" sense. Minority etymologies survive: "Lord of Dung" (zebel, treated now only as a possible punning resonance) and "Lord of Enmity" (Aramaic bʿel dĕbaba, Akkadian bēl dabābi), which fails phonologically. Outside the Synoptics and the (largely post-Christian) Testament of Solomon the name is essentially absent from surviving Second Temple literature, where the chief adversary is instead Belial, Mastema, or Sammael.

Where scholars disagree about Beelzeboul

What the name Beelzebul originally meant, and which spelling is original. The Gospels read Beelzebul, but a rival form, Beelzebub ("lord of flies"), comes only from later Latin and Syriac translators harmonizing to 2 Kings 1.

  • majorityThe name is Baal-Zebul, "Baal the Prince" or "Lord of the Lofty Dwelling," a genuine Canaanite divine title (cognate with the Ugaritic title zbl bʿl); the "fly" form in the Hebrew of 2 Kings is an early Israelite polemical distortion, and the Gospels preserve the older, non-polemical form.; Theodore J. Lewis, "Beelzebul," Anchor Bible Dictionary, vol. 1 (1992), 638–640; Werner Foerster, "Βεελζεβούλ," TDNT, vol. 1 (1964), 605–606; W. E. M. Aitken, "Beelzebul," JBL 31 (1912): 34–53
  • minorityThe second element is "fly" after all (zebub), given the ancient Greek cults of fly-averting deities, so "lord of flies" may be an authentic title rather than only a distortion.; Wolfgang Herrmann, "Baal Zebub," in Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, 2nd ed. (Leiden: Brill; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 154–156
  • minorityThe name echoes an Aramaic phrase for "adversary" (bʿel dĕbaba, from Akkadian bēl dabābi), which would explain why Jesus immediately substitutes "Satan" (the adversary); this survives despite serious phonological objections.; David Cielontko, "The Provenance of the Name Beelzebul," Communio Viatorum 63 (2021): 68–77; Peggy L. Day, An Adversary in Heaven: Śāṭān in the Hebrew Bible, HSM 43 (Atlanta: Scholars, 1988), 151–159
In-depth research

This is a research paper, so it may be hard to read without scholarly background. It is useful if you want to dig even deeper into this word.

Sources

  • Werner Foerster, "Βεελζεβούλ," in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. G. Kittel, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964), 605–606lexicon
  • F. W. Danker (ed.), A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (BDAG), 3rd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), s.v. Βεελζεβούλlexicon
  • Theodore J. Lewis, "Beelzebul," in The Anchor Bible Dictionary, ed. D. N. Freedman, vol. 1 (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 638–640reference
  • Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, 2nd ed. (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft/UBS, 1994), apparatus at Matt 10:25; 12:24; Mark 3:22; Luke 11:15reference
  • W. E. M. Aitken, "Beelzebul," Journal of Biblical Literature 31 (1912): 34–53article
  • Lloyd Gaston, "Beelzebul," Theologische Zeitschrift 18 (1962): 247–255article
  • Joel Marcus, Mark 1–8, Anchor Bible 27 (New York: Doubleday, 2000), 272–273commentary
  • Adela Yarbro Collins, Mark, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007), 228–230commentary

AI-generated word study · claude-opus-4-8

All attested forms of Βεελζεβούλ

dative m s

Βεελζεβοὺλ

Mat 12:24, Mat 12:27, Luk 11:15, Luk 11:18, Luk 11:19

accusative m s

Βεελζεβοὺλ

Mat 10:25, Mrk 3:22