BAAL-ZEPHON

(Baʹal-zeʹphon) [lord of the north, or, lord of the watchtower].

A geographical point used to define or give the situation of the camping site of the Israelites at Pihahiroth prior to their crossing the Red Sea. (Ex. 14:2; Num. 33:1-7) Having left Rameses, they first camped at Succoth, then at Etham “at the edge of the wilderness.” (Ex. 13:20) At this point Jehovah told them to “turn back and encamp before Pihahiroth between Migdol and the sea in view of Baal-zephon.” It was here that Pharaoh’s charioteers, cavalry, and military forces began to overtake them.—Ex. 14:2, 9.

The location of Baal-zephon is uncertain. It was evidently a familiar place at that time, thus serving to identify clearly the position of the Israelites at that point of the historic event. Some have tried to identify the place by connecting the name with that of a Canaanite god Baal-zephon and places in Egypt where his worship was practiced. However, the evidence shows his worship to have been practiced in numerous parts of Egypt as far south as Memphis, so that this gives little basis for identifying the site.

The major factor is, of course, the Israelite’s crossing of the Red Sea, the account of which shows that they went through a body of water of considerable depth. Such situation is found only when reaching as far S as the northern end of the Gulf of Suez. On this basis some scholars associate Baal-zephon with the mountains in that region. A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament by Brown, Driver and Briggs (p. 128) says: “near Red Sea in Egypt, prob[ably] Mt. ʽAtaka, . . . ” This mountain lies near the head of the Gulf of Suez, a short distance to the SW of the present city of Suez. Others suggest Jebel el Galala, some twenty-five miles (40 kilometers) or so farther S. Those favoring this site believe that Migdol, mentioned along with Baal-zephon in the accounts, was a watchtower located strategically on Jebel (Mount) Ataka.—See EXODUS; PIHAHIROTH.

BAANA

(Baʹa·na) [son of distress].

1. One of the twelve deputies whom Solomon appointed to secure food for the king’s household. Baana’s assignment was the fifth-listed district, primarily the fertile valleys of Megiddo and Jezreel. Son of Ahilud, and possibly the brother of Solomon’s recorder Jehoshaphat.—1 Ki. 4:3, 7, 12.

2. Another of Solomon’s twelve food deputies, responsible for the ninth-listed district, in northern Palestine. Son of Hushai, David’s companion.—1 Ki. 4:7, 16; 2 Sam. 15:32-37.

3. Father of the Zadok who assisted Nehemiah to repair Jerusalem’s walls, 455 B.C.E.—Neh. 3:3, 4.

BAANAH

(Baʹa·nah) [son of distress].

1. A son of Rimmon the Benjamite. He and his brother Rechab were chiefs of marauding bands belonging to Saul’s son Ish-bosheth. Baanah and his brother murdered Ish-bosheth while he was taking a siesta, but when they brought his head to David, who had recently been installed as king, he ordered them killed and their hands and feet cut off, and had them hanged by the pool in Hebron.—2 Sam. 4:2-12.

2. Father of one of David’s mighty men, Heleb the Netophathite.—2 Sam. 23:29; 1 Chron. 11:30.

3. One who was possibly a leader of those returning from Babylonian captivity with Zerubbabel.—Ezra 2:2; Neh. 7:7.

4. One of the “heads of the people” whose descendant, if not himself, attested to Nehemiah’s “trustworthy arrangement.” (Neh. 9:38; 10:14, 27) He may be the same as No. 3, above.

BAARA

(Baʹa·ra) [brutish].

One of the wives of Shaharaim the Benjamite.—1 Chron. 8:1, 8.

BAASEIAH

(Ba·a·seʹiah) [work of Jah].

A descendant of Levi through Gershom and ancestor of temple musician Asaph.—1 Chron. 6:39, 40, 43.

BAASHA

(Baʹa·sha) [bold; offensive].

Third king of the ten-tribe kingdom of Israel; son of Ahijah of the tribe of Issachar and of insignificant background. He usurped the throne by killing his predecessor Nadab, after which he struck down the entire house of Jeroboam, as had been prophesied. (1 Ki. 15:27-30; 14:10) Baasha, however, continued Jeroboam’s calf worship, and for this his own house also was promised extermination. (1 Ki. 16:1-4) When he waged war against Judah, Asa induced the king of Syria to harass Baasha from the N. The fortified city of Ramah, which Bassha was building, Asa then razed. (1 Ki. 15:16-22; 2 Chron. 16:1-6) After having ruled twenty-four years (975-952 B.C.E.), Baasha died and was buried in his capital, Tirzah. His son Elah succeeded him, but in two years Zimri rebelled and wiped out Baasha’s house, fulfilling Jehovah’s decree.—1 Ki. 16:6-13.

BABEL

(Baʹbel) [confusion].

One of the first cities to be built after the Flood. Here God “confused the language of all the earth.” (Gen. 11:9) The name is derived from the verb ba·lalʹ, meaning “to mingle, mix, confuse, confound.” Local citizens, thinking of their city as God’s seat of government, claimed that the name was compounded from Bab (Gate) and El (God), signifying “Gate of God.” From antiquity the word “Bab” (“Gate”) is the designation given in the Near East to a seat of government.

The beginning of the kingdom of wicked Nimrod, the “mighty hunter in opposition to Jehovah,” was here at Babel, “in the land of Shinar,” on the alluvial plain built up by silt from the flooding Euphrates and Tigris Rivers. (Gen. 10:9, 10) Stones were not available for construction, so the builders made use of the great deposits of clay. “Let us make bricks and bake them with a burning process,” they said. Due to an absence of lime, the mortar consisted of bitumen, probably transported down the Euphrates from natural deposits at Hit, 140 miles (225.3 kilometers) NW.—Gen. 11:3.

Babel’s God-defying program centered around construction of a religious tower “with its top in the heavens.” It was not built for the worship and praise of Jehovah, but was dedicated to false man-made religion, with a motive of making a “celebrated name” for the builders.—Gen. 11:4.

The approximate time of such building may be drawn from the following information: Peleg lived from 2269 to 2030 B.C.E. His name meant “division; part,” for “in his days the earth [that is, “earth’s population”] was divided”; Jehovah “scattered them from there over all the surface of the earth.” (Gen. 10:25; 11:9) A text of Skarkalisharri, king of Agade (Accad) in patriarchal times, mentions his restoring a temple-tower at Babylon, implying that such a structure existed prior to his reign.

See the book “Babylon the Great Has Fallen!” God’s Kingdom Rules!, pp. 11-31.

BABYLON

(Babʹy·lon) [confusion].

The later name given to Babel. This city of renown was located along the Euphrates River on the Plains of Shinar, later called Babylonia, approximately 540 miles (869 kilometers) E of Jerusalem and some fifty miles (80 kilometers) S of modern Baghdad.—See BABYLONIA; SHINAR.

Nimrod, who lived in the latter part of the third millennium B.C.E., founded Babylon as the capital of man’s first political empire. Construction of this city, however, suddenly came to a halt when confusion in communications occurred. (Gen. 11:9) Later generations of rebuilders came and went. Hammurabi enlarged and strengthened the city and made it the capital of the Babylonian Empire under Semitic rule.

Under the control of the Assyrian World Power, Babylon figured in various struggles and revolts. Then with the decline of the second world empire, the Chaldean Nabopolassar founded a new dynasty in Babylon about 645 B.C.E. His son Nebuchadnezzar II,