Ba`al means "The lord" who ruled over the high gods assembled on the holy mount of Heaven. (As a redaction: this is not an entirely clear point. El or Elohim was actually the father God of the gods in Canon. El was asked to help Baal when he was slain by Mot, god of the underworld. El could not prevent Baal's death, but Baal was reborn anyway.) Baal was mainly a god of the sun, rain, thunder, fertility and agriculture and at some point he overtakes the god of the water, Yam. Baal's is the son of the god Dagan or Dagon, another Semitic Cannonite god. It was this "god of the grain" that allowed Baal to be reborn. Originally, the Semitic god Hadad - also called Baal - was worshipped by Arameans who brought his worship to other parts of the Mediterranean. Early demonologists, unaware of Hadad or that "Ba`al" in the Bible referred to any number of local spirits, came to regard the term as referring to but one personage. Until archaeological digs at Ras Shamra and Ebla uncovered texts explaining the Syrian pantheon, the Ba‘al Zebûb (or Beelzebub) was frequently confused with various Semitic gods Ba‘al, and in some Christian writings it might refer to a high-ranking devil or to Satan himself. The Biblical and historical evidence shows that the Moabites worshiped Baal. The pre-Islamic and Muslim sources show (a) that the Meccans took over the idol Hubal from the Moabites.

Ba'al is also referenced in the bible as the false idol that the Israelites worshiped while Moses was upon the Mount receiving the ten commandments that led to him breaking the original tablets and having to travel back up to the mountain top to get a new set. This is the original story that is not told in Sunday school cause it's assumed child minds would not follow.