John Lightfoot on Luke 11:15

[Through Beelzebub the chief of the devils.] I. As to this name of Beelzebub I have elsewhere discoursed, and do still assert the reading of it with the letter l in the end of it, viz. Beelzebul, against the Syriac, Persian, Vulgar, and other translations, which read it Beelzebub. The Italian, cautiously indeed, but not purely, Beelzebu, that he might not strike upon either the one or the other reading: but in the mean time I will not answer for the faithfulness and candour of the interpreter.

II. Amongst the Jews we may observe three devils called the chief, or prince of the devils: 1. 'The angel of death'; who is called Prince of all the Satans. 2. The devil Asmodeus: of him afterward. 3. Beelzebub, in this place. Now as to vindicating the writing of it by l in the end of the word, and not b:

III. It is a question whether there were such a thing as Beelzebub in rerum natura. Why should not the deity of the place take his farewell, when Ekron, the place of this deity, was wholly obliterated? When there was no more an idol nor oracle at Ekron, did not the demon cease to be Beelzebub any longer, although it did not cease to be a demon? Wherever, therefore, Ekron was under the second Temple, or the place where it had been under the first; you can hardly persuade me there was any idol or oracle of Beelzebub, and so not Beelzebub himself. I will not here dispute whether Achor, the Cyrenians' tutelar god against flies, hath any relation or affinity with the name of Ekron. Let it be granted that Beelzebub might change his soil upon some occasion, and remove from Ekron to Cyrene: but then how should he come to be the prince of the devils, when all his business and power was only among flies?

It may not be improbable, perhaps, that he might be first or chief of those demons, or Baalim, that Ahab brought among the Israelites; and so Ahaziah his son, in the midst of his affliction and danger, might fly for refuge to that idol as what had been the god of his father: but what is it could move the ages following at so long distance of time from this, that they should esteem this demon Beelzebub the prince of the devils? Here I confess myself not well satisfied: but as to Beelzebul, something may be said.

IV. I have already shewn, in notes upon Matthew 12, that the Jewish doctors (and such were these who contended with our Saviour) did give idolatrous worship the denomination of zebul, or dung, for the ignominy of the thing; and so was the nation generally taught by these Rabbins. I gave some instances for the proof of it, which I shall not here repeat, but add one more: "It is said of Joseph" [when his mistress would have tempted him to adultery], "that he came into the house to do his business. R. Judah saith, It was a day of fooling and of dunging, it was a day of theatres." Where the Gloss upon the word zebul, stercoration, saith thus: "It is a word of contempt, and so it is expounded by R. Solomon in the treatise Avodah Zarah, and Tosaphoth; viz. that fooling signifies to sacrifice [that is, to idols]; and they prove it out of Jerusalem Beracoth, where it is said, 'He that seeth a place where they dung [that is, offer sacrifice] to an idol, let him say, Whoso offereth sacrifice to strange gods, let him be accursed.'" Which words we have also alleged out of the Jerusalem Talmud.

V. Now therefore, when idolatry was denominated zebul amongst the Jews, and indeed reckoned amongst the most grievous of sins they could be guilty of, that devil whom they supposed to preside over this piece of wickedness they named him Beelzebub, and esteemed him the prince of the devils; or (if you will pardon the expression) the most devilized of all devils.

VI. They give the like title to the devil Asmodeus. Asmodeus the king of the devils. The devil, the prince of the spirits. Which elsewhere is expounded, the devil Asmodeus. For in both places we have this ridiculous tale: "There was a certain woman brought forth a son in the night-time, and said to her son [a child newly born you must know], 'go and light me a candle, that I may cut thy navel.' As he was going, the devil Asmodeus meeting him, said to him, 'Go and tell thy mother that if the cock had not crowed I would have killed thee,'" &c.

The very name points at 'apostasy,' not so much that the devil was an apostate, as that this devil provoked and enticed people to apostatize: Beelzebul amongst the Gentiles, and Asmodeus amongst the Jews, the first authors of their apostasy. Whether both the name and demon were not found out by the Jews to affright the Samaritans, see the place above quoted: "When as Noah went to plant a vineyard, the demon Asmodeus met him and said, Let me partake with thee," &c. So that it seems they suppose Asmodeus had a hand in Noah's drunkenness. "When he [that is, Solomon] sinned, Asmodeus drove him to it," &c. They call the angel of death by the name of prince of all Satans, because he destroys all mankind by death, none excepted.