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Jubilees prays that the spirit of Belial will not accuse the people of Israel, an early use of the name for a personal power of evil. Paul in 2 Corinthians references the same name Beliar, the one place where the New Testament uses it.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Jubilees 1:20
Pseudepigrapha
19 Then Moses fell prostrate and prayed and said: “Lord my God, do not allow your people and your heritage to go along in the error of their minds, and do not deliver them into the control of the nations with the result that they rule over them lest they make them sin against you. 20 May your mercy, Lord, be lifted over your people. Create for them a just spirit. May the spirit of Belial not rule them so as to bring charges against them before you and to trap them away from every proper path so that they may be destroyed from your presence. 21 They are your people and your heritage whom you have rescued from Egyptian control by your great power. Create for them a pure mind and a holy spirit. May they not be trapped in their sins from now to eternity.”
2 Corinthians 6:15
New Testament
14 Do not become partners with those who do not believe, for what partnership is there between righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship does light have with darkness? 15 And what agreement does Christ have with Beliar? Or what does a believer share in common with an unbeliever? 16 And what mutual agreement does the temple of God have with idols? For we are the temple of the living God, just as God said, “I will live in them and will walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.”
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Notes and References
“... Beliar (= beliyya’al ‘worthlessness, malice’) is a name for the devil in the pseudepigrapha. Rabbinic literature does not know Beliar as a name for Satan but does give some haggadic interpretations of the Old Testament bny bly’l. Jubilees 1:20: ‘O Lord, may your mercy over your people be great, and fashion for them a right mind, and may the spirit of Belhor (= Beliar) not rule them, to accuse them before you and to woo them away from all the ways of righteousness, so that they perish far from your face.’ Jubilees 15:33: ‘All the sons of Beliar will leave their sons without circumcision as they were born.’ Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah 2:4: ‘Manasseh (the king) also changed his mind so that he served Belial (= Beliar); for the prince of injustice, who rules this world, is Belial, whose name is Matanbukus (?).’ ...”
Strack, Hermann L.; Billerbeck, Paul
Commentary on the New Testament from the Talmud and Midrash, Volume 3
(p. 2 Cor 6:15 §A) Lexham Press, 2021
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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