Who was Belial?

The Hebrew word signifies 'worthless, lawless,' and is not a proper name, but is used as a personification of evil; thus we have 'son of Belial, daughter of Belial,' etc. Deut. 13:13; Judges 19:22; 1 Sam. 1:16; 1 Sam. 25:17, 25; etc. In the N.T. it is put in contradistinction to Christ as if it meant Satan, 2 Cor. 6:15: it is there βελίαρ.

There is the common term, "sons of Belial". Belial means "worthless", so the term "son of Belial" simply means a worthless person.

(V. 15.) Secondly, believers and unbelievers are under very different leadership. The believer is controlled by Christ; the unbeliever is directed by the prince of this world — Belial, a name that implies a worthless, or lawless, person, and hence used as a proper name to designate Satan. What concord can there be between Christ and Belial?

Here the person of the speaker is of all importance; and however He may identify Himself with others, in this psalm it is Christ who is this throughout. Thus, when He says "the torrents of Belial put me in fear," we have to consider in what sense it would be possible for Him to say this. Belial — though it seems better to anglicize than to translate the Hebrew word means, evidently, "worthlessness," the "ungodly men" of the common version, which the revised changes into "ungodliness." The word is, indeed, much more than the English one, of a moral significance very positive, and not negative merely. In the moral and spiritual spheres, there is nothing merely negative: simple indifference here is crime. Thus Belial is used in the New Testament as standing for the direct opposite of Christ; and the "sons of Belial," in the language of the Old, are always those lawless ones who,whenever the occasion arises, manifest themselves as law-breakers, hostile to God and man. The "torrents of Belial" are undoubtedly such corrupt and lawless men; only marking their wickedness as that which produces fear in Him who speaks here. Their power, whatever it were, surely could not, any more than death could in its physical suffering, or in aught beyond it. For Him, the sting of it would be as judgment from God; and such it was, of necessity, for Him who took it as the Sin-bearer and Substitute for sinners. Thus wrath was in it, separation from Him who was of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, though this was upon Him only.

Belial is the god or prince of this world, dominating, though secretly, its councils and its plans.

Unbelievers are the units that go to the making up of the world-system. The system itself had its rise in the minds of the unbelieving, and it now utterly dominates the mind of mankind wherein it had its birth. Unbelievers are the subjects of the kingdom dominated by Belial.

Idols are the many things, often trifling in themselves, which men pursue as objects of desire and which consequently usurp in their souls that place of supremacy which properly belongs to God alone. By means of idols Belial maintains his sway over the minds of unbelievers, blinding them to the "light of the glorious gospel of Christ" (2 Cor. 4:4), keeping them in darkness and in unrighteousness as regards their relations with God.

Be’la ites patronymic of Belah

Be’li al - Worthlessness

"But the sons of Eli," we read, "were sons of Belial." What a reflection on the name of him who at that time was both high priest and supreme judge in Israel! His sons, the "sons of Belial!" Could anything be worse — children of "worthlessness and corruption!" Truly we see here emphasized the truth of the adage, "The corruption of the best is the worst of corruption." Though priests of the Lord, they descended to depths of evil. Instead of magnifying their office, they degraded it, till "men abhorred the offering of the Lord."

After this another scene opens to view. It is not now Eli in his feebleness; but his sons in their ungodly course and dissolute profanation of Jehovah's name. Eli feared the Lord; but he certainly knew not that calm sense of the presence of God which enables one to judge accordingly. This has been plainly before us in the first chapter. What about his sons? They were sons of Belial; they knew not Jehovah. So was it now in Israel, the chosen people of God. And those who had been set for the very purpose of presenting God to the people, and the people to God, were now the sons of Belial.

Here we behold the blessedness of the child of God, and the perfect character of that blessedness which the future results of God's love will evidence. Just remember that everything that offends has been cast out; all iniquity burnt up, destroyed; the saints safely housed in the barn; and then shall they shine - observe, "then shall the righteous shine" - they are the righteous. But who are the righteous? Those who are one with Christ: His character is brought forward as "the Lord our righteousness," and "the Sun of righteousness." "He shall be as the light of the morning when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth, by clear shining after rain." 2 Sam. 23:4. And in these last words of David we have, along with the description of the glory of the Lord at His coming, a view of the destruction of the wicked: it is a similar passage to the one in the text, and refers to the same event. "But the sons of Belial [that is, the children of the wicked one] shall be all of them as thorns thrust away, because they cannot be taken with hands" - that is, they cannot be drawn by the teaching and beseeching of man to come to the right. "But the man that shall touch them must be fenced with iron and the staff of a spear; and they shall be utterly burned with fire in the same place" (v. 6, 7), that is, in the same place where they are, similar to the burning of the tares.

What follows (v. 12) describes the perverseness of the wicked man, the man of Belial, the man who is void of God in his mind and consequently follows vanity. In every moment he is at mischief: his eyes, his feet, His fingers, all seem to carry on mischief. Perverseness is in his heart: so it works through all that he can signify anything with; he devises mischief continually, causing discord amongst others - a sad picture. But we cannot but feel how we are occupied with evil here, for we are in an evil world, and our path is through it. Only I have to learn it thus in the word by faith, and not in the practice of it, or by familiarity with the practice of it in the world. But judgment comes on such. He is unexpectedly destroyed without remedy. He has been occupied with evil; there remains but judgment. "Judgment" here is the instruction of Proverbs; and surely, though there is not a direct government by it, so it is continually in the world even now. The character of the man of Belial and vanity is then described in the traits which the Lord hates.