Charles Ellicott Commentary Judges 6:32

"Therefore on that day he called him Jerubbaal, saying, Let Baal contend against him, because he hath broken down his altar." — Judges 6:32 (ASV)

He called him. —Rather, people called him, he got the name of. The phrase is impersonal. (Vocatus est, Vulgate; hiess man ihn, Luther.)

Jerubbaal. —The name meant, “Let Baal strive;” but it might also mean, “let it be striven with Baal,” or “Baal’s antagonist,” and this gave the name wider acceptance. It is possible that the name may have been even more allusive, since from the Palmyrene inscriptions it appears that there was a deity named Jaribolos (Mover’s Phönizier, 1:434). If in 2 Samuel 11:21 we find the name Jerubbesheth, this is only due to the practice of the Jews of avoiding the names of idols and changing them into terms of insult.

It was in this way that they literally interpreted the law of Exodus 23:13 . It was a part of that contumelia numinum with which the ancients charged them (Pliny xiii. 9). I have cited other instances in Language and Languages, p. 232 (Longmans). Bosheth means “shame,” i.e., “that shameful thing,” and was a term of scorn for Baal (Hosea 9:10; Jeremiah 11:13). We have two other instances of this change in the case of the sons of Saul.

Whether from a faithless syncretism or a tendency to outright apostasy, he called one of his sons Esh-baal, i.e., “man of Baal,” and another Merib-baal (1 Chronicles 8:33–34); but the Jews angrily and contemptuously changed these names into Ishbosheth and Mephibosheth (2 Samuel 2:10; 2 Samuel 4:4). Ewald, however, and others have conjectured that both Baal and Bosheth may, at one time, have had more harmless associations (see especially 2 Samuel 5:20), and it appears that there was a Baal among the ancestors of Saul (1 Chronicles 8:30).

The Septuagint writes the name Hierobalos; and Eusebius (Praeparatio Evangelica i. 9), quoting from Philo Byblius, tells us that a Gentile historian named Sanchoniatho of Berytus—whom he praises for his accuracy in Jewish history and geography—had received assistance “from Hierombalos, the priest of the god Iao.” Some have supposed that this is an allusion to Gideon, under the name Jerubbaal.