Baali

Baali (meaning my lord or my master) is a Hebrew term of address used for a husband in the possessive form of Baal. In Hosea 2:16, God addresses Israel through the prophet with the declaration that in the day of restoration she will no longer call him Baali (my Baal, my lord-master) but Ishi (my husband, my man) — a shift from the language of ownership and lordship to the language of intimate marital relationship. The prophet reproaches the Jewish community for using the term Baali for God, as the same word was also the name of the Canaanite deity Baal.

The passage is part of Hosea's extended marriage metaphor, in which Israel's unfaithfulness to God is portrayed as adultery, and God's restoration of Israel is portrayed as a new covenant of betrothal. The name change from Baali to Ishi signals not merely a linguistic shift but a new quality of relationship — one that removes all ambiguity between the worship of Yahweh and the cult of Baal.