Here Come I, Beelzebub

DESCRIPTION: "Here come I, Beelzebub, And over my shoulder I carry my club, And in my hand my frying pan, And please to get all the money I can."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1983 (Kane-SongsAndSayingsOfAnUlsterChildhood)
KEYWORDS: Devil begging
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Kane-SongsAndSayingsOfAnUlsterChildhood, p. 17, "(Here come I. Beelzebub)" (1 text)
Roud #12747
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Giddy Giddy Gout" (used in the same Mumming plays as this)
NOTES [663 words]: Roud includes a very large family in his #12747; I am by no means sure they are all one item. Probably it needs further investigation. "Here I Come, Beelzebub," according to Fowke, is from a mummer's play; this is not true of many of the others.
The name "Beelzebub" is a conundrum on several levels. For starters, there is the origin of the name. Although it surely derives from Hebrew or Aramaic or some other Semitic language, it occurs only in the New Testament, in Matthew 10:25, 12:24, 27; Mark 3:23; Luke 11:15, 18, 19. There is a substantial disagreement over the spelling; taking Matthew 10:25 as a sample, the two oldest substantial copies of the verse, B and ℵ (which are also the two best, so that their testimony is at least equal to all the others combined) spell it βεεζεβουλ, "Beezeboul"; all other Greek manuscripts have Βεελζεβουλ, "Beelzeboul." Many Latin manuscripts, including the official Catholic vulgate, spell it "Beelzebub." " Similarly in Luke 11:15, 18, 19, B and ℵ spell it βεεζεβουλ, "Beezeboul," although in Luke, there are two even older, very valuable manuscripts, 𝔓45 𝔓75, which join all the others in reading "Beelzeboul," and again there is the Latin "Beelzebub." But nowhere is there Greek testimony for reading "Beelzebub" (or "Beezlebub"; no significant Greek or Latin witness spells it "Beezlebub").
"Beelzebul," as in the Greek, is the spelling used by the official Catholic New American Bible. But the Douai/Rheims Catholic Edition -- the approved translation at the time Alice Kane learned the song -- gives "Beelzebub." So do the classic Protestant versions, the Geneva and King James Bibles. So the Kane version has the authority of the older English translations even though it is not correct. The New Revised Standard Version gives "Beelzebul." (I know no English versions that spell it "Beezebul" despite its strong manuscript attestation.)
Aside: So why do we often say "Beezlebub" rather than "Beelzebub" or "Beelzebul"? It probably starts with the fact that "Beelzebul" is just plain hard to say. It's an easy metathesis (transposition of sounds) to make it "Beezlebub." The latter form seems to have shown up in some old mummers' plays, probably by accident. Probably it's just a traditional spelling that caught on.
But what does "Beelzebul" mean? It's truly not clear where the Greek name came from. The Vulgate Latin probably looked to 2 Kings 1:2 and its reference to Baal-Zebub "the god of Ekron" (a town in Philistia) and so produced its translation. "Baal" is the Hebrew word for a god or lord, and "zebub" means "fly," so Baal-Zebub, in Hebrew, can be understood God of the Flies, probably meaning a god who can drive away flies (InterpretersDict, volume I, p. 332), or perhaps one who gave oracles through flies. But there is no reason to assume that a Philistine god would have a Hebrew name; the name is probably a distortion, perhaps deliberate, of an indigenous name that we really can't guess. Albright/Mann, p. 126, believe (based on Ugaritic) that it should be "Beelzebul," as in the Greek, and it means "Baal the Prince." But Beare, p. 247, thinks the name Aramaic.
Nor is there any real warrant for assuming that Beelzebub was the same as The Adversary/Satan/the Devil; some of the New Testament passages call Beelzebul the "ruler [αρχων, archon, first/leader/ruler] of demons," but that's not really the same as being the Top Boss -- and the name Beelzebul doesn't seem to be attested anywhere else in Greek except in commentaries on the Gospels. The Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, calls The Adversary "ο διαβολος" ho diabolos, "the devil," not the prince of devils, in Job 1:6, etc. And the Hebrew "Satan" is also attested in the Greek Bible. But most people do assume Beelzebul and "The Devil" are the same. What is certain is that it is not a usual name for any of the various enemies of God. But the children making up rhymes probably liked the name for its exotic sound. - RBW
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