If there were many Baals, there were also many kinglets.

The fourteenth century B.C. was a turning-point in the history of
Canaan. It witnessed the fall of the Egyptian supremacy which had
succeeded the supremacy of Babylonia; it also witnessed the severance of
western Asia from the kingdoms on the Euphrates and Tigris, and the
consequent end of the direct influence of Babylonian culture. The
Hittites established themselves in Syria "in the land of the Amorites,"
while at the same time other invaders threatened Canaan itself. The
Israelites made their way across the Jordan; the Philistines seized the
southern portion of the coast.

The Philistine invasion preceded that of the Israelites by a few years.
The Philistines were sea-robbers, probably from the island of Krete.
Zephaniah calls them "the nation of the Cherethites" or Kretans, and
their features, as represented on the Egyptian monuments, are of a Greek
or Aryan type. They have the straight nose, high forehead, and thin lips
of the European. On their heads they wear a curious kind of pleated cap,
fastened round the chin by a strap. They are clad in a pair of drawers
and a cuirass of leather, while their arms consist of a small round
shield with two handles, a spear, and a short but broad sword of bronze.
Greaves of bronze, like those of the Homeric heroes, protected their
legs in battle.

The Philistines formed part of the host which invaded Egypt in the reign
of Ramses III. Along with their kinsfolk, the Zakkal, they had already
made themselves formidable to the coast of the Delta and of southern
Canaan. The sea had long been infested by their ships, bent on plunder
and piracy; the Zakkal had attacked Egypt in the time of Meneptah, and
the road from Egypt to Asia which skirted the sea had long been known as