my idol; lord over me
Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary
Ba'ali. Hos_2:16. See Baal.
Smith's Bible Dictionary
By Dr. William Smith.Published in 1863
bā?a-lı̄ בּעלי, ba‛ălı̄, ?my master?): Baal, a common name for all heathen gods, had in common practice been used also of Yahweh. Hosea (Hos_2:16, Hos_2:17) demands that Yahweh be no longer called Ba‛ălı̄ (?my Baal? = ?my lord?) but 'Ishı̄ (?my husband?), and we find that later the Israelites abandoned the use of Ba‛al for Yahweh.
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
PRINTER 1915.
Baali
(Hebrews Badli', בִּעֲלַי, my lord, Sept. Βααλείμ), a colder and more distant title for husband, which the prophet reproaches the Jewish Church for hitherto applying to Jehovah, instead of the more endearing term Ishi (my man, i.e. husband), which he predicts she would be emboldened to employ when freed from her idolatries (Hos_2:16). Some have supposed from this that the Jews had even borrowed the term Baal from the surrounding nations as expressive of sovereign deity, and so applied it to Jehovah; but this is not likely. SEE BAAL.
CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.