Baal, the West Semitic storm-god Hadad whose title 'lord' became his name, was a genuine object of worship in Israel and Judah and the foremost rival of Yahweh in the tradition's own polemic. He grants the seasonal rains and the fertility of the land, rides the clouds and wields the thunderbolt, powers dramatized in Elijah's contest on Mount Carmel, where the question is which god can send rain and fire. His cult is confirmed archaeologically and by Israelite personal names compounded with baal. Prophetic and Deuteronomistic writers set the worship of Baal in stark opposition to that of Yahweh, and several of Baal's epithets, above all 'Rider of the Clouds', were appropriated for Yahweh himself.