But some of them said, He casteth out devils through Beelzebub the chief of the devils. The accusation seems to have been whispered among the people by the Pharisee emissaries from the capital; the words of the charge were evidently not addressed to Jesus.
These men could not deny the reality of the work of healing, so they tried to suggest that the great Healer had dealings with some great evil angel, whom they call, from some old Jewish tradition, Beelzebub.
In 2 Kings 1:3 we read that this idol-deity was the god of Ekron. The name signifies "lord of flies." He was very likely worshipped in the low-lying cities of the sea-coast of Philistia as a god who would be likely to avert the plague of flies and insects which infested that locality.
So Zeus was adored as Apomuios (the averter of flies), and Apollo as Ipuktonos (the slayer of vermin).