First Appearance: Wolverine #13 (November 1989).
Appearances: Wolverine #13, 16.
Years Active: "Ancient times" (see below).

To quote from the issue itself:

In ancient times, the foulest place on Earth was Gehenna.  Situated just outside of Jerusalem, Gehenna was the charnal pit, where the refuse was burned.  A place of unspeakable evil...where, in view of the holiest of cities, people with blackened, condemned souls...committed hideous, unholy atrocities.  Their leader was a man/demon called Ba'al.  His name...ITS name...meant "master"...and Ba'al led those loathsome beings in perverse  rituals...not the least of which was the consumption of human blood.  And the Lord was so disgusted by what he beheld, that he sent a fierce warrior...He was known only as the Hand of God, and armed with unbreakable steel and divine right...he smote the demon Ba'al.  But even in his death throes, Ba'al perpetuated his evil.  What passed as his soul, coalesced over him...and entered a glittering multi-faceted gem that his followers had prepared for him.  What they had not prepared for was the righteous wrath of the Hand of God.  They fought that mighty warrior, but in vain...And finally, on a field bloody with corpses, the Hand of God stood before the last incarnation of Ba'al...and smashed it asunder.  The evil of Ba'al was trapped in a hundred fragments, and not content with that...the Hand of God hurled the pieces to the four winds, never to be reassembled, until doomsday.

The Hand of God wears a headpiece, shoulder-harness, leather skirt/kilt, arm-bands, and a boot; he is an Olympic-level athlete and a mighty warrior, featly wielding a sword and shield.