I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness. I saw your fathers as the first ripe in the fig tree at its first season; But they came to Baal Peor, and consecrated themselves to the shameful thing, And became abominable like that which they loved.
They have separated themselves, he says, to reproach; that is, though their filthiness was shameful, they were yet wholly insensible: as when a wife disregards her character, or as when a husband cares not that he is pointed at by the finger, and that his baseness is to all a laughing-stock; so the Israelites, he says, had separated themselves to reproach, having cast away all shame, they abandoned themselves to wickedness. Some render the word בשת, beshet, obscenity, and others refer it to Baal-peor, and render the sentence thus, “They have separated themselves to that filthy idol.” For some think Priapus to have been Baal-peor; and this opinion has gained the consent of almost all. But I extend wider the meaning of the word “reproach,” as signifying that the people observed no difference between what was decent and what was shameful, but that they were senseless in their impiety. They were therefore abominable, or abominations according to their lovers The Prophet, I doubt not, connects here the Israelites with idols and with Baal-peor itself, that he might strip them of all that holiness which they had obtained through God’s favour. We now apprehend the meaning of the Prophet. 