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.
Numbers 25:1. Baalpeor is by some interpreted "the lord" or "god of opening": and was so called, either from his opening his mouth in prophecy, as Ainsworth b thinks, as Nebo, a god of Babylon, had his name from prophesying; or from his open mouth, with which this idol was figured, as a Jewish writer c observes; whose worshipper took him to be inspired, and opened their mouths to receive the divine afflatus from him: others interpret it "the lord" or "god of nakedness"; because his worshippers exposed to him their posteriors in a shameful manner, and even those parts which ought to be covered; and this is the sense of most of the Jewish writers. So, in the Jerusalem Talmud d, the worship of Peor is represented in like manner, and as most filthy and obscene, as it is by Jarchi e, who seems to have taken his account from thence; and even Maimonides f says it was a known thing that the worship of Peor was by uncovering of the nakedness; and this he makes to be the reason why God commanded the priests to make themselves breeches to cover their nakedness in the time of service, and why they might not go up to the altar by steps, that their nakedness might not be discovered; in short, they took this Peor to be no other than a Priapus; and in this they are followed by many Christians, particularly by Jerom on this place, who observes that Baalpeor is the god of the Moabites, whom we may call Priapus; and so Isidore g says, there was an idol in Moab called Baal, on Mount Fegor, whom the this call Priapus, the god of gardens; but Mr. Selden h rejects this notion, and contends that Peor is either the name of a mountain, of which Isidore, just now mentioned, speaks; see Numbers 23:28; where Baal was worshipped, and so was called from thence Baalpeor; as Jupiter Olympius, Capitolinus, c. is so called from the mountains of Olympus, Capitolinus, c. where divine honours are paid him or else the name of a man, of some great person in high esteem, who was deified by the Moabites, and worshipped by them after his death and so Baalpeor may be the same as "Lord Peor"; and it seems most likely that Peor is the name of a man, at least of an idol, since we read of Bethpeor, or the temple of Peor, in Deuteronomy 34:6;