Baal-peor
Baal-peor is an ancient city mentioned in the Old Testament, located in the region of Transjordan in modern-day Israel. Known today as Khirbet Ayun Musa. It appears across 2 verses in Scripture.
Biblical History
Baal-peor occupies a sobering place in Israel's wilderness history, forever associated with the nation's catastrophic act of apostasy on the plains of Moab. Numbers 25 records that while Israel camped at Shittim, the men "began to whore with the daughters of Moab" and were invited to sacrifice to their gods, so that "Israel yoked himself to Baal of Peor" (Num. 25:3). The LORD's anger burned against Israel, a plague broke out, and 24,000 people died before the zealous act of Phinehas, grandson of Aaron, brought the judgment to an end. Baal-peor was the name of the Canaanite/Moabite deity worshipped at the site of Peor, a sanctuary on a peak overlooking the wilderness near Pisgah (Num. 23:28). The incident became a paradigmatic warning throughout the Old Testament: the prophets Hosea (9:10) and the Psalmist (Ps. 106:28) cite it as a defining example of Israel's tendency toward spiritual adultery. In Numbers 31:16, Moses recalls the counsel of Balaam as having led Israel into the sin at Peor. The apostle Paul invokes the tradition in 1 Corinthians 10:8 as a warning to the church against idolatry, showing the event's lasting theological resonance.
Archaeological & Historical Notes
Baal-peor is associated with the region of Mount Peor overlooking the northeastern Dead Sea in modern Jordan, tentatively identified with Khirbet Ayun Musa or sites in the immediate vicinity of the Pisgah range. The broader area of the Moabite plateau has been surveyed by various archaeological projects. The Madaba Plains Project and other regional surveys have documented Iron Age and Bronze Age occupation in the general area east of the Dead Sea. No specific cultic installation has been conclusively identified as the Baal-peor sanctuary, though high places and masseboth (standing stones) characteristic of Canaanite/Moabite religion have been found throughout the Transjordanian highlands.
Verse Appearances (2)
References
- Orr, J. (ed.) (1915) The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. Chicago: Howard-Severance Company. [Public Domain]
- OpenBible.info (n.d.) Bible Geocoding. Available at: https://www.openbible.info/geo/. [CC BY 4.0]
- Bagnall, R. et al. (eds.) (n.d.) Pleiades: A Gazetteer of Past Places. Available at: https://pleiades.stoa.org. [CC BY 3.0]
- Wikidata contributors (n.d.) Wikidata. Available at: https://www.wikidata.org. [CC0]
- Lawrence, D. et al. (2025) Villages to Empires: a settlement dataset for the Southern Levant. doi:10.5281/zenodo.15111732. [CC BY 4.0]
- Church of England (1769) The Holy Bible, Authorized (King James) Version. [Public Domain]