Deuteronomy 4:3-4

The people had had personal experience of the danger, on the one hand, of transgressing, and the benefit, on the other, of keeping God's Law; they had seen how those who sinned in worshipping Baal-peer were destroyed ( Numbers 25:3 , Numbers 25:9 ), whilst those who remained faithful to the Lord were kept alive. This experience the people had had only lately before, so that a reference to it would be all the more impressive. Baal-peor, the idol whose cultus was observed at Peor. Baal ( Bal , Be ‛el , Bel , Lord) was the common name of the supreme deity among the northern of the Semitic-speaking people, the Canaanites, the Phoenicians, the Aramaeans, and the Assyrians. There were thus many Baals. Followed : walked after ; a common Biblical expression for religious adherence and service (cf. Jeremiah 8:2 ; Jeremiah 9:14 ; and with a different formula, Numbers 32:12 ; Deuteronomy 1:36 ; Joshua 14:8 ; 2:12 , etc.). Ye that did cleave unto Jehovah your God. "To cleave unto one" is expressive of the closest, most intimate attachment and communion (cf. Genesis 2:24 ; Isaiah 14:1 ). The phrase is frequently used of devotion to the service and worship of the true God (cf. Deuteronomy 10:20 ; Joshua 22:5 ; Joshua 23:8 ; Acts 2:23 , etc.); here it expresses the contrast between the conduct of those who remained faithful to Jehovah and those who forsook him to worship Baal. Are alive every one of you this day . "Thus they that keep themselves pure in general defections, are saved from the common destruction ( Ezekiel 9:4-6 ; 2 Timothy 2:19 ; Revelation 20:4 )" (Ainsworth).