Numbers 22:41

41. High places of Baal Bamoth Baal, heights of Baal. See Numbers 21:19, note. This is the first mention in the Bible of Baal, the chief male deity of the Phenicians and Canaanites. See Judges 2:11, note. His worship was the predominant religion over nearly all of Western Asia. He had large numbers of trained priests who were accustomed to offer bloody sacrifices upon his altars, dancing and leaping upon the altar, cutting themselves with knives in fanatical frenzy, to the astonishment and awe of the spectators. According to Jeremiah 19:5, human sacrifices were offered to Baal. Modern research has cast much new light on this pagan cult by the discovery and interpretation of ancient inscriptions, and by tracing its spread from country to country with slightly varying names of the God, as Bel, Isaiah 46:1; Baal-berith, Judges 8:33; Baal-peor, Numbers 25:3; Baal-zebub, 2 Kings 1:6, and the golden calves of Bethel and of Dan, Hosea 2:8. It is essentially the same as the Phallic worship, described by Herodotus as widely prevalent in the Orient, and is to-day polluting India with its unspeakable defilement. It conceives the divine principle as both male and female, productive and receptive Baal and Astarte and fills its temples with gigantic images of the male organ of generation. See “Phallus” in McClintock & Strong’s Cyclopaedia. There were two reasons for choosing a high place for cursing Israel. (1.) It was thought the curse would be more effectual with the people in full view. (2.) Mountains were considered by the ancients as sacred, since they are nearer to heaven, the source of all holiness.

The utmost part of the people The whole encampment to the farthest extremity. See Numbers 23:13. This was done in order that the curse might be more powerful and fatal.