Verse 28
28. Baal-peor Or, lord of Peor. “Peor” is the same of a mountain of Moab, (Numbers 23:28,) mentioned in full elsewhere only in Numbers 25:3; Numbers 25:5; Deuteronomy 4:3; Hosea 9:10. “Baal” was the chief male divinity of the Phoenicians and Canaanites, as Ashtoreth was the female. His worship was very pompous and popular, cruel and obscene. Probably the same as that of Bel of the Chaldaeans, (Isaiah 46:1:) sometimes called “Peor.” Numbers 31:16; Joshua 22:17. The allusion of the text is to Numbers 25:3.
Sacrifices of the dead So called because their idols were dead, inanimate, opposed to the living God: or, as Delitzsch, quoting from Jewish rabbins, “because the eating of meat consecrated to idols pollutes like a dead body.” For New Testament doctrine on this subject see 1 Corinthians 10:28-31. But Hammond thinks, that their Baal, plural Baalim, were only dead heroes whom they had deified and continued to worship, and hence sacrificed to the dead which is quite probable. Hero worship was a popular form of idolatry.
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