Peor

Peor is either

• The name of a mountain peak (Num. 23:28) to which Balak led Balaam as a last effort to induce him to pronounce a curse upon Israel. The tribes of Israel are described as being visible from the peak, but nevertheless, Balaam refused to curse them, and continued to offer blessings (24:1-9). Peor is similar to the Egyptian Pi-Hor ("House of Horus").
• A reference to a divinity who was worshipped at that mountain peak, and, biblically, was the subject of the heresy of Peor. The divinity, worshipped by the Moabites, is biblically referred to as Baal-peor (Num. 25:3,5, 18; comp. Deut. 3:29), literally meaning the Baal of Peor. An ancient Aramaic inscription, found at Dier Alla, identifies Balaam as a prophet of Shamash, a semitic sun-god, and consequently, it could well be the case that the unidentified Baal of Peor is Shamash. If Peor's connection to Pi-Hor is factual, then the Baal of Peor may be the Egyptian god Horus.

This article incorporates text from Easton's Bible Dictionary (1897), a publication now in the public domain. In John Milton's "Paradise Lost," Peor is said to be the other name of the fallen angel Chemos, who "entic'd/Israel in Sittim on thir march from Nile/To do him wanton rites, which cost them woe." (Paradise Lost, I.412-14) His deeds are described in the first book of the epic, as Milton describes Satan's followers who were banished from Heaven, and have pledged themselves as followers of the underworld.