🔼The name Baal-peor: Summary
- Meaning
- Lord Of The Wide Opening
- Etymology
- From (1) the verb בעל (ba'al), to be lord, and (2) the verb פער (pa'ar), to open wide.
🔼The name Baal Peor in the Bible
Baal Peor is a Moabite god, which service specifically included sexual acts. Numbers 25 reports that Israel joined in the worship of Baal Peor, which results in a mass execution of 24,000 people.
The name Baal-peor is spelled with a maqqep (בעל־פעור) in Hosea 9:10 and Deuteronomy 4:3.
🔼Etymology of the name Baal Peor
The name Baal Peor consists of two parts: Firstly the word Baal a common word meaning owner, husband:
בעל
The verb בעל (ba'al) means to exercise dominion over; to own, control or be lord over. The ubiquitous noun בעל (ba'al) means lord, master and even husband, and its feminine counterpart בעלה (ba'ala) means mistress or landlady.
God is obviously called 'lord' all over the Bible and the sin of the Baal priests (1 Kings 18:40) was not that they called upon some other deity but rather their incessant howling of the word 'lord' without any further responsibility or effects (see Matthew 7:21 and 11:4-5).
The second segment is the name of a mountain in Moab: Peor. This name comes from the Hebrew verb פער (pa'ar) meaning to open wide:
פער
Verb פער (pa'ar) means to open wide. It's used to apply to the mouth but suggests to allude to other bodily cavities. This verb yields no nouns, which suggests that it describes doings out of a kind of hunger or desire rather than merely the mechanics of opening. It that sense it means to desire, to yearn and obviously also to lust.
🔼Baal Peor meaning
Hosea remarks on the Baal Peor event in Hosea 9:10, and it is clear that the Israelites defiled themselves there with abundant fornication and sexual perversion. All leading translators steer timidly clear from this name, which basically comes down to Lord Hole.