Baal-peor

Baal-peor (meaning lord of the opening or master of the gap) was the god of the Moabites worshipped at Peor, whose cult Israel fell into during the wilderness period through the seduction of Moabite and Midianite women (Numbers 25:1–9). The incident — in which Israel joined himself unto Baal-peor and ate sacrifices to the dead — provoked a plague that killed 24,000 people before it was stopped by Phinehas's act of zealous judgment. The event at Peor became a paradigmatic warning throughout subsequent Scripture.

Deuteronomy 4:3 cites Baal-peor as a lesson in the consequences of following other gods, and Psalm 106:28–29 includes the incident in its catalogue of Israel's wilderness sins. Hosea 9:10 uses Peor as the defining moment of Israel's spiritual corruption: they went to Baal-peor, and separated themselves unto that shame. The New Testament alludes to Balaam's role in advising the Midianites to use this strategy against Israel (2 Peter 2:15; Revelation 2:14). The name was also applied to a mountain near Jericho where Balak brought Balaam to curse Israel.