Deuteronomy 3:29

So we abode in the valley over against Bethpeor. In the plains of Moab, over against a temple built for Baalpeor upon a mountain, so called from that idol, or that idol from the mountain; this is the

The house or temple of Peor, or of Baal-Peor, of which see , whence this place or city had its name.

(29) So we abode in the valley over against Beth-peor.—Moses’ burial-place, as appears by Deuteronomy 34:6. It is a significant finishing touch to the scene described above. This verse also concludes the recapitulation of Israel’s journey from Horeb (Deuteronomy 1:6) to the banks of Jordan, with which this first discourse of Moses begins. The remainder, contained in Deut. Iv., is the practical part of the discourse, which now begins.

Verse 29. Beth-peor.] This was a city in the kingdom of Sihon king of the Amorites; and as בית beth signifies a house, the place probably had its name from a temple of the god Peor, who was worshipped there. Peor was nearly the same among the Moabites that Priapus was among the Romans - the obscene god of an obscene people. This we have already seen. IT is very likely that what God speaks here, both concerning Moses and Joshua, was designed to be typical of the procedure of his justice and grace in the salvation of man. 1. The land of Canaan was a type of the kingdom of heaven. 2. The law, which shows the holiness of God and the exceeding sinfulness of sin, could not bring the people to the possession of that kingdom. 3. Moses may probably be considered here as the emblem of that law by which is the knowledge of sin, but not redemption from it. 4. Joshua, the same as Jesus, the name signifying a Saviour, is appointed to bring the people into the rest which God had provided for them; thus it is by Jesus Christ alone that the soul is saved - fitted for and brought into the possession of the heavenly inheritance, (see John 1:17; Galatians 2:16; Galatians 3:12-13; Galatians 3:24); for he is the end of the law - the great scope and design of the law, for righteousness - for justification, to them that believe; Romans 10:4. Such a use as this every pious reader may make of the circumstances recorded here, without the danger of pushing analogy or metaphor beyond their reasonable limits.

29. the valley over against Beth-peor] Heb. the gai = hollow, glen, ravine, inapplicable to the Jordan plain; rather one of the glens descending to this from the Moab-plateau. That suits the probable meaning of Pe‘or, gap or cleft (Ar. fughrah, ‘a river-mouth’; cp. the ‘other Phogor’ of Euseb. and Jer. near Bethlehem, the modern Kh. Fβghϋr, PEF Map Sh. xvii.). Beth-Pe‘or abbrev. from Beth-Ba‘al-Pe‘or, shrine of the B. of P. (cp. Deuteronomy 4:3). This gai of Israel’s encampment, where also Moses was buried (Deuteronomy 34:6), unnamed, but defined as over against Beth-pe‘or (so too Deuteronomy 4:46), is also nameless in E, Numbers 21:20, defined as in the region of Moab, and these words are added, headland of the Pisgah that looks upon the Yeshξmon; and Numbers 23:28 gives a headland of Pe‘or that looks out upon the Yeshξmon; while Beth-Pe‘or is placed by P, Joshua 13:20, with the slopes of the Pisgah and Beth-Yeshimτth. Again Euseb. and Jer. describe Beth-phogor as near Mt Phogor opposite Jericho 6 Roman miles above Livias, the mod. Tell er-Rameh, on the Jordan plain. These data suit the identification of the gai with the W. ‘Uyϋn Musa, on the N. of the Nebo or Pisgah headland (see on Deuteronomy 3:17). So Dillm., G. A. Smith (HGHL, 564) and G. B. Gray (Numbers 21:20). Further, Musil (Moab, 344 f., 348) suggests for the headland of Pe‘or the headland to the N. of W. ‘Uyϋn Musa, and for Beth-Pe‘or the ruins and shrine esh-Sheikh Jβyel on one of the steps of that headland, ‘thence one gets the best view of the lower slopes and of the Jordan valley.’ The stream of the wady between these two headlands, before it reaches the Dead Sea, passes the ruins es-Sueimeh, in which there is a possible echo of Yeshimon, and Yeshimτth; and the bare district about this lies in full view of both headlands. There is, therefore, no need to read Pisgah for Pe‘or in Numbers 23:28 on the basis of Num 21:20. On the whole the above identification of the Gai with the W. ‘Uyun Musa is preferable to that with the next wβdy to the N., the W. Hesbβn (Driver). Conder’s proposal for Beth-Pe‘or (Heth and Moab, 146), the headland by ‘Ain el Minyeh, would remove the Gai too far south.

Beth-peor, i. e., the house of Peor, no doubt derived its name from a temple of the Moabite god Peor which was there situated.

29. So we abode in the valley — Here the people were encamped a long time. The transactions related in Numbers 28-34 took place here. Here these discourses of Moses were spoken. Near this spot he was buried.