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Beor (Hebrew:בְּעוֹרBə‘ōr, "a burning";Old Aramaic:𐤁𐤏𐤓,romanized: Bᵊʿôr[1]) is a name which appears in relation to a king ("Bela son of Beor") and a diviner ("Balaam son of Beor"). Because the two names vary only by a single letter (ם,-m, often added to the ends of names), scholars have hypothesized that the two refer to the same person.[2]
In a list of kings of Edom, Genesis records that a "Bela (בלע) son of Beor" was one of the kings of Edom who reigned "before there reigned any king over the children of Israel."[3] Bela son of Beor is listed as the first of eight kings. The same information in Genesis is repeated in Chronicles.[4]
"Balaam (בלעם) son of Beor" appears in a well-known story in Numbers, where he is asked to curse the Israelites but repeatedly blesses them instead.[5] Later, he is mentioned as the instigator oftempting the Israelites into sin at Mount Peor,[6] for which he is eventually killed.[7] He is mentioned in passing in Deuteronomy, in a passage which repeats a synopsis of earlier biblical stories.[8]
Beor is also mentioned in Micah 6:5.
Beor the father ofBalaam is considered a prophet byJudaism. The Talmud says in Baba Bathra 15b, "Seven prophets prophesied to the heathen, namely, Balaam and his father,Job,Eliphaz theTemanite,Bildad theShuhite,Zophar theNaamathite, andElihu, the son ofBarachel theBuzite." In the King James translation of 2 Peter 2:15, Beor is calledBosor (from the Greek Βεὼρ). Beor's father wasLaban the Aramean and Beor's son wasBalaam[9]
The Baghdadi historianAl-Masudi said in his bookMeadows of Gold and Mines of Gems that Balaam ben Beor was in a village in the lands of Shem (Canaan), and he is the son of Baura (Beor) ben Sanur ben Waseem benMoab benLot ben Haran (PUT), and his prayers were answered. So his people asked him to pray against Joshua ben Nun but he could not do it. So he advised some of the kings of the giants to show the pretty women and release them toward the camp of Joshua ben Nun, and this they did. The Israelites hurried to the women and a plague spread among them, resulting in the deaths of seventy thousand people.
Ac. late 9th century BCE inscription on wall plaster discovered at the archaeological site ofDeir Alla inBalqa Governorate,Jordan, records a prophecy of Balaam, who is named as son of Beor.[1]