Beor ( , "a burning";
) 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 (, ''-m'', often added to the ends of names), scholars have hypothesized that the two refer to the same person.
In the Bible
In a list of kings of Edom, Genesis records that a "Bela () son of Beor" was one of the kings of Edom who reigned "before there reigned any king over the children of Israel." Bela son of Beor is listed as the first of eight kings. The same information in Genesis is repeated in Chronicles.
"Balaam () son of Beor" appears in a well-known story in Numbers, where he is asked to curse the Israelites but repeatedly blesses them instead. Later, he is mentioned as the instigator of
tempting the Israelites into sin at Mount Peor, for which he is eventually killed. He is mentioned in passing in Deuteronomy, in a passage which repeats a synopsis of earlier biblical stories.
Beor is also mentioned in Micah 6:5.
Jewish tradition
Beor the father of
Balaam is considered a prophet by
Judaism
Judaism () is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic, Monotheism, monotheistic, ethnic religion that comprises the collective spiritual, cultural, and legal traditions of the Jews, Jewish people. Religious Jews regard Judaism as their means of o ...
. The Talmud says in Baba Bathra 15b, "Seven prophets prophesied to the heathen, namely, Balaam and his father,
Job,
Eliphaz the
Temanite,
Bildad
Bildad (; ), the Shuhite, was one of Job's three friends who visited the patriarch in the Hebrew Bible's Book of Job. He was a descendant of Shuah, son of Abraham and Keturah (Genesis 25:1–2), whose family lived in the deserts of Arabia
...
the
Shuhite,
Zophar the
Naamathite, and
Elihu, the son of
Barachel the
Buzite." In the King James translation of 2 Peter 2:15, Beor is called Bosor (from the Greek Βεὼρ). Beor's father was
Laban the Aramean and Beor's son was
BalaamFixing the Mixing Chabbad.org
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Islamic tradition
The Baghdadi historian Al-Masudi said in his book Meadows 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 ben Moab
Moab () was an ancient Levant, Levantine kingdom whose territory is today located in southern Jordan. The land is mountainous and lies alongside much of the eastern shore of the Dead Sea. The existence of the Kingdom of Moab is attested to by ...
ben Lot ben Haran (PUT), and his prayers were answered, so his folks 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 so they did, and they (the Israelites) hurried up to the women and the plague spread among them and seventy thousand of them died.
Archaeology
A late 9th century BCE inscription on wall plaster discovered at the archaeological site of Deir Alla in Balqa Governorate, Jordan
Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and Israel and the occupied Palestinian ter ...
, records a prophecy of Balaam, who is named as son of Beor.
References
{{Prophets of the Tanakh
Book of Genesis people
Prophets in Judaism
Year of death unknown
Year of birth unknown
Book of Micah people