© Charles Chandler

 

Deuteronomy 4

 

3 Your eyes have seen what the Lord did at Baal-peor, for the Lord your God destroyed from among you all the men who followed the Baal of Peor.

The Heresy of Peor could have occurred later, such as in 1291 bce. That's if Esau was involved, as Balaam, and since Esau was still alive when the Book of the Law was being given. So this reference to Peor was added after the fact. Perhaps there was some sort of warning at this point in the text, but the Heresy at Peor was more dramatic.

 

Here is another reference:

Deuteronomy 23

 

3 "No Ammonite or Moabite may enter the assembly of the Lord. Even to the tenth generation, none of them may enter the assembly of the Lord forever, 4 because they did not meet you with bread and with water on the way, when you came out of Egypt, and because they hired against you Balaam the son of Beor from Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse you. 5 But the Lord your God would not listen to Balaam; instead the Lord your God turned the curse into a blessing for you, because the Lord your God loved you.

It doesn't say how the Heresy at Peor was turned from a curse into a blessing. Perhaps it was just the excuse the Hebrews needed in order to finally cross the Jordan, whereupon Seti I decided to let them stay on the West Bank.