O people of Chemosh— Here, in the poetical strain, he apostrophises the Moabites, who worshipped the God Chemosh, and are therefore called, the people of Chemosh, Judges 11:24. 1 Kings 11:7. Jeremiah 7:13. For it is at all times to be remembered, the better to understand the Scriptures, that every nation had peculiar gods, which were deemed their immediate guardians and protectors, and were accordingly worshipped by them with particular honours. Chemosh is thought by some to be another name for Baal-peor, whom the Israelites were afterwards enticed to worship in Shittim with obscene rites; see ch. xxv. Hence Milton, Par. Lost, book i. ver. 406.
Next Chemos, th' obscene dread of Moab's sons; Peor his other name, when he entic'd Israel in Sittim, on their march from Nile, To do him wanton rites, which cost them woe.
Upon which place Bishop Newton observes, that St. Jerome, and several learned men, assert Chemos and Baal-peor to be only different names for the same idol, and suppose him to be the same with Priapus, or the idol of turpitude; and therefore called here th' obscene dread of Moab's sins; see 1 Kings 11:7. 2 Kings 23:13-14. Le Clerc takes Chemoth for the sun, deriving it from an Arabic word; and Dr. Hyde, in his Relig. Pers. deriving it also from an Arabic word, signifying gnats, supposes it to have been an astrological talisman, in the figure of a gnat, made to drive away those infects; but Parkhurst, much more rationally, deduces it from כמשׁ chamash, to be swift, active; and he supposes Chemos to have been an idol of the obscene or priapean kind, representative of the agency of light in the generation of men and animals. Hence, says he, the Greeks seem to have had their Κωμος, (called by the Romans Comus) the God of lascivious feasting; whence the verb κωμαζειν, and the Latin commessatio. These κωμοι, revellings, are expressly forbidden to Christians by the Apostle, Romans 13. κωμοις. Compare, Galatians 5:21. 1 Peter 4:3. Concerning Chemosh, the poet here goes on to say, He hath given his sons that escaped, and his daughters into captivity, &c. i.e. Chemosh, their God, had abandoned his sons or votaries, and left them to be taken captive; thus insulting not only over the people, but over their God. The Moabites are called the sons of Chemosh, as the worshippers of the true God are styled the sons of the living God, Hosea 1:10. The prophet Jeremiah seems to have had his eye upon this passage in his 48th chap. 45th verse.