So we abode in the valley over against Bethpeor. 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 Savior, 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, Galatians 3:13, 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.
Commentary on the Bible, by Adam Clarke [1831].