CHAMOS (Hebr. Kéméf). - The national and principal god of the Moabites (Iudc. 11, 24; I Reg. 11, 7, 33; II Reg. 23, 13), who are therefore called “the people of C.” (Num. 21, 29; Ier. 48, 46). King Mesa calls himself “son of C.,” and to him, as god of war, in order to be delivered from the pressure of his enemies, he offers his own son upon the walls of the city (II Reg. 3, 27). His worship was introduced into Jerusalem by Salomone (I Reg. 11, 7, 33), who raised an altar to him on the Mount of Olives and on the Mount of Scandal, and probably lasted, apart from the brief interruption under Giosia, who destroyed his places of worship (II Reg. 23, 13), until the end of the kingdom of Giuda.
He was identified with Beelphegor, Beelzebub, or regarded as a kind of Mars, god of war. Today he is generally seen as one of the multiple forms of the god Baal, the great Canaanite deity, who personified nature and the sun. His symbol seems to have been the winged solar disk, and as a solar divinity he was worshipped like the god Melchom of the Ammonites. Melchom received the same name as C. (Iudc. 11, 24). Among the Moabites he enters, as Jahveh among the Hebrews, into the composition of several proper names, e.g., Chamosmelek, father of Mesa (stele of Mesa).