CHAMOS (Hebrew Kéméf). - National and principal god of the Moabites (Judg. 11:24; 1 Kings 11:7, 33; 2 Kings 23:13), who were therefore called the "people of C." (Num. 21:29; Jer. 48:46). King Mesha is called "son of C.," and to him, as to a god of war, in order to be delivered from the grip of his enemies, he offers his own son on the city walls (2 Kings 3:27). His cult was introduced into Jerusalem by Solomon (1 Kings 11:7, 33), who erected an altar to him on the Mount of Olives and on the Mount of Scandal, and it probably lasted, apart from the brief interruption under Josiah, who destroyed its places of worship (2 Kings 23:13), until the end of the kingdom of Judah.

He was identified with Beelphegor, Beelzebub, or considered as a kind of Mars, a 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 deity he was worshiped just like the god Milcom of the Ammonites. Milcom received the same name as C. (Judg. 11:24). Among the Moabites he enters, as Yahweh does among the Hebrews, into the composition of several proper names, e.g., Chemoshmelek, father of Mesha (Stele of Mesha).

Bibliography2 works

BIBL.: P. Scholz, Götzendienst und Zauberwesen, Regensburg 1877, pp. 176-82; F. K. Kortleitner, De polytheismo universo, Innsbruck 1908, pp. 213-16.

Giorgio Castellino

@incollection{ec3_chamos_ebr_kemef, author = {Castellino, Giorgio}, title = {Chamos (Ebr. Kéméf)}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {III}, pages = {1379}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1949}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/chamos-ebr-kemef} }

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