Pethor

Pethor was the hometown of Balaam, the diviner hired by Balak of Moab to curse Israel, located by the Euphrates river in northern Mesopotamia (Deut. 23:5; Num. 22:5). It is generally identified with Pitru, a town on the Sajur river near Carchemish known from Assyrian royal inscriptions, and Balaam himself is independently attested outside the Bible in a plaster inscription found at Deir Alla in Jordan naming Balaam son of Beor as a seer of the gods, dated to roughly the eighth century BC.