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23. Balaam's Oracles

¹ Balaam said, “Build me seven altars here, and prepare seven bulls and seven rams for me.” ² Balak did as Balaam said, and the two of them offered a bull and a ram on each altar.

³ Then Balaam said to Balak, “Stay here beside your offering while I go aside. Perhaps the LORD will come to meet with me. Whatever he reveals to me I will tell you.” Then he went off to a barren height.

⁴ God met with him, and Balaam said, “I have prepared seven altars, and on each altar I have offered a bull and a ram.”

⁵ The LORD put a word in Balaam’s mouth and said, “Go back to Balak and give him this word.”

⁶ So he went back to him and found him standing beside his offering, with all the Moabite officials. ⁷ Then Balaam spoke his message:

   “Balak brought me from Aram,
   the king of Moab from the eastern mountains.
‘Come,’ he said, ‘curse Jacob for me;
   come, denounce Israel.’
⁸ How can I curse
   those whom God has not cursed?
How can I denounce
   those whom the LORD has not denounced?
⁹ From the rocky peaks I see them,
   from the heights I view them.
I see a people who live apart
   and do not consider themselves one of the nations.
¹⁰ Who can count the dust of Jacob
   or number even a fourth of Israel?
Let me die the death of the righteous,
   and may my final end be like theirs!”

¹¹ Balak said to Balaam, “What have you done to me? I brought you to curse my enemies, but you have done nothing but bless them!”

¹² He answered, “Must I not speak what the LORD puts in my mouth?”

Balaam’s Second Message

¹³ Then Balak said to him, “Come with me to another place where you can see them; you will not see them all but only the outskirts of their camp. And from there, curse them for me.” ¹⁴ So he took him to the field of Zophim on the top of Pisgah, and there he built seven altars and offered a bull and a ram on each altar.

¹⁵ Balaam said to Balak, “Stay here beside your offering while I meet with him over there.”

¹⁶ The LORD met with Balaam and put a word in his mouth and said, “Go back to Balak and give him this word.”

¹⁷ So he went to him and found him standing beside his offering, with the Moabite officials. Balak asked him, “What did the LORD say?”

¹⁸ Then he spoke his message:

   “Arise, Balak, and listen;
   hear me, son of Zippor.
¹⁹ God is not human, that he should lie,
   not a human being, that he should change his mind.
Does he speak and then not act?
   Does he promise and not fulfill?
²⁰ I have received a command to bless;
   he has blessed, and I cannot change it.

    ²¹ “No misfortune is seen in Jacob,
   no misery observed Or He has not looked on Jacob’s offenses / or on the wrongs found in Israel.
The LORD their God is with them;
   the shout of the King is among them.
²² God brought them out of Egypt;
   they have the strength of a wild ox.
²³ There is no divination against Or in Jacob,
   no evil omens against Or in Israel.
It will now be said of Jacob
   and of Israel, ‘See what God has done!’
²⁴ The people rise like a lioness;
   they rouse themselves like a lion
that does not rest till it devours its prey
   and drinks the blood of its victims.”

²⁵ Then Balak said to Balaam, “Neither curse them at all nor bless them at all!”

²⁶ Balaam answered, “Did I not tell you I must do whatever the LORD says?”

Balaam’s Third Message

²⁷ Then Balak said to Balaam, “Come, let me take you to another place. Perhaps it will please God to let you curse them for me from there.” ²⁸ And Balak took Balaam to the top of Peor, overlooking the wasteland.

²⁹ Balaam said, “Build me seven altars here, and prepare seven bulls and seven rams for me.” ³⁰ Balak did as Balaam had said, and offered a bull and a ram on each altar.

9 For from the top of the rocks I see him. Unless I am mistaken, the meaning is that, although he only beheld the people from afar, so that he could not accurately perceive their power from so high and distant a spot, still they portended to him something great and formidable. A closer view generally intimidates men; besides, a body of twenty thousand men then dazzles our sight, as if the number were five times as great: whilst the real extent of a thing is also more accurately ascertained. But Balaam declares, in the spirit of prophecy, that he sees far more in the people of God than their distance from him would allow; for, posted as he was on a high eminence, he would have only belleld them as dwarfs with the ordinary vision of men. He says, that “the people shall dwell alone,” as being by no means in want of external support: for לבדד, lebadad, is equivalent to solitarily or separately. It is said of the people, therefore, that they shall dwell in such a manner as to be content with their own condition, neither desiring the wealth or power of others, nor seeking their aid. The fact that the people had recourse at one time to the Egyptians, at another to the Assyrians, and entangled themselves in improper alliances, is not repugnant to this prophecy, in which the question is not as to the virtue of the people, but only as to the blessing of God, which is again celebrated in the same words in Deuteronomy 33:28

What follows, that “they shall not be reckoned among the nations,” must not be understood in depreciation of them, as if it were said that they should be of no credit or position; but the elect people is exalted above all others in dignity and excellence, as though he had said that there should be no nation under heaven equal to or comparable with them. And, although there were other kingdoms more illustrious for the flourishing condition of their people, and superior both in the number of their inhabitants, and in all kinds of prosperity, still this people never forfeited their pre-eminence, since they were distinguished, not so much by wealth and external endowments, as by the adoption of God. Thus, Mount Sion is called noble above all other mountains, because God had there chosen to make His abode. Others explain it that the people should be alone, so as not to be brought into comparison with the Gentiles, inasmuch as its religion should be separate from the whole world, and unmingled with heathen corruptions. The exposition which I have given is, however, more simple.