^ Neither this difference in the names of the places of encampment, nor the material diversity,— viz. that in the chapter before us there are four places more introduced than in chap, xxxiii., whereas in every other case the list in chap.
Vers. 21-35. Defeat of the Amokite Kings, Sihon of Heshbon and Og of Bashan, and Conquest of their Kingdoms. — Vers. 21-23. When the Israelites reached the eastern border of the kingdom of the Amorite king Silion (see at ver. 13), they sent messengers to him, as they had previously done to the king of Edom, to ask permission to pass peaceably through his territory upon the high road (cf. ver. 22 and chap. xx. 17); and Sihon refused this request, just as the king of Edom had done, and marched with all his people against the Israelites. But whereas the Lord forbade the Israelites to make war upon their kinsmen the Edomites, He now commanded them to make war upon the Amorite king, and take possession of his land (Deut. ii. 24, 25); for the Amorites belonged to the Canaanitish tribes which were ripe for the judgment of extermination (Gen. xv. 16). And if, notwithstanding this, the Israelites sent to him with words of peace (Deut. ii. 26), this was simply done to leave the decision of his fate in his own hand (see at Deut. ii. 24). Sihon came out against the Israelites into the desert as far as Jahza, where a battle was fought, in which he was defeated. The accounts of the Onom, concerning Jahza, which was situated, according to Eusehius^ between Medamon (^Medaha) and Dehous (Dibon, see above), and according to Jerome, between Medaha and Deblatai, may be reconciled with the statement that it was in the desert, provided we assume that it was not in a straight line between the places named, but in a more easterly direction on the edge of the desert, near to the commencement of the Wady Wale, a conclusion to which the juxtaposition of Jahza xxxiii. contains a larger number of stations than we read of in the historical account, — at all warrants the hypothesis, that the present chapter is founded upon a different document from chap, xxxiii. For they may be explained in a very simple manner, as Kurtz has most conclusively demonstrated (vol. {ii. pp. 383-5), from the diversity in the character of the two chapters. Chap, xxxiii. is purely statistical. The catalogue given there " contains a complete list in regular order of all the stations properly so called, that is to say, of those places of encampment where Israel made a longer stay than at other times, and therefore not only constructed an organized camp, but also set up the tabernacle." In the historical account, on the other hand, the places mentioned are simply those which were of historical importance. For this reason there are fewer stations introduced between Mount Hor and Ijje Abarim than in chap, xxxiii., stations where nothing of importance occurred being passed over; but, on the other hand, there are a larger number mentioned between Ijje Abarim and Arboth Moab, and some of them places where no complete camp was constructed with the tabernacle set up, probably because they were memorable as starting-points for the expeditions into the two Amorite kingdoms.
and Mephaot in Josh. xill. 18, xxi. 37, and Jer. xlvili. 21, also points (see at Josh. xiii. 18). — Ver. 24. Israel smote him with the edge of the sword, i,e, without quarter (see Gen. xxxiv. 2G), and took possession of his land ''from Anion (Mojeb) to the Jabhok, unto the children of A mmon" i.e. to the upper Jabbok, the modern Nahr or Moiet Amman, The Jabbok, now called Zerka, i.e. the blue, does not take its rise, as Seetzen supposed, on the pilgrim-road by the castle of Zerka; but its source, according to Abalfeda {tab. Syr. p. 91) and Buckingham^ is the Nahr Amman, which flowed down from the ancient capital of the Ammonites, and was called the upper Jabhok, and formed the western border of the Ammonites towards the kingdom of Sihon, and subsequently towards Gad (Deut. ii. 37, iii. 16; Josh. xii. 2). " For the border of the Ammonites was strong " (firm), i.e. strongly fortified; " for which reason Sihon had only been able to push his conquests to the upper Jabbok, not into the territory of the Ammonites." This explanation of KnobeVs is perfectly correct; since the reason why the Israelites did not press forward into the country of the Ammonites, was not the strength of their frontier, but the word of the Lord, " Make not war upon them, for I shall give thee no possession of the land of the children of Ammon " (Deut. ii. 19). God had only promised the patriarchs, on behalf of their posterity, that He would give them the land of Canaan, which was bounded towards the east by the Jordan (chap, xxxiv. 2-12; compared with Gen. x. 19 and xv. 19-21); and the Israelites would have received no settlement at all on the eastern side of the Jordan, had not the Canaanitish branch of the Amorites extended itself to that side in the time of Moses, and conquered a large portion of the possessions of the Moabites, and also (according to Josh. xiii. 25, as compared with Judg. xi. 13) of the Ammonites, driving back the Moabites as far as the Arnon, and the Ammonites behind the Nahr Amman. With the defeat of the Amorites, all the land that they had conquered passed into the possession of the Israelites, who took possession of these towns (cf. Deut. ii. 34-36). The statement in ver. 25, that Israel settled in all the towns of the Amorites, is somewhat anticipatory of the history itself, as the settlement did not occur till Moses gave the conquered land to the tribes of Keuben and Gad for a possession (chap, xxxii.). The only places mentioned here are Heshbon and her daughters, i.e. the smaller towns belonging to it (cf. Josh. xiii. 17), which are enumerated singly in chap, xxxii. 34-38, and Josh, xiii. 15-28. In explanation of the expression, " Heshbon and her daughters," it is added in ver. 26, that Heshbon was the city, i,e, the capital of the Amorite king Sihon, who had made war upon the former king of Moab, and taken away all his land as far as the Arnon. Consequently, even down to the time of the predecessor of Balak, the king of the Moabites at that time, the land to the north of the Arnon, and probably even as far as the lower Jabbok, to which point the kingdom of Sihon extended (see Deut. iii. 12, 13; Josh. xii. 5), belonged to the Moabites. And in accordance with this, the country where the Israehtes encamped opposite to Jericho, before crossing the Jordan, is reckoned as part of the land of Moab (Deut. i. 5, xxviii. 69, xxxii. 49, xxxiv. 5, 6), and called Arboth Moab (see chap. xxii. 1); whilst the women who seduced the Israelites to join in the idolatrous worship of Baal Peor are called daughters of Moab (chap. xxv. 1).
Vers. 27-30. The glorious conquest and destruction of the capital of the powerful king of the Amorites, in the might of the Lord their God, inspired certain composers of proverbs (D^pc^ denom, from <'^9) *^ write songs in commemoration of the victory. Three strophes are given from a song of this kind, and introduced with the words " therefore^'* sc, because Heshbon had fallen in this manner, " the composers of proverbs sayT The first strophe (vers. 276 and 28) runs thus: " Come to Heshbon: Built and restored be the city of Sihon! For fire went out of Heshbon; flames fro'm. the city of Sihon, It devoured Ar Moab, the lords of the heights of 4^monr The summons to come to Heshbon and build this ruined city up again, was not addressed to the Israelites, but to the conquered Amorites, and is to be interpreted as ironical {F, v, Meyer; Etvald, Gesch. ii. pp. 267, 268): ''Come to Heshbon, ye victoAous Amorites, and build your royal city up again, which we have laid in ruins! A fire has gone out of it, and burned up Ar Moab, and the lords of the heights of the Arnon!^ The reference is to the w^ar-fire, which the victorious Amorites kindled from Heshbon in the land of Moab under the former king of Moab; that is to say, the war in which they subjugated Ar Moab and the possessors of the heights of Arnon. Ar Moab (see at ver. 15) appears to have been formerly the capital of all Moabitis, or at least of that portion of it which was situated upon the northern side of the Arnon; and the prominence given to it in Deut. ii. 9, 18, 29, is in harmony with this. The heights of Arnon are mentioned as the limits to which Sihon had carried his victorious supremacy over Moab. The " lords^^ of these heights are the Moabites. — Ver. 29. Second strophe: " Woe to thee, Moab! Thou art lost, people of Chemosh! He has given up his sons as fugitives, and his daughters into captivity — to Sihon, king of the AmoritesT The poet here turns to Moab, and announces its overthrow. Chemosh (L*nD3, from C*p3 = C*33, subactor, domitor) was the leading deity of the Moabites (Jer. xlviii. 7) as well as of the Ammonites (Judg. xi. 24), and related not only to Milcom, a god of the Ammonites, but also to the early Canaanitish deity Baal and Moloch, According to a statement of Jerome (on Isa. xv.), it was only another name for Baal Peor, probably a god of the sun, which was worshipped as the king of his nation and the god of war. He is found in this character upon the coins of Areopolis, standing upon a column, with a sword in his right hand and a lance and shield in the left, and with two fire-torches by his side (cf. Ekhel doctr, numm. vet. iii. p. 504), and was appeased by the sacrifice of children in times of great distress (2 Kings iii. 27). Further information, and to some extent a different view, are found in the article by J. G. Miiller in Ilerzogs Cyclopaedia. The subject to |riJ is neither Moab nor Jehovah, but Chemosh. The thought is this: as Chemosh, the god of Moab, could not deliver his people from the Amorite king; so now that Israel has conquered the latter, MoaJb is utterly lost. In the triumph which Israel celebrated over Moab through conquering its conquerors, there is a forewarning expressed of the ultimate subjection of Moab under the sceptre of Israel. — Ver. 30. Third strophe, in which the woe evoked upon Moab is justified: " We cast them down: Heshhon is lost even to Dihon; and we laid it waste even to Nophah, with fire to Medeha^ D'J''^} is the first pers. pi. imperf. Kal of HT with the suffix D-;- for D— (as in Ex. xxix. 30). •TJ^, to cast arrows, to shoot down (Ex. xix. 13): figuratively to throw to the ground (Ex. xv. 4). D'^K^i for D^J^ ^vs>i pers, pi, imperf, Hiph, of n^'Jy synonymous with nvj^ Jer. iv. 7. The suffixes of both verbs refer to the Moabites as the inhabitants of the cities named. Accordingly Heshhon also is construed as a masculine, because it was not the town as such, but the inhabitants, that were referred to. Heshhon, the residence of king Sihon, stood pretty nearly in the centre between the Arnon and the Jabbok (according to the Onom. twenty Homan miles from the Jordan, opposite to Jericho), and still exists in extensive ruins with deep bricked wells, under the old name of Heshdn (cf. v, Raumer, Pal. p. 262). On Dihon in the south, not more than an hour from Arnon, see p. 288. Nophach is probably the same as Nohach, Judg. viii. 11, but not the same as
Kenathj which was altered into Nohacli (chap, xxxii. 42). According to Judg. viii. 11, it was near Jogbeha, not far from the eastern desert; and in all probability it still exists in the ruined place called Nowahis {Burckliardt^ p. 619; Buckingham., ii. p. 46; Hobinson, App. p. 188), to the north-west of Amman {Rabhath-Ammon), NophacJij therefore, is referred to as a north-eastern town or fortress, and contrasted with Dihon, which was in the south. The words which follow, 'O ^V ^^^., ^* which to Medeba,^ yield no intelligible meaning. The Seventy give irvp eirl M. (fire upon Medeba), and seem to have adopted the reading ^V ^^, In the Masoretic punctuation also, the n in "itJ'N is marked as suspicious by a punct, extraord. Apparently, therefore, *1C^5^ was a copyist's error of old standing for ^^, and is to be construed as governed by tlie verb D^K^^y " with fire to Medeba^ This city was about two hours to the south-east of Heshbon, and is still to be seen in ruins bearing the name of Medaba, upon the top of a hill of about half-an-hour's journey in circumference {Burckhardt^ p. ^^b \ v. Raumer^ Pal. pp. 264-5).^
Vers. 31, 32. When Israel was sitting, i,e. encamped, in the land of the Amorites, Moses reconnoitred Jaezer, after which the Israelites took " its daughters," Le. the smaller places dependent upon Jaezer, and destroyed the Amorites who dwelt in them. It is evident from chap, xxxii. 35, that Jaezer was not only conquered, but destroyed. This city, which was situated, according to the Onom. (s. V, Jazer)y ten Roman miles to the west of Philadelphia (Babbath-Ammon), and fifteen Roman miles to the north of Heshbon, is most probably to be sought for (as Seetzen supposes, i. pp. 397, 406, iv. p. 216) in the ruins of es Szir, at the source of the Nahr Szir, in the neighbourhood of which Seetzen found some pools, which are probably the remains of " the sea of Jazer," mentioned in Jer. xlviii. 32. There is less probability in Burckhardt^s conjecture (p. 609), that it is to be found in the ruins of Ain Hazir,
^ Ewald and Bleek {Einleitung in d. A. T. p. 200) are both agreed that this ode was composed on the occasion of the defeat of the Amorites by the Israelites, and particularly on the capture of the capital Heshbon, as it depicts the fall of Heshbon in the most striking way; and this city was rebuilt shortly afterwards by the Reubenites, and remained ever afterwards a city of some importance. Knobel^ on the other hand, has completely misunderstood the meaning and substance of the verses quoted, and follows some of the earliest commentators, such as Clericus and others, in regarding the ode as an Amoritish production, and inrerpreting it as relating to the conquest and fortification of Heshbon by Sihon near KJierbet el Suk^ to tlie south-west of es Salt; though v, Raumer (Pal. p. 262) decides in its favour (see my Commentary on Josh. xiii. 25). — Vers. 33-35. The IsraeHtes then turned towards the north, and took the road to Bashau, where king Og came against them with his people, to battle at JEdrei. From what point it was that the Israelites entered upon the expedition against Bashan, is not stated either here or in Deut. iii. 1 sqq., where Moses recapitulates these events, and gives a more detailed account of the conquests than he does here, simply because it was of no importance in relation to the main object of the history. We have probably to picture the conquest of the kingdoms of Sihon and Og as taking place in the following manner: namely, that after Sihon had been defeated at Jahza, and his capital had been speedily taken in consequence of this victory, Moses sent detachments of his army from the places of encampment mentioned in vers. 16, 18-20, into the different divisions of his kingdom, for the purpose of taking possession of their towns. After the conquest of the whole of the territory of Sihon, the main army advanced to Bashan and defeated king Og in a great battle at Edrei, whereupon certain detachments of the army were again despatched, under courageous generals, to secure the conquest of the different parts of his kingdom (cf. chap, xxxii. 39, 41, 42). The kingdom of Og embraced the northern half of Gilead, i.e. the country between the Jabbok and the Mandhur (Deut. iii. 13; Josh. xii. 5), the modern Jebel Ajlmi, and " all Bashan," or "all the region of Argoh^^ (Deut. iii. 4, 13, 14), the modern plain of Jaalan and Hauran^ which extended eastwards to Salcha, north-eastwards to Edrei (Deut. iii. 10), and northwards to Geshur and Maacha (Josh. xii. 5). For further remarks, see Deut. iii. 10. There were two towns in Bashan of the name of JEdrei. One of them, which is mentioned in Deut. i. 4 and Josh. xii. 4, along with Ashtaroth, as a second residence of king Og, is described in the Onom. (s. v. Ashtaroth and Edrei) as six Koman miles, i.e, fully two hours, from Ashtaroth, and twenty-four or twenty-five miles from Bostra, and called Adraa or Adara, This is the modern Dera or Draa (in Buixkhardt, p. 385; Seetzen, i. pp. 363, 364), and Draah, Idderat (in Buckingham^ Syr, ii. p. 146), a place which still exists, consisting of a number of miserable houses, built for the most part of basalt, and standing upon a small elevation in a treeless, hilly region, with the ruins of an old church and other smaller buildings, supposed to belong to the time when Draa, Adraa (as urhs Arabiae), was an episcopal see, on the east of the pilgrim-road between Remiha and Mezareib, by tlie side of a small wady (see Hitter, Erdk, xv. pp. 838 sqq.). The other Edrei, which is mentioned in Deut. iii. 10 as the north-western frontier of Bashan, was farther towards the north, and is still to be seen in the ruins of Zorah or Etlira (see at Deut. iii. 10). In the present instance the southern town is intended, which was not far from the south-west frontier of Bashan, as Og certainly did not allow the Israelites to advance to the northern frontier of his kingdom before he gave them battle. — Vers. 34, 35. Just as in the case of Sihon, the Lord had also promised the Israelites a victory over Og, and had given him into their power, so that they smote him, with his sons and all his people, without leaving any remnant, and executed the ban, according to Deut. ii. 34, upon both the kings. (See the notes on Deut. iii.)
III.— OCCURRENCES IN THE STEPPES OF MOAB, WITH INSTRUC- TIONS RELATING TO THE CONQUEST AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE LAND OF CANAAN.
Chap. xxii. 1. After the defeat of the two Amorite kings, Sihon and Og, and the conquest of their kingdoms in Gilead and Bashan, the Israelites removed from the height of Pisgah, on the mountains of Abarim before Nebo (see at chap. xxi. 20), and encamped in the " Arboth Moah (the steppes of Moab), on the other side of the Jordan of Jericho," Le. that part of the Jordan w^hich skirted the province of Jericho. Arhotli Moah was the name given to that portion of the Arabah, or large plain of the Jordan, the present Ghor (see at Deut. i. 1), which belonged to the territory of the Moabites previous to the spread of the Amorites under Sihon in the land to the east of the Jordan, and which probably reached from the Dead Sea to the mouth of the Jabbok. The site of the Israelitish camp is therefore defined with greater minuteness by the clause " beyond the Jordan of Jericho." This place of encampment, which is frequently alluded to (chap. xxvi. 3, 63, xxxi. 12, xxxiii. 48, 50, xxxv. 1, xxxvi. 13; Josh. xiii. 32), extended, according to chap, xxxiii. 49, from Beth-Jeshimoth to Abel-Shittim. Beth- JesJiimoth (i.e. house of wastes), on the north-eastern desert border (Jeshimon, chap. xxi. 20) of the Dead Sea, a town allotted to the tribe of Reuben (Josh. xii. 3, xiii. 20), was situated, according to the 0)iom. (a\ v. Bi]0aaifiov6, Beflishnuth), ton Roman miles, or four hours, to the south (S.E.) of Jericho, on the Dead Sea; accordinf^ to Josephus (bell, jud, iv. 7, G), it was to the south of Julias (Livias), i.e. Be tJ I- liar am, or Rameh, on the nortliern edge of the Wady Hesban (see at chap, xxxii. 36), or in the Ghor el Seisahdn, on the northern coast of the Dead Sea, and the southern end of the plain of the Jordan. Abel Shittim (n^mn i^ns), i,e, the acacia-meadow, or, in its briefer form, Shittim (chap. xxv. 1), was situated, according to Josephus (A7}t. iv. 8, 1), on the same spot as the later town of Abila, in a locality rich in date-palms, sixty stadia from the Jordan, probably by the Wady Eslitah to the north of the Wady Ilesban; even if KnobeVs sup})Osition that the name is connected with ^Dt^'« = r\^\!^ with N prost. should not be a tenable one. From Shittirn or Sittim the Israelites advanced, under Joshua, to the Jordan, to effect the conquest of Canaan (Josh. iii. 1).
In the steppes of Moab the Israelites encamped upon the border of the promised land, from which they were only separated by the Jordan. But before" this boundary line could be passed, there were many preparations that had to be made. In the first place, the whole congregation w^as to pass through a trial of great importance to all future generations, as bearing upon the relation in which it stood to the heathen world; and in the second place, it v/as here that Moses, who was not to enter Canaan because of his sin at the water of strife, was to bring the work of legislation to a close before his death, and not only to issue the requisite instructions concerning the conquest of the promised inheritance, and the division of it among the tribes of Israel, but to impress once more upon the hearts of the whole congregation the essential contents of the whole law, with all that the Lord had done for Israel, that they might be confirmed in their fidelity to the Lord, and preserved from the danger of apostasy. This last work of the faithful servant of God, with which he brought his mediatorial w^ork to a close, is described in the book of Deuteronomy; wdiilst the law^s relating to the conquest and partition of Canaan, with the experience of Israel in the steppes of Moab, fill up the latter portion of the present book.
The rapid defeat of the two mighty kings of the Amorites filled the Moabites wdth such alarm at the irresistible might of Israel, that Balak their king, with the princes of Midian, sought to bring the powers of heathen magic to bear against the nation of God; and to this end he sent messengers with presents to Balaam, the celebrated soothsayer, in Mesopotamia, who had the reputation of being able both to bless and curse with great success, to entreat him to come, and so to weaken the Israehtes with his magical curses, that he might be able to smite them, and drive them out of his land (chap. xxii. 1-7). At first Balaam declined this invitation, in consequence of divine instructions (vers. 8-14); but when a second and still more imposing embassy of Moabite princes appeared before him, God gave him permission to go with them, but on this condition, that he should do nothing but what Jehovah should tell him (vers. 15-21). When on the way, he was warned again by the miraculous opposition of the angel of the Lord, to say nothing but what God should say to him (vers. 22-35). When Balak, therefore, came to meet him, on his arrival at the border of his kingdom, to give him a grand reception, Balaam explained to him, that he could only speak the word which Jehovah would put into his mouth (vers. 36-40), and then proclaimed, in four different utterances, what God inspired him to declare. First of all, as he stood upon the height of Bamoth-Baal, from which he could see the end of the Israelitish ^amp, he declared that it was impossible for him to curse this matchless, numerous, and righteous people, because they had not been cursed by their God (chap. xxii. 41— xxiii. 10). He then went to the head of Pisgah, where he could see all Israel, and announced that Jehovah would bless this people, because He saw no unrighteousness in them, and that He would dwell among them as their King, making known His word to them, and endowing them with activity and lion-like power (chap, xxiii. 11—24). And lastly, upon the top of Peor, where he could see Israel encamped according to its tribes, he predicted, in two more utterances, the spread and powerful development of Israel in its inheritance, under the blessing of God (chap, xxiii. 25-xxiv. 9), the rise of a star out of Jacob in the far distant future, and the appearance of a ruler in Israel, who would break to pieces all its foes (chap. xxiv. 10—24); and upon this Balak sent him away (ver. 25).
From the very earliest times opinions have been divided as to the character of Balaam.^ Some (e.g, Philo, Ambrose, and Augus-
^ On Balaam and his prophecies see G. Moebius Prophetas Bileami historia^ Lips. 1676; Luderwald, die Geschichte Bileams deutlich u. hegreijlich erkldrt (Jlelmst. 1787); B. R. de Geei\ Diss, de Bileamo^ ejus Jdstoria et vaticiniis; Tholuck's vermischte Schriften (i. pp. 406 sqq.); Hengstenberg^ History of tine) have regarded him as a wizard and false prophet, devoted to the worship of idols, who was destitute of any susceptibility for tlie true religion, and was compelled by God, against his will, to give utterance to blessings upon Israel instead of curses. Others (e.g, Tertullian and Jerome) have supposed him to be a genuine and true prophet, who simply fell through covetousness and ambition. But these views are both of them untenable in this exclusive form. Witsins (3IiscelL ss. i. lib. i. c. 16, § 33 sqq.), Ilenijstenherg (Balaam and his Prophecies), and Kurtz (History of the Old Covenant), have all of them clearly demonstrated this. The name 0^^"? (IXX. BaXadfi) is not to be derived, as Gesenius suggests, from P3 and DV, 7ion populus, not a people, but either from y?3 and ^V (dropping one y), devourer of the people (^Siinonis and Hengstenberg), or more probably from V^3, with the terminal syllable D— ^ devourer, destroyer {Filrst, Dietrich), which would lead to the conclusion, that " he bore the name as a dreaded wizard and conjurer; whether he received it at his birth, as a member of a family in which this occupation was hereditary, and then afterwards actually becan e in public opinion what the giving of the name expressed as an expectation and desire; or whether the name was given to him at a later period, according to Oriental custom, when the fact indicated by the name had actually made its appearance" (Ilengstenberg), In its true meaning, the name is related to that of his father, Beor.^ ">^V3, from "1^3, to burn, eat off, destroy: so called on account of the destructive power attributed to his curses (^Hengstenherg), It is very probable, therefore, that Balaam belonged to a family in which the mantic character, or magical art, was hereditary. These names at once warrant the conjecture that Balaam was a heathen conjurer or soothsayer. Moreover, he is never called ^5''^^J a prophet, or nthj a seer, but C3Dpiij the soothsayer (Josh. xiii. 22), a title which
^ The form Bosor, which we find instead of Beor in 2 Pet, ii. 15, appears to have arisen from a pecuUar mode of pronouncing the guttui'al y (see Loescher de causis ling. ebr. p. 246); whereas Vitringa maintains (in his ohss. ss. I. iv. c. 9), that Peter himself invented this form, " that by this sound of the word he might play upon the Hebrew "ib^2, which signifies flesh, and thus delicately hint that Balaam, the false prophet, deserved to be called the son of Bosor, i.e. "ic^n, or flesh, on account of his persuading to the indulgence of carnal lusts."
is never used in connection with the true prophets. For DDp^ soothsaying, is forbidden to the Israelites in Deut. xviii. 10 sqq.j as an abomination in the sight of Jehovah, and is spoken of everywhere not only as a grievous sin (1 Sam. xv. 23; Ezek. xiii. 23; 2 Kings xvii. 17), but as the mark of a false prophet (Ezek. xiii. 9, xxii. 28, Jer. xiv. 14, and even in Isa. iii. 2, where DpP forms the antithesis to ^^?2). Again, Balaam resorts to auguries, just like a heathen soothsayer (chap. xxiv. 1, compared with chap, xxiii. 3, 5), for the purpose of obtaining revelations; from which we may see that he was accustomed to adopt this as his ordinary mode of soothsaying.^ On the other hand, Balaam was not without a certain measure of the true knowledge of God, and not without susceptibility for such revelations of the true God as he actually received; so that, without being really a prophet, he was able to give utterance to true prophecies from Jehovah. He not only knew Jehovah, but he confess)d Jehovah, even in the presence of Balak, as well as of the Moj bitish messengers. He asked His will, and followed it (chap. xxii. 8, 13, 18, 19, 38, xxiii. 12), and would not go with the messengers of 1 alak, therefore, till God had given him permission (chap. xxii. 20). If he had been altogether destitute of the fear of God, he would have complied at once Avith Balak's request. And again, although at the outset it is only EloJiim who makes known His will (chap. xxii. 9, 20), and even when he first of all goes out in search of oracles, it is Eloliim who comes to him (chap, xxiii. 4); yet not only does the angel of JeJwvah meet him by the way (chap. xxii. 22 sqq.), but Jehovah also puts words into his mouth, which he announces to the king of the Moabites (chap, xxiii. 5, 12, 16), so that all his prophecies are actually uttered from a mind moved and governed by the Spirit of God, and that not from any physical constraint exerted upon him by God, but in such a manner that he enters into them with all his heart and soul, and heartily desires to die the death of these righteous, i.e. of the people of Israel (chap, xxiii. 10); and when he finds that it pleases Jehovah to bless Israel, he leaves off resorting any longer to auguries (chap. xxiv. 1), and eventually declares to the enraged monarch, that he cannot trans-
^ *' The fact that he made use of so extremely uncertain a method as augury, the insufficiency of which was admitted even by the heathen themselves {vid. Ndgelsbach, homer. Theol. pp. 154 sqq.), and which no true prophet among the Israelites ever employed, is to be attributed to the weakness of the influence exerted upon him by the Spirit of God. When the Spirit worked with power, there was no need to look round at nature for the purpose of ascertaining the will of God" {Hengstenberg).
^ress the command of Jehovah, even if the kinf^ should give him his house full of silver and gold (chap. xxiv. 13).^
This double-sidedness and ambiguity of the religious and prophetic character of Balaam may be explained on the supposition that, being endowed with a predisposition to divination and prophecy, he practised soothsaying and divination as a trade; and for the purpose of bringing this art to the greatest possible perfection, brought not only the traditions of the different nations, but all the phenomena of his own times, within the range of his observations. In this way he may have derived the first elements of the true knowledge of God from different echoes of the tradition of the primeval age, which was then not quite extinct, and may possibly have heard in his own native land some notes of the patriarchal revelations out of the home of the tribe-fathers of Israel. But these traditions are not sufficient of themselves to explain his attitude towards Jehovah, and his utterances concerning Israel. Balaam's peculiar knowledge of Jehovah, the God of Israel, and of all that He had done to His people, and his intimate acquaintance with the promises made to the patriarchs, which strike us in his prophecies (comp. chap, xxiii. 10 with Gen. xiii. 16, xxiii. 24; chap. xxiv. 9 with Gen. xlix. 9; and chap. xxiv. 17 with Gen. xlix. 10), can only be explained from the fact that the report of the great things which God had done to and for Israel in Egypt and at the Dead Sea, had not only spread among all the neighbouring tribes, as was foretold in Ex. XV. 14, and is attested by Jethro, Ex. xviii. 1 sqq., and Rahab the Canaanite, Josh. ii. 9 sqq., but had even penetrated into Mesopotamia, as the countries of the Euphrates had maintained a steady commercial intercourse from the very earliest times with Hither Asia and the land of Egypt. Through these tidings Balaam
^ The significant interchange in the use of the names of God, which is seen in the fact, that from the very outset Balaam always speaks of Jehovah (chap, xxii. 8, 13, 18, 19), — whereas, according to the historian, it is only Elohim who reveals Himself to him (chap. xxii. 9, 10, 12), — has been pointed out by Hengstenberg in his Dissertations; and even Baur, in his Geschichte der alttestl. Weissagung (i. p. 334), describes it as a " fine distinction;" but neither of them satisfactorily explains this diversity. For the assumption that Balaam is thereby tacitly accused of hypocrisy (Hengstenherg), or that the intention of the writer is to intimate that " the heathen seer did not stand at first in any connection whatever with the true God of Israel" (Baur), sets up a chasm between Elohim and Jehovah^ with which the fact that, according to chap. xxii. 22, the wrath of Elohim on account of Balaam's journey was manifested in the appearance of the angel of Jehovah^ is irreconcilable. The manifestation of God in the form of was no doubt induced not only to procure more ^xact information concerning the events themselves, that he might make a profitable use of it in connection with his own occupation, but also to dedicate himself to the service of Jehovah, " in the hope of being able to participate in the new powers conferred upon the human race; so that henceforth he called Jehovah his God, and appeared as a prophet in His name" (Hengstenberg), In this respect Balaam resembles the Jewish exorcists, who cast out demons in the name of Jesus without following Christ (Mark ix. 38, 89; Luke ix. 49), but more especially Simon Magus, his " New Testament antitype," who was also so powerfully attracted by the new divine powers of Christianity that he became a believer, and submitted to baptism, because he saw the signs and great miracles that were done (Acts viii. 13). And from the very time when Balaam sought Jehovah, the fame of his prpphetical art appears to have spread. It was no doubt the report that he stood in close connection with the God of Israel, which induced Balak, according to chap. xxii. 6, to hire him to oppose the Israelites; as the heathen king shared the belief, which was common to all the heathen, that Balaam was able to work upon the God he served, and to determine and regulate His will. God had probably given to the soothsayer a few isolated but memorable glimpses of the unseen, to prepare him for the service of His kingdom. But " Balaam's heart was not right with God," and " he loved the wages of unrighteousness" (Acts viii. 21; 2 Pet. ii. 15). His thirst for honour and wealth was not so overcome by the revelations of the truer God, that he could bring himself to give up his soothsaying, and serve the living God with an undivided heart. Thus it came to pass, that through the appeal addressed to him by Balak, he was brought into a situation in which, although he did not venture to attempt anything in opposition to the will of Jehovah, the angel of Jehovah^ was only a higher stage of the previous manifestations of Elohim. And all that follows from this is, that Balaam's original attitude towards Jehovah was a very imperfect one, and not yet in harmony with the true nature of the God of Israel. In his Jehovah Balaam worshipped only Elohim^ i.e. only a divine being, but not the God of Israel, who was first of all revealed to him according to His true essence, in the appearance of the angel of Jehovah, and stiU more clearly in the words which He put into his mouth. This is indicated by the use of Elohim^ in chap. xxii. 9, 10, 12. In the other passages, where this name,of God still occurs, it is required by the thought, viz. in chap. xxii. 22, to express the essential identity of Elohim and the Moleach Jehovah; and in chap. xxii. 38, xxiii. 27, and xxiv. 2, to show that Balaam did not speak out of his own mind, but from the inspiration of the Spirit of God.
his heart was never thorouglily changed; so tliat, \vliilst he refused the honours and rewards tliat were promised liim hy Balak, and pronounced blessings upon Israel in the strength of the Spirit of God that came upon him, he was overcome immediately afterwards by the might of the sin of his own unbroken heart, fell back into the old heathen spirit, and advised the Midianites to entice the Israelites to join in the licentious worship of Baal Peor (chap. xxxi. 16), and was eventually put to death by the Israelites when they conquered these their foes (chap. xxxi. 8).^
Chap. xxii. 2-21. Balaam hired by Balak to curse Israel. — Vers. 2-4. As the Israelites passed by the eastern border of the land of Moab, the Moabites did not venture to make any attack upon them; on the contrary, they supplied them with bread and water for money (Deut. ii. 29). At that time they no doubt cherished the hope that Sihon, their own terrible conqueror, would be able with perfect ease either to annihilate this new foe, or to drive them back into the desert from which they had come. But when they saw this hope frustrated, and the Israelites had overthrown the two kings of the Amorites with victorious power, and had conquered their kingdoms, and pressed forward through what was formerly Moabitish territory, even to the banks of the Jordan, the close proximity of so powerful a people filled Balak, their king, with terror and dismay, so that he began to think of the best means of destroying them. There was no ground for such alarm, as the Israelites, in consequence of divine instructions (Deut. ii. 9), had offered no hostilities to the Moabites, but had conscientiously spared their territory and property; and even after the defeat' of the
^ When modern critics, such as Knobel^ Baur^ etc., affirm that the tradition in chap. xxxi. 8, 16, Josh. xiii. 22 — viz. that Balaam was a kosem, or soothsayer, who Advised the Midianites to seduce the Israelites to join in the worship of Baal — is irreconcilable with the account in chap, xxii.-xxiv. concerning Balaam himself, his attitude towards Jehovah, and his prophecies with regard to Israel, they simply display their own incapacity to comprehend, or form any psychological appreciation of, a reUgious character such as Balaam; but they by no means prove that the account in chap, xxii.-xxiv. is interpolated by the Jehovist into the Elohistic original. And all that they adduce as a still further confirmation of this hypothesis (namely, that the weaving of prophetic announcements into the historical narrative, the interchange of the names of God, Jehovah, and Elohim, the appearance of the angel of the Lord, the talking of the ass, etc., are foreign to the Elohistic original), are simply assertions and assumptions, which do not become any more conclusive from the fact that they are invariably adduced when no better arguments can be hunted up.
Amorites, had not turned their arms against them, but had advanced to the Jordan to take possession of the land of Canaan. But the supernatural might of the people of God was a source of such discomfort to the king of the Moabites, that a horror of the Israelites came upon him. Feeling too weak to attack them with force of arms, he took counsel with the elders of Midian. With these words, " This crowd will now lick up all our environs^ as the ox licketh up the green of the fieldy^ i.e. entirely consume all our possessions, he called their attention to the danger which the proximity of Israel would bring upon him and his territory, to induce them to unite with him in some common measures against this dangerous foe. This intention is implied in his words, and clearly follows from the sequel of the history. According to ver. 7, the elders of Midian went to Balaam with the elders of Moab; and there is no doubt that the Midianitish elders advised Balak to send for Balaam, with whom {hey had become acquainted upon their trading journeys (cf. Gen. xxxvii.), to come and curse the Israelites. Another circumstance also points to an intimate connection between Balaam and the Midianites, namely, the fact that, after he had been obliged to bless the Israehtes in spite of the inclination of his own natural heart, he went to the Midianites and advised them to make the Israelites harmless, by seducing them to idolatry (chap. xxxi. 16). The Midianites, w^ho are referred to here, must be distinguished from the branch of the same tribe which dwelt in the peninsula of Sinai (chap. x. 29, 30; Ex. ii. 15, 16, iii. 1). They had been settled for a long time (cf. Gen. xxxvi. 35) on the eastern border of the Moabitish and Amoritish territory, in a grassy but treeless steppeland, where many ruins and wells are still to be found belonging to very ancient times {Buckingham^ Syr. ii. pp. 79 sqq., 95 sqq.), and lived by grazing (chap. xxxi. 32 sqq.) and the caravan trade. They were not very warlike, and w^ere not only defeated by the Edomites (Gen. xxxvi. 35), but were also subdued and rendered tributary by Sihon, king of the Amorites (see at chap. xxxi. 8). In the time of the Judges, indeed, they once invaded the land of Israel in company with the Amalekites and the sons of the East, but they were beaten by Gideon, and entirely repulsed (Judg. vi. and vii.), and from that time forth they disappear entirely from, history. The " elders of Midian " are heads of tribes, who administered the general affairs of the people, who, like the Israelites, lived under a patriarchal constitution. The most powerful of them bore the title of " kings" (chap. xxxi. 8) or "princes" (Josh. xiii. 21). The clause, "and
Balak, the son of Zlj)por, was king of the Moabltes at tliat tune," is added as a supplementary note to explain the relation of Balak to the Moabites.
Vers. 5 and G. Balak sent messengers to Balaam to Petlior in Mesopotamia. The town of Pethor, or Pethora {^aOovpn, LXX.), is unknown. There is something very uncertain in KnoheVs supposition, that it is connected with ^aOovaaij a place to the south of Circessium (Zozim. ill. 14), and with the BWavva mentioned by Ptolemy^ v. 18, 6, and that these are the same as Anah, ^AvaOca, Anatha (Ammian. Marcell. xxiv. 1, 6). And the conjecture that the name is derived from "ins^ to interpret dreams (Gen. xli. 8), and marks the place as a seat of the possessors of secret arts, is also more than doubtful, since "i*^'S corresponds to "iriQ in Aramaean; although there can be no doubt that Pethor may have been a noted seat of Babylonian magi, since these wise men were accustomed to congregate in particular localities (cf. Strabo, xvi. 1, § 6, and Munter Relig. der Bahyl. p. 86). Balak desired Balaam to come and curse the people of Israel, who had come out of Egypt, and were so numerous that they covered the eye of the earth (see Ex. x. 5), i.e. the whole face of the land, and sat down (were encamped) opposite to him; that he might then perhaps be able to smite them and drive them out of the land. On nnsj for "ik, the imperative of "»"]«, see Ewald, § 228, b. — " For I know that he whom thou blessest is blessed, and he whom thou cursest is cursed^ Balak believed, in common with the w^hole of the ancient world, in the real power and operation of the curses, anathemas, and incantations pronounced by priests, soothsayers, and goetce. And there was a truth at the foundation of this belief, however it may have been perverted by heathenism into phantasy and superstition. When God endows a man vrith supernatural powers of His word and Spirit, he also confers upon him the power of w^orking upon others in a supernatural way. Man, in fact, by virtue of the real connection between his spirit and the higher spiritual world, is able to appropriate to himself supernatural powers, and make them subservient to the purposes of sin and wickedness, so as to practise magic and witchcraft with them, arts which wc cannot pronounce either mere delusion or pure superstition, since the scriptures of both the Old and New Testaments speak of witchcraft, and condemn it as a real power of evil and of the kingdom of darkness (see vol. i. p. 476). Even in the narrative itself, the po^er of Balaam to bless and to curse is admitted; and, in addition to this, it is frequently celebrated as a great favour dis- played towards Israel, that the Lord did not hearken to Balaam, but turned the curse into a blessing (Deut. xxiii. 5; Josh. xxiv. 10; Micah vi. 3; Neh. xiii. 2). This power of Balaam is not therefore traced, it is true, to the might of heathen deities, but to the might of Jehovah, whose name Balaam confessed; but yet the possibility is assumed of his curse doing actual, and not merely imaginary, harm to the Israelites. Moreover, the course of the history shows that in his heart Balaam was very much inclined to fulfil the desire of the king of the Moabites, and that this subjective inclination of his was overpowered by the objective might of the Spirit of Jehovah.
Vers. 7-14. When the elders of Mbab and Midian came to him with wages of divination in their hand, he did not send them away, but told them to spend the night at his house, that he might bring them word what Jehovah would say to him. '^''^Dp^ from Dpi;5j soothsaying, signifies here that which has been wrought or won by soothsaying — the soothsayer's wages; just as '^y^'^, which signifies literally glad tidings, is used in 2 Sam. iv. 10 for the wages of glad tidings; and?ySj npVS^ which signifies work, is frequently used for that which is wrought, the thing acquired, or the wages. If Balaam had been a true prophet and a faithful servant of Jehovah, he would at once have sent the messengers away and refused their request, as he must then have known that God would not curse His chosen people. But Balaam loved the wages of unrighteousness. This corruptness of his heart obscured his mind, so that he turned to God not as a mere form, but with the intention and in the hope of obtaining the consent of God to his undertaking. And God came to him in the night, and made known His will. Whether it was through the medium of a dream or of a vision, is not recorded, as this was of no moment in relation to the subject in hand. The question of God in ver. 9, " Who are these men with theeV^ not only served to introduce the conversation (Knohel), but was intended to awaken "the slumbering conscience of Balaam, to lead him to reflect upon the proposal which the men had made, and to break the force of his sinful inclination" (Rengstenberg), — Ver. 12. God then expressly forbade him to go with the messengers to curse the Israelites, as the people was blessed; and Balaam was compelled to send back the messengers without attaining their object, because Jehovah had refused him permission to go with them. "'r'"'?Px? ^^^' ^^^ imper. of npj = 22\> (see at Lev. xxiv. 11).
Vers. 15-21. The answer witli wlilch Balaam had sent the ^foahitlsh messengers away, encouraged Balak to cherish the ho])e of gaining over the celebrated soothsayer to his purpose notwithstanding, and to send an embassy " of princes more numerous and more honourable than those," and to make the attempt to overcome his former resistance by more splendid promises; whether he regarded it, as is very probable, " as the remains of a weakly fear of God, or simply as a ruse adopted for the purpose of obtaining better conditions" {Ileiigsfenherg), As a genuine heathen, who saw nothing more in the God of Israel than a national god of that people, he thought that it would be possible to render not only men, but gods also, favourable to his purpose, by means of splendid honours and rich rewards.^ — Vers. 18, 19. But Balaam replied to the proposals of these ambassadors: " If Balak gave me his house full of silver and gold, I cannot transgress the mouth (command) of Jehovahj my God, to do little or great^^ i.e. to attempt anything in opposition to the will of the Lord (cf. 1 Sam. xx. 2, xxii. 15, xxv. 36). The inability flowed from moral awe of God and dread of
His punishment. "From beginning to end this fact was firmly established in Balaam's mind, viz. that in the work to which Balak summoned him he could do nothing at all except through Jehovah. This knowledge he had acquired by virtue of his natural gifts as seer, and his previous experience. But this clear knowledge of Jehovah was completely obscured again by the love for the wages which ruled in his heart. Because he loved Balak, the enemy of Israel, for the sake of the wages, whereas Jehovah loved Israel for His own name's sake; Balaam was opposed to Jehovah in his inmost nature and will, though he knew himself to be in unison with Him by virtue of his natural gift. Consequently he fell intq the same blindness of contradiction to which Balak was in bondage"
(JBaumgarten). And in this blindness he hoped to be able to turn Jehovah round to oppose Israel, and favour the wishes of his own and Balak's heart. He therefore told the messengers to wait again, that he might ask Jehovah a second time (ver. 19). And this
^ Compare the following remarks of Pliny (h. n. xxviii. 4) concerning this belief among the Romans: " Verrius Flaccus auctores ponit, guibus credat, in oppugnationibus ante omnia solitum a Rowanis sacerdotibus evocari Deum^ cujus in tutela id oppidum esset^ promittique illi eundem aut ampliorem apud Romanos cultum. Et durat in Pontijicum disciplina id sacrum, constatque ideo occultatum, in cujus Dei tutela Roma esset, ne qui hostium simili modo agerent;'''' — and the further explanations of this heathen notion in Hengstenberg''s Balaam and his f*rophecies.
time (ver. 20) God allowed him to go with them, bat only on the condition that he should do nothing but what He said to him. The apparent contradiction in His first of all prohibiting Balaam from going (ver. 12), then permitting it (ver. 20), and then again, when Balaam set out in consequence of this permission, burning with anger against him (ver. 22), does not indicate any variableness in the counsels of God, but vanishes at once when we take into account the pedagogical purpose of the divine consent. When the first messengers came and Balaam asked God whether he might go with them and curse Israel, God forbade him to go and curse. But since Balaam obeyed this command with inward repugnance, when he asked a second time on the arrival of the second embassy, God permitted him to go, but on the condition already mentioned, namely, that he was forbidden to curse. God did this not merely because it was His own intention to put blessings instead of curses into the prophet's mouth, — and " the blessings of the celebrated prophet might serve as means of encouraging Israel and discouraging their foes, even though He did not actually stand in need of them" (^Knohel)y — but primarily and principally for the sake of Balaam himself, viz. to manifest to this soothsayer, who had so little susceptibility for higher influences, both His own omnipotence and true deity, and also the divine election of Israel, in a manner so powerful as to compel him to decide either for or against the God of Israel and his salvation. To this end God permitted him to go to Balak, though not without once more warning him most powerfully by the way of the danger to which his avarice an^ ambition would expose him. This immediate intention in the guidance of Balaam, by which God would have rescued him if possible from the way of destruction, into which he had been led by the sin which ruled in his heart, does not at all preclude the much furtherreaching design of God, which was manifested in Balaam's blessings, namely, to glorify His own name among the heathen and in Israel, through the medium of this far-famed soothsayer.
Vers. 22-35. Balaam's Speaking Ass. — Ver. 22. "And the anger of God burned, that he was going (fc^in "^p}^): and the angel of Jehovah placed himself in the way, as an adversary to him^ From the use of the participle 'ip}*^ instead of the imperfect, with which it is not interchangeable, it is evident, on the one hand, that the anger of God was not excited by the fact that Balaam went with the elders of Moab, but by his behaviour either on setting out or upon the journey;^ and, on the other hand, that the occurrence which followed did not take place at the commencement, but rather towards the close of, the journey. As it was a longing for wages and honour that had induced the soothsayer to undertake the journey, the nearer he came to his destination, under the o-uidance of the distinguished Moabitish ambassadors, the more was his mind occupied with the honours and riches in prospect; and so completely did they take possession of his heart, that he was in danger of casting to the winds the condition which had been imposed upon him by God. The wrath of God was kindled against this dangerous enemy of his soul; and as he was riding upon his ass with two attendants, the angel of the Lord stood in his way i^ ]^'^^, " as an adversary to him" i.e. to restrain him from advancing farther on a road that would inevitably lead him headlong into destruction (cf. ver. 32). This visible manifestation of God (on the angel of the Lord, see vol. i. pp. 185 sqq.) was seen by the ass; but Balaam the seer was so blinded, that it was entirely hidden from his eye, darkened as it was by sinful lust; and this happened three times before Jehovah brought him to his senses by the speaking of the dumb animal, and thus opened his eyes.^ The " drawn sword" in the angel's hand was a manifestation of the wrath of God. The
^ From a failure to observe the use.of the participle in distinction from the preterite, and from a misinterpretation of the words of.the angel of the liOrd (ver. 32), " I have come out as an adversary, for the way leads headlong to destruction," which have been understood as implying that the angel meant to prohibit the seer from going, whereas he only intended to warn him of the destruction towards which he was going, the critics have invented a contradiction between the account of the speaking ass (vers. 22-35) and the preceding part of the history. And in consequence of this, A. G. Hoffmann and others have pronounced the section from ver. 22 to ver. 35 to be a later interpolation; whilst Baur, on the other hand (in his Geschichte d. alttestl. Weissagung), regards the account of the ass as the original form of the narrative, and the preceding portion as a composition of the Jehovist. But there is no " contradiction" or " evident incongruity," unless we suppose that the only reason for the appearance of the angel of the Lord was, that he might once more forbid the seer to go, and then give him permission, with a certain limitation. The other differences, which E. V. Ortenherg adduces, are involved in the very nature of the case. The manifestation of God, in the form of the Angel of Jehovah, was necessarily different in its character from a direct spiritual revelation of the divine will. And lastly, the difference in the expressions used to signify " three times,'''' m chap. xxii. 28, 32, 33, and chap. xxiv. 10, etc., prove nothing more than that king Balak did not mould his style of speaking according to that of the ass.
2 " To the great disgrace of the prophet, the glory of the angel was first of all apparent to the ass.... He had been boasting before this of extraordinary
ass turned from the road into the field before the threatening sight, and was smitten by Balaam in consequence to turn her or guide her back into the road. — Vers. 24, 25. The angel then stationed himself in a pass of the vineyards where walls ("i^2, vineyard walls, Isa. V. 5) were on both sides, so that the animal, terrified by the angel, pressed against the wall, and squeezed Balaam's foot against the wall, for which Balaam smote her again. — Vers. 26, 27. The angel moved still farther, and stationed himself in front of him, in so narrow a pass, that there was no room to move either to the right or to the left. As the ass could neither turn aside nor go past this time, she threw herself down. Balaam was still more enraged at this, and smote her with the stick (''ip.'??, which he carried; see Gen. xxxviii. 18). — Vers. 28 sqq. " Then Jehovah opened the mouth of the ass, and she said to Balaam, What have I done to thee, that thou hast smitten me now three times?" But Balaam, enraged at the refractoriness of his ass, replied, " Because thou hast played me ill (<?Vnnj see Ex. x. 2): if there were only a sword in my hand, verily 1 should now have killed theeP But the ass. replied, that she had been ridden by him from a long time back, and had never been accustomed to act in this way towards him. These words of the irrational beast, the truth of which Balaam was obliged to admit, made an impression upon him, and awakened him out of his blindness, so that God could now open his eyes, and he saw the angel of the Lord.
In this miraculous occurrence, which scoffers at the Bible constantly bring forward as a weapon of attack upon the truth of the word of God, the circumstance that the ass perceived the appearance of the angel of the Lord sooner than Balaam did, does not present the slightest difiiculty; for it is a well-known fact, that irrational animals have a much keener instinctive presentiment of many natural phenomena, such as earthquakes, storms, etc., than man has with the ^\q senses of his mind. And the fact is equally undeniable, that many animals, e.g, horses and cows, see the socalled second sight, and are terrified in consequence.^ The rock of offence in this narrative is to be found in the rational words of an
visions, and now what was visible to the eyes of a beast was invisible to him. Whence came this blindness, but from the avarice by whidh he had been so stupefied, that he preferred filthy lucre to the holy calling of'God?" (Calvin.')
^ In support of this We will simply cite the following from the remarks made by Martin upon this subject, and quoted by Hengstenberg in his Balaam (p. 385), from PassavanVs work on animal magnetism and clairvoyance: " That horses
see it' (the second sight), is also evident from their violent and rapid snorting,
irrational and speechless ass. It is true, that in the actual meanin^r of the words there is nothing beyond the sensations and feelings to which animals constantly give utterance in gestures and inarticulate sounds, when subjected to cruel treatment. But in this instance the feelings were expressed in the rational words of human language, which en animal does not possess; and hence the question arises. Are we to understand this miracle as being a purely internal fact of an ecstatic nature, or a fact that actually came under the cognizance of the senses? If we examine the arguments which Ilengstenberg has adduced in favour of the former, and Kurtz in support of the latter, there is nothing at all in the circumstance, that the narrative itself gays nothing about Balaam being in an ecstasy, nor in the statement that " Jehovah opened the mouth of the ass," nor lastly, in the words of 2 Pet. ii. 16, " The dumb ass, speaking with man's voice, forbade the madness of the prophet," to furnish conclusive, not to say irresistible, proofs of the assertion, that " as the ass was corporeally and externally visible, its speaking must have been externally and corporeally audible" (Kurtz), All that is contained in the two scriptural testimonies is, that the ass spoke in a way that was perceptible to Balaam, and that this speaking was effected by Jehovah as something altogether extraordinary. But whether Balaam heard the words of the animal with the outward, i.e. the bodily ear, or with an inward spiritual ear, is not decided by them. On the other hand, neither the fact that Balaam expressed no astonishment at the ass speaking, nor the circumstance that Balaam's companions— viz. his two servants (ver. 22) and the did not see the angel or hear the ass speaking, leads with certainty to the conclusion, that the whole affair must have been a purely internal one, which Balaam alone experienced in a state of ecstasy, since argumenta e silentio confessedly prove but very little. With regard to Balaam, we may say with Augustine (qucest. 50 in Num.), " he was so carried away by hi^ cupidity, that he was not terrified by this marvellous miracle, and replied just as if he had been speaking to a man, when God, although He did not change the nature of the ass into that of a rational being, made it give utterance to whatever He pleased, for the purpose of restraining his
when their rider has had a vision of any kind either by day or night. And in the case of the horse it may also be observed, that it will refuse to go any farther in the same road until a circuitous course has been taken, and even then it is quite in a sweat."
madness." But with regard to the Moabitish messengers, it Is very doubtful whether they were eye-witnesses and auditors of the affair. It is quite possible that they had gone some distance in advance, or were some distance behind, when Balaam had the vision. On the other hand, there was no necessity to mention particularly that they saw the appearance of the angel, and heard the speaking of the animal, as this circumstance was not of the least importance in connection with the main purpose of the narrative. And still less can it be said that " the ass's speaking, if transferred to the sphere of outward reality, would obviously break through the eternal boundary-line which has been drawn in Gen. i. between the human and the animal world." The only thing that would have broken through this boundary, would have been for the words of the ass to have surpassed the feelings and sensations of an animal; that is to say, for the ass to have given utterance to truths that were essentially human, and only comprehensible by human reason. Now that was not the case. All that the ass said was quite within the sphere of the psychical life of an animal.
The true explanation lies between the notion that the whole occurrence was purely internal, and consisted exclusively in ecstasy brought by God upon Balaam, and the grossly realistic reduction of the whole affair into the sphere of the senses and the outward material w^orld. The angel who met the soothsayer in the road, as he was riding upon his ass, and who was seen at once by the ass, though he was not seen by Balaam till Jehovah had opened his eyes, did really appear upon the road, in the outward world of the senses. But the form in which he appeared was not a grossly sensuous or material form, like the bodily frame of an ordinary visible being; for in that case Balaam would inevitably have seen him, when his beast became alarmed and restive again and again and refused to go forward, since it is not stated anywhere that God had smitten him with blindness, like the men of Sodom (Gen. xix. 11), or the people in 2 Kings vi. 18. It rather resembled the appearance of a spirit, which cannot be seen by every one who has healthy bodily eyes, but only by those who have their senses awakened for visions from the spirlt-w^orld. Thus, for example, the men who went to Damascus with Paul, saw no one, when the Lord appeared to him in a miraculous light from heaven, and spoke to him, although they also heard the voice ^ (Acts ix. 7). Balaam
^ Or, strictly speaking, they saw the ligM (Acts xxii. 9), but saw no man (Acts ix. 7); and they heard the sound (t^? (p<yv«^, the voice or noise generally.
wanted the spiritual sense to discern the angel of the Lord, because his spirit's eye was blinded by his thirst for wealth and honour. This blindness increased to such an extent, with the inward excitement caused by the repeated insubordination of his beast, that he lost all self-control. As the ass had never been so restive before, if he had only been calm and thoughtful himself, he would have looked about to discover the cause of this remarkable change, and would then, no doubt, have discovered the presence of the angel. But as he lost all his thoughtfulness, God was obliged to open the mouth of the dumb and irrational animal, to show a seer by profession his own blindness. " He might have reproved him by the words of the angel; but because the rebuke would not have been sufficiently severe without some deep humiliation. He made the beast his teacher" (^Calvin), The ass's speaking was produced by the omnipotence of God; but it is impossible to decide whether the modulation was miraculously communicated to the animal's voice, so that it actually gave utterance to the human words which fell upon Balaam's ears {Kurtz), or whether the cries of the animal were formed into rational discourse in Balaam's soul, by the direct operation of God, so that he alone heard and understood the speech of the animal, whereas the servants who were present heard nothing more than unintelligible cries.^ In either case Balaam received a deeply humiliating admonition from the mouth of the irrational beast, and that not only to put him to shame, but also to call him to his senses, and render him capable of hearing the voice of God. The seer, who prided himself upon having eyes for divine revelations, was so blind, that he could not discern the appearance of the angel, which even the irrational beast had been able to see.^ By this he was taught, that even a beast is more capable of discerning things from the higher world, than a man blinded by sinful desires. It was not till after this humiliation that God opened his eyes, so that
^ See the analogous case mentioned in John xii. 28, 29, of the voice which came to Jesus from the skies, when some of the people who were standing by said that it only thundered, whilst others said an angel spoke to Him.
2 God made use of the voice of an ass, both because it was fitting that a brutish mind should be taught by a brute, and also^ as Nyssenus says, to instruct and chastise the vanity of the augur (Balaam), who was accustomed to observe the meaning of the braying of the ass and the chirping of birds (C. a. Lap.).
he saw the angel of the Lord with a drawn sword standing in his road, and fell upon his face before this fearful sight.
Vers. 32-34. To humble him deeply and inwardly, the Lord held up before him the injustice of his cruel treatment of the ass, and told him at the same time that it had saved his life by turning out of the way. " / have come out^'' said the angel of the Lord, " as an adversary; for the way leads headlong into destimction before me;" i.e. the way which thou art going is leading thee, in my eyes, in my view, into destruction, t^"]^, to plunge, so. into destruction, both here, and also in Job xvi. 11, the only other passage in which it occurs. — Yer. 33. The angel of the Lord sought to preserve Balaam from the destruction which threatened him, by standing in his way; but he did not see him, though his ass did. v^^< 'Ii1 nntpjj " perhaps it turned out before me; for otherwise I should surely have killed thee, and let her live^ The first clause is to be regarded, as Hengstenberg supposes, as an aposiopesis. The angel does not state positively what was the reason why perhaps the ass had turned oyit of the way: he merely hints at it lightly, and leaves it to Balaam to gather from the hint, that the faithful animal had turned away from affection to its master, with a dim foreboding of the danger which threatened him, and yet for that very reason, as it were as a reward for its service of love, had been ill-treated by him. The traditional rendering, " if the ass had not turned aside, surely," etc., cannot be defended according to the rules of the language; and there is not. sufficient ground for any such alteration of the text as Knobel suggests, viz. into yy. These words made an impression, and Balaam made this acknowledgment (ver. 34): " / have sinned, for I knew not that thou stoodest in the way against me; and now, if it displease thee, I will get me back again^ The angel of the Lord replied, however (ver. 35); '■' Go with the men; but only the word that I shall speak unto thee, that shalt thou speakP This was sufficient to show him, that it was not the journey in itself that was displeasing to God, but the feelings and intentions with which he had entered upon it. The whole procedure was intended to sharpen his conscience and sober his mind, that he might pay attention to the word which the Lord would speak to him. At the same time the impression which the appearance and words of the angel of the Lord made upon his heart, enveloped in mist as it was by the thirst for gold and honour, was not a deep one, nor one that led him to a thorough knowledge of his own heart; otherwise, after such a warning, he would never have continued his journey.
Vers. 3G-41. Reception of Balaam by the King of the MoABiTES. — Vers. 36, 37. As soon as Balak heard of Balaam's coming, he went to meet him at a city on the border of the Amon, wliich Howed at the extreme (north) boundary (of the Moabitish territory), viz. at Areopolis (see at cliap. xxi. 15), probably the capital of the kingdom at one time, but now reduced to a frontier town, since Sihon the Amorite had taken all the land as far as the Anion; whilst Babbah, which was farther south, had been selected as the residence of the king. By coming as far as the frontier of his kingdom to meet the celebrated soothsayer, Balak intended to do hiin special honour. But he could not help receiving him with a gentle reproof for not having come at his first invitation, as if he, the king, had not been in a condition to honour him according to his merits. — Ver. 38. But Balaam, being still mindful of the warning which he had just received from God, replied, "Zo, lam come unto thee now: have I then any power to speak anything {sc, of my own accord)? The word which God puts into my mouthy that will I speak'^ With this reply he sought, at the very outset, to soften down the expectations of Balak, inasmuch as he concluded at once that his coming was a proof of his willingness to curse (^Hengstenberg). As a matter of fact, Balaam did not say anything different to the king from what he had explained to his messengers at the very first (cf. ver. 18). But just as he had not told them the whole truth, but had concealed the fact that Jehovah, his God, had forbidden the journey at first, on the ground that he was not to curse the nation that was blessed (ver. 12), so he could not address the king in open, unambiguous words. — Vers. 39, 40. He then went with Balak to Kirjath-Chuzothy where the king had oxen and sheep slaughtered in sacrifice, and sent flesh to Balaam as well as to the princes that were with him for a sacrificial meal, to do honour to the soothsayer thereby. The sacrifices were not so much thankofferings for Balaam's happy arrival, as supplicatory offerings for the success of the undertaking before them. " This is evident," as Hengstenberg correctly observes, " from the place and time of their presentation; for the place was not that where Balak first met with Balaam, and they were only presented on the eve of the great event." Moreover, they were offered unquestionably not to the Moabitish idols, from which Balak expected no help, but to Jehovah, whom Balak wished to draw away, in connection with Balaam, from His own people (Israel), that he might secure His favour to the Moabites. The situation of Kirjath-Chuzoth, which is only mentioned here, cannot be determined with absolute certainty. As Balak went with Balaam to Bamoth-Baal on the morning following the sacrificial meal, which was celebrated there, Kirjath-Chuzoth cannot have been very far distant. Knohel conjectures, with some probability, that it may have been the same as Kerioth (Jer. xlviii. 24), i.e, Kereijat or Kdrriat, at the foot of Jebel Attarus, at the top of which Bamoth-Baal was situated (see at chap. xxi. 19). — Yer. 41. But Balak conducted the soothsayer to Bamoth-Baal, not because it was consecrated to Baal, but becai^se it was the first height on the way to the steppes of Moab, from which they could see the camp of Israel, or at all events, " the end of the people," i,e, the outermost portion of the camp. For " Balak started with the supposition, that Balaam must necessarily have the Israelites in view if his curse was to take effect" (JEengstenherg),
Chap, xxiii. 1-24. Balaam's First Words. — Vers. 1-3. Preparations for the first ^ct, which was performed at Bamoth-Baal. At Balaam's command Balak built seven altars, and then selected seven bullocks and seven rams, which they immediately sacrificed, namely, one bullock and one ram upon each altar. The nations of antiquity generally accompanied all their more important undertakings with sacrifices, to make sure of the protection and help of the gods; but this was especially the case with their ceremonies of adjuration. According to Diod, Sic. ii. 29, the Chaldeans sought to avert calamity and secure prosperity by sacrifices and adjurations. The same thing is also related of other nations (see Hengstenhergy Balaam, p. 392). Accordingly, Balaam also did everything that appeared necessary, according to his own religious notions, to ensure the success of Balak's undertaking, and bring about the desired result. The erection of seven altars, and the sacrifice of seven animals of each kind, are to be explained from the sacredness acquired by this number, through the creation of the world in seven days, as being the stamp of work that was well-pleasing to God. The sacrifices were burnt-offerings, and were offered by themselves to Jehovah, whom Balaam acknowledged as his God. — Vers. 3, 4. After the offering of the sacrifices, Balaam directed the king to stand by his burnt-offering, i.e, by the sacrifices that had been offered for him upon the seven altars, that he might go out for auguries. The meaning of the words, " / will go, peradventure Jehovah will come to m,eet wg," is apparent from chap. xxiv. 1: and " he went no more to meet with the auguries^' (p^'^n^, see at Lev. xix.
2G). Balaam went out to look for a manifestation of Jehovah in the significant phenomena of nature. The word which Jehovah should show to him, he would report to Balak. We have here what is just as characteristic in relation to Balaam's religious stand-point, as it is significant in its bearing upon the genuine historical character of the narrative, namely, an admixture of the religious ideas of both the Israelites and the heathen, inasmuch as Balaam hoped to receive or discover, in the phenomena of nature, a revelation from Jehovah. Because heathenism had no " sure word of prophecy," i,t sought' to discover the will and counsel of God, which are displayed in the events of human history, through various signs that were discernible in natural phenomena, or, as Chrysippus the Stoic expresses it in Cicero de divin. ii. 63, " Signa quce a Diis liornjinihus portendanturT^ To look for a word of Jehovah in this way, Balaam betook himself to a " bald height^ This is the only meaning of ^SK^, from HDK^'j to rub, to scrape, to make bare, which is supported by the usage of the language; it is also in perfect harmony with the context, as the heathen augurs were always accustomed to select elevated places for their auspices, with an extensive prospect, especially the towering and barren summits of mountains that were rarely visited by men (see Hengstenherg^ ut sup.). Ewald, however, proposes the meaning " alone," or " to spy," for which there is not the slightest grammatical foundation. — Ver. 4. " And God came to meet Balaam^^ who thought it necessary, as a true hariolus^ to call the attention of God to the altars which had been built for Him, and the sacrifices that had been offered upon them. And God made known His will to him, though not in a natural sign of doubtful signification. He put a very distinct and unmistakeable word into his mouth, and commanded him to make it known to the king.
^ See the remarks of Ndgelsbach and Hartung on the nature of the heathen auspices, in Hengstenherg^s Balaam and his Prophecies (pp. 396-7). Hartung
observes, for example: " As the gods did not live outside the world, or separated from it, but the things of time and space were filled with their essence, it followed, as a matter of course, that the signs of their presence w6re sought and seen in all the visible and audible occurrences of nature, whether animate or inanimate. Hence all the phenomena which affected the senses, either in the elements or in the various creatures, whether sounds or movements, natural productions or events, of a mechanical or physical, or voluntary or involuntary kind, might serve as the media of revelation." And again (p. 397): " The sign in itself is useless, if it be not observed. It was therefore necessary that man and God should come to meet one another, and that the sign should not merely be given, but should also be received."
Vers. 7-10. Balaam's first saying. — Having come back to the burnt- offering, Balaam commenced his utterance before the king and the assembled princes. 7^^, lit, a simile, then a proverb, because the latter consists of comparisons and figures, and lastly a sentence or saying. The application of this term to the announcements made by Balaam (vers. 7, 18, xxiv. 3, 15, 20), whereas it is never used of the prophecies of the true prophets of Jehovah, but only of certain songs and similes inserted in them (cf. Isa. xiv. 4; Ezek. xvii. 2, xxiv. 3; Micah ii. 4), is to be accounted for not merely from the poetic form of Balaam's utterances, the predominance' of poetical imagery, the sustained parallelism^ the construction of the whole discourse in brief pointed sentences, and other peculiarities of poetic language {e.g. iJ3, chap. xxiv. 3, 15), but it points at the same time to the difference which actually exists between these utterances and the predictions of the true prophets. The latter are orations addressed to the congregation, which deduce from the general and peculiar relation of Israel to the Lord and to His law, the conduct of the Lord towards His people either in their own or in future times, proclaiming judgment upon the ungodly and salvation to the righteous. " Balaam's mental eye," on the contrary, as Hengstenherg correctly observes, " was simply fixed upon what he saw; and this he reproduced without any regard to the impression that it was intended to make upon those whp heard it." But the very first utterance was of such a character as to deprive Balak of all hope that his wishes would be fulfilled. — Ver. 7. ''Balak, the king of Moab, fetches me from Aram, from the mountains of the East^^ i.e. of Mesopotamia, which was described, as far back as Gen. xxix. 1, as the land of the sons of the East (cf. chap. xxii. 5). Balaam mentions the mountains of his home in contradistinction to the mountains of the land of the Moabites upon which he was then standing. " Come, curse me Jacob, and come threaten Israeli Balak had sent for him for this purpose (see chap. xxii. «11, 17). "^W, for '"'W, imperative (see Ewald, § 228, h.). DVJ, to be angry, here to give utterance to the wrath of God, synonymous with ^iP^ or 31i?, to curse. Jacob: a poetical name for the nation, equivalent to Israel. — Yer. 8. " How shall I curse whom God does not curse, and how threaten whom Jehovah does not threaten V Balak imagined, like all the heathen, that Balaam, as a goetes and magician, could distribute blessings and curses according to his own will, and put such constraint upon his God as to make Him subservient to his own will (see at chap. xxii. 6). The seer opposes this delusion:
Tlic God of Israel does not curse Ilis people, and therefore His servant cannot curse them. The following verses (vers. 9 and 10) give the reason why: " For from the top of the rocks I see him, and from the hills I behold him, Lo^ it is a people that dwelleth apart, and is not numbered among the heathen. Who determines the dust of Jacob, and in number the fourth part of Israel? Let my soul die the death of the righteous, and my end be like his!^^ There were two reasons which rendered it impossible for Balaam to curse Israel: (1) Because they were a people both outwardly and inwardly different from other nations, and (2) because they were a people richly blessed and highly favoured by God. From the top of the mountains Balaam looked down upon the people of Israel. The outward and earthly height upon which he stood was the substratum of the spiritual height upon which the Spirit of God had placed him, and had so enlightened his mental sight, that he was able to discern all the peculiarities and the true nature of Israel. In this respect the first thing that met his view was the fact that this people dwelt alone. Dwelling alone does not denote a quiet and safe re^ tirement, as many commentators have inferred from Deut. xxxiii. 28, Jer. xlix. 31, and Micah vii. 14; but, according to the parallel clause, " it is not reckoned among the nations," it expresses the separation of Israel from the rest of the nations. This separation was manifested outwardly to the seer's eye in the fact that " the host of Israel dwelt by itself in a separate encampment upon the plain. In this his spirit discerned the inward and essential separation of Israel from all the heathen" (Baumgarten). This outward " dwelling atone" was a symbol of their inward separation from the heathen world, by virtue of which Israel w^as not only saved from the fate of the heathen world, but could not be overcome by the heathen; of course only so long as they themselves should inwardly maintain this separation from the heathen, and faithfully continue in covenant with the Lord their God, who had separated them from among the nations to be His own possession. As soon as Israel lost itself in heathen ways, it also lost its own external independence. This rule applies to the Israel of the New Testament as well as the Israel of the Old, to the congregation or Church of God of all ages, ^^nn^ iih, " it does not reckon itself among the heathen nations,^^ i,e. it does not share the lot of the other nations, because it has a different God and protector from the heathen (cf. Deut. iv. 8, xxxiii. 29). The truth of this has been so marvellously realized in the history of the Israelites, notwithstanding their falling short of the Idea of their divine calling, " that whereas all the mightier kingdoms of the ancient world, Egypt, Assyria, Babel, etc., have perished without a trace, Israel, after being rescued from so many dangers which threatened utter destruction under the Old Testament, still flourishes in the Church of the New Testament, and continues also to exist in that part which, though rejected now, is destined one day t© be restored" {Hengstenherg),
In this state of separation from the other nations, Israel rejoiced in the blessing of its God, which was already visible in the innumerable multitude into which it had grown. " Who has ever determined the dust of Jacob V^ As the dust cannot be numbered, so is the multitude of Israel innumerable. These words point back to the promise in Gen. xiii. 16, and applied quite as much to the existing state as to the future of Israel. The beginning of the miraculous fulfilment of the promise given to the patriarchs of an innumerable posterity, was already before their eyes (cf. Deut. x. 22). Even now the fourth part of Israel is not to be reckoned. Balaam speaks of the fourth part with reference to the division of the nation into four camps (chap, ii.), of which he could see only one from his point of view (chap. xxii. 41), and therefore only the fourth part of the nation. "i^ipD is an accusative of definition, and the subject and verb are to be repeated from the first clause; so that there is no necessity to alter "^^P^ into "iSD '•p. — But Israel was not only visibly blessed by God with an innumerable increase; it was also inwardly exalted into a people of Ci"'"]^';, righteous or honourable men. The predicate 0^"]^^. is applied to Israel on account of its divine calling, because it had a God who was just and right, a God of truth and without iniquity (Deut. xxxii. 4), or because the God of Israel was holy, and sanctified His people (Lev. xx. 7, 8; Ex. xxxi. 13) and made them into a Jeshurun (Deut. xxxii. 15, xxxiii. 5, 26). Kighteousness, probity, is the idea and destination of this people, which has never entirely lost it, though it has never fully realized it. Even in times of general apostasy from the Lord, there was always an iKXajT] in the nation, of which probity and righteousness could truly be predicated (cf. 1 Kings xix. 18). The righteousness of the Israelites was " a product of the institutions which God had established among them, of the revelation of His holy will which He had given them in His law, of the forgiveness of sins which He had linked on to the offering of sacrifices, and of the communication of His Spirit, which was ever living and at work in His Church, and in it alone" {Hengstenherg), Such a people Balaam could not curse; he could only wish that the end of his own life might resemble the end of these righteous men. Death is introduced here as the end and completion of life. " Balaam desires for himself tlie entire, full, indestructible, and inalienable blessedness of the Israelite, of which deatli is both the close and completion, and also the seal and attestation" {Kurtz). This desire did not involve the certain hope of a blessed life beyond the grave, which the Israelites themselves did not then possess; it simply expressed the thought that the death of a pious Israelite was a desirable good. And this it w^as, whether viewed in the light of the past, the present, or the future. In the hour of death the pious Israelite could look back with blessed satisfaction to a long life, rich " in traces of the beneficent, forgiving, delivering, and saving grace of God;" he could comfort himself with the delightful hope of living on in his children and his children's children, and in them of participating in the future fulfilment of the divine promises of grace; and lastly, when dying in possession of the love and grace of God, he could depart hence with the joyful confidence of being gathered to his fathers in Sheol (Gen. xxv. 8).
Vers. 11-17. Balak reproached Balaam for this utterance, which announced blessings to the Israelites instead of curses. But he met his reproaches with the remark, that he was bound by the command of Jehovah. The infinitive absolute^ T}^, after the finite verb, expresses the fact that Balaam had continued to give utterance to nothing but blessings. ")3*]? "i^^, to observe to speak; "^^K^, to notice carefully, as in Deut. v. 1, 29, etc. But Balak thought that the reason might be found in the unfavourable locality; he therefore led the seer to " the field of the watcher s^ upon the top of Pisgah,^' whence he could see the whole of the people of Israel. The words '1^1 ^2J<"iri IK^S (ver. 13) are to be rendered, '^v^hence thou wilt see it (Israel); thou seest only the end of it, but not the whole of it*^ (se, here upon Bamoth- Baal). This is required by a comparison of the verse before us with chap. xxii. 41, where it is most unquestionably stated, that upon the top of Bamoth-Baal Balaam only saw " the end of the people." For this reason Balak regarded that place as unfavourable, and wished to lead the seer to a place from which he could see the people, without any limitation whatever. Consequently, notwithstanding the omission of ^^ (for), the words ^nvjj DSDX can only be intended to assign the reason why Balak supposed the first utterances of Balaam to have been unfavourable, ^^^:p =: nyn n^ip the end of the people (chap. xxii. 41), cannot possibly signify the whole nation, or, as March J de Geer, Gesenius, and Kurtz suppose, " the people from one end to the other," in which case Dyn nvp (the end of the people) would signify the very opposite of ^^^^[5 (the end of it); for Dyn n^p is not interchangeable, or to be identified, with t^'^p^ Dyn"73
(Gen. xix. 4), " the whole people, from the end or extremity of it," or ffom its last man; in other words, " to the very last man." Still less does ^Vn nvp Dp^ signify " the uttermost end of the whole people, the end of the entire people," notwithstanding the fact that Kurtz regards the expression, " the end of the end of the people," as an intolerable tautology, ^^^ij, imperative with nun epenth., from ^?ij. The " field of the watcherfe," or " spies (zopJiim), upon the top of Pisgahj^ corresponds, no doubt, to " the field of Moab, upon the top of Pisgalij^ on the west of Heshbon (see at chap. xxi. 20). Mount Nebo, from which Moses surveyed the land of Canaan in all its length and breadth, was one summit, and possibly tJie summit of Pisgah (see Deut. iii. 27, xxxiv. 1). The field of the spies was very probably a tract of table-land upon Nebo; and so called either because watchers were stationed there in times of disturbance, to keep a look-out all round, or possibly because it was a place where augurs made their observations of the heavens and of birds (Knohel). The locality has not been thoroughly explored by travellers; but from the spot alluded to, it must have been possible to overlook a very large portion of the Arhotli Moab. Still farther to the north, and nearer to the camp of the Israelites in these Arboth, was the summit of Peor, to which Balak afterwards conducted Balaam (ver. 28), and where he not only saw the whole of the people, but could see distinctly the camps of the different tribes (chap. xxiv. 2). — Yers. 145-17. Upon Pisgah, Balak and Balaam made the same preparations for a fresh revelation from God as upon Bamoth-Baal (vers. 1-6). nb in ver. 15 does not mean " here" or " yonder," but " so" or " thus," as in every other case. The thought is this: " Do thou stay (sc. as thou art), and I will go and meet thus" (sc. in the manner required). ' nnpt?: (I will go and meet) is a technical term here for going out for auguries (chap. xxiv. 1), or for a divine revelation.
Hearken to me, son of Zippor!^^ D^P, " stand up," is a call to mental elevation, to the perception of the word of God; for Balak was standing by his sacrifice (ver. 17). T\^\j with "IV, as in Job xxxii. 11, signifies a hearing which presses forward to the speaker, i.e, in keen and minute attention (Hengstenberg), 1^3, with the antiquated union vowel for |3; see at Gen. i. 24. — Yer. 19. " God is not a mauj that lie should lie; nor a son of man ^ that lie should repent: hath He said, and should lie not do it /^ and spoken, and should not carry it out? " — Ver. 20. " Behold, I have received to bless: and He hath blessed; and 1 cannot turn it." Balauni meets Balak's expectatiou that he will take back the blessing that he has uttered, with the declaration, that God does not alter His purposes like changeable and fickle men, but keeps His word unalterably, and carries it into execution. The unchangeableness of the divine purposes is a necessary consequence of the unchangeableness of the divine nature. With regard to His own counsels, God repents of nothing; but this does not prevent the repentance of God, understood as an anthropopathic expression, denoting the pain experienced by the love of God, on account of the destruction of its creatures (see at Gen. vi. G, and Ex. xxxii. 14). The n before K^n (ver. 19) is the interrogative n (see Ges. § 100, 4). The two clauses of ver. 196, " Hath He spoken," etc., taken by themselves, are no doubt of universal application; but taken in connection with the context, they relate specially to what God had spoken through Balaam, in his first utterance with reference to Israel, as we may see from the more precise explanation in ver. 20, " Behold, I have received to bless" (^P^, taken, accepted), etc. ^''^[', to lead back, to make a thing retrograde (Isa. xliii. 13). Samuel afterwards refused Saul's request in these words of Balaam (ver. 19a), when he entreated him to revoke his rejection on the part of God (1 Sam. XV. 29). — Yer. 21. After this decided reversal of Balak's expectations, Balaam carried out still more fully the blessing which had been only briefly indicated in his first utterance. " He beholds not wickedness in Jacob, and sees not suffering in Israel: Jehovah his God is with him, and the shout (jubilation) of a king in the midst of him^ The subject in the first sentence is God (see Hab. i. 3, 13). God sees not p.ij, worthlessness, wickedness, and i'^y, tribulation, misery, as the consequence of sin, and therefore discovers no reason for cursing the nation. That this applied to the people solely by virtue of their calling as the holy nation of Jehovah, and consequently that there is no denial of the sin of individuals, is evident from the second hemistich, which expresses the thought of the first in a positive form: so that the words, " Jehovah his God is with him," correspond to the words, " He beholds not wickedness;" and " the shout of a king in the midst of it," to His not seeing suffering. Israel therefore rejoiced in the blessing of God only so long as it remained faithful to the idea of its divine calling, and continued in covenant fellowship with the Lord. So long the power of the world could do it no harm. The " shout of a king" in Israel is the rejoicing of Israel at the fact that Jehovah dwells and rules as King in the midst of it (cf. Ex. xv. 18; Deut. xxxiii. 5). Jehovah had manifested Himself as King, by leading them out of Egypt. — Ver. 22. " God brings them out of Egypt; his strength is like that of a buffalo.''^ p^ is God as the strong, or mighty one. The participle DK'^^D is not used for the preterite, but designates the leading out as still going on, and lasting till the introduction into Canaan. The plural suffix, Q~, is used ad sensum, with reference to Israel as a people. Because God leads them, they go forward with the strength of a buffalo. niDyin^ from ^T, to weary, signifies that which causes weariness, exertion, the putting forth of power; hence the fulness of strength, ability to make or bear exertions. D^?'^ is the buffalo or wdld ox, an indomitable animal, which is especially fearful on account of its horns (Job xxxix. 9-11; Deut. xxxiii. 17; Ps. xxii. 22). — Ver. 23. The fellowship of its God, in which Israel rejoiced, and to which it owed its strength, was an actual truth. " For there is no augury in Jacob, and no divination in Israel, At the time it is spoken to Jacob, and to Israel what God doethP ^^ does not mean, " so that, as an introduction to the sequel," as Knobel supposes, but " /o/"," as a causal particle. The fact that Israel was not directed, like other nations, to the uncertain and deceitful instrumentality of augury and divination, but enjoyed in all its concerns the immediate revelation of its God, furnished the proof that it had its God in the midst of it, and was guided and endowed with power by God Himself, t^n: and DDp^ olcoviafjb6<; and fiavrela, augurium et divinatio (LXX., Vulg.), were the two means employed by the heathen for looking into futurity. The former (see at Lev. xix. 26) was the unfolding of the future from signs in the phenomena of nature, and inexplicable occurrences in animal and human life; the latter, prophesying from a pretended or supposed revelation of the Deity within the human mind, riys^ " according to the time," i.e. at the right time, God revealed His acts, His counsel, and His will to Israel in His word, which He had spoken at first to the patriarchs, and afterwards through Moses and the prophets. In this He revealed to His people in truth, and in a way that could not deceive, what the heathen attem.pted in vain to discover through augury and divination (cf. Deut. xviii. 14-19).^ — Yer. 24. Through
^ " What is here affirmed of Israel, applies to the Church of all ages, and also to every individual believer. The Church of God knows from His word what the power of Its God, Israel was invincible, and would crush all its foes. " Behold, it rises up, a people like the lioness, and lifts itself vp like the lion. It lies not down till it eats dust, and drinks the blood of the slain!^ What the patriarch Jacob prophesied of Judah, the ruler among his brethren, in Gen. xlix. 9, Balaam here transfers to the whole nation, to put to shame all the hopes indulged by the Moabitlsh king of the conquest and destruction of Israel.
Chap, xxiii. 25-xxiv. 25. Balaam's Last "Words. — Vers. 25-30. Balak was not deterred, however, from making another attempt. At first, indeed, he exclaimed in indignation at these second sayings of Balaam: " Thou shalt neither curse it, nor even bless.'' The double D2 with ii[> signifies "neither — nor;" and the rendering, " if thou do not curse it, thou shalt not bless it," must be rejected as untenable. In his vexation at the second failure, he did not want to hear anything more from Balaam. But when he replied again, that he had told him at the very outset that he could do nothing but what God should say to him (cf. chap. xxii. 38), he altered his mind, and resolved to conduct Balaam to another place with this hope: '' peradventure it will please God that thou mayest curse me them from thence'' Clericus observes upon this passage, " It was the opinion of the heathen, that what was not obtained through the first, second, or third victim, might nevertheless be secured through a fourth;" and he adduces proofs from Suetonius, Curtius, Gellius, and others. — Yer. 29. He takes the seer " to the top of Peor, which looks over the face of the desert " (Jeshimon: see at chap. xxi. 20), and therefore was nearer to the camp of the Israelites. Mount Peor was one peak of the northern part of the mountains of Abarim by the town of Beth-peor, which afterwards belonged to the Reubenites (Josh. xiii. 20), and opposite to which the Israelites were encamped in the steppes of Moab (Deut. iii. 29, iv. 46). According to Eusebius (Onom. s. v. ^oycop), Peor was above Libias (i.e. Bethharam),^ which was situated in the valley of the Jordan; and according to the account given under
God does, and what it has lu uo in consequence. The wisdom of this world resembles augury and divination. The Church of God, which is in possession of His word, has no need of it, and it only leads its followers to destruction, from inability to discern the will of God. To discover this with certainty, is the great privilege of the Church of God" {Hengstenberg).
Arahoili Moah^ it was close by the Arboth Moab, opposite to Jericbo, on the way from Libias to Heshbon. Peor was about seven Roman miles from Heshbon, according to the account given s. v. Danaba; and Beth-peor (s. v. Bethphozor) was near Mount Peor^ opposite to Jericho, six Roman miles higher than Libias, i.e. to the east of it (see Hengstenhergj Balaam, p. 538). — Vers. 29, 30. The sacrifices offered in preparation for this fresh transaction were the same as in the former cases (ver. 14, and vers. 1, 2).
Chap. xxiv. 1-9. The third saying. — Vers. 1 and 2. From tlie two revelations which he had received before, Balaam saw, i.e. perceived, that it pleased Jehovah to bless Israel. This induced him not to go out for auguries, as on the previous occasions. Dys^'Dyas^ "as time after time," i.e. as at former times (chap, xxiii. 3 and 15). He therefore turned his face to the desert, i.e. to the steppes of Moab, where Israel was encamped (chap. xxii. 1). And when he lifted up his eyes, " he saio Isi^ael encamping according to its tribes; and the Spirit of God came over him.^^ The impression made upon him by the sight of the tribes of Israel, served as the subjective preparation for the reception of the Spirit of God to inspire him. Of both the earlier utterances it is stated that " Jehovah put a word into his mouth" (chap, xxiii. 5 and 16); but of this third it is affirmed that " the Spirit of God came over him." The former were communicated to him, when he went out for a divine revelation, without his being thrown into an ecstatic state; he heard the voice of God within him telHng him what he was to say. But this time, like the prophets in their prophesyings, he was placed by the Spirit of God in a state of ecstatic sight; so that, with his eyes closed as in clairvoyance, he saw the substance of the revelation from God with his inward mental eye, which had been opened by the Spirit of God. Thus not only does he himself describe his own condition in vers. 3 and 4, but his description is in harmony with the announcement itself, which is manifestly the result both in form and substance of the intuition effected within him by the Spirit of God. — Vers. 3 and 4 contain the preface to the prophecy: " The divine saying of Balaam the son of Beor^ the divine saying of the man with closed eye^ the divine saying of the hearer of divine words J who sees the vision of the Almighty ^ falling down and with opened eyesr For the participial noun Di<J the meaning divine saying (effatum^ not inspiratum, Domini) is undoubtedly established