REFLECTION
What is distinctive in this essentially judgmental text is the unusual symbol of God’s grace that reaches all the way to the Savior. In the earlier judgments of the book of Numbers there was regularly the demonstration of God’s wrath, the prayer of Moses for help, and the repentance of the people. These acts then usually led to some lessening of the pain of the plague until the evil ebbed away. In this plague something was truly different: there was a symbol of hope that was disgusting in nature but had healing properties that were most surprising. We find an amazing sense of God’s presence in the most unlikely of places, the symbol of evil—a snake.
This was not magic but the dramatic provision of Yahweh to demand personal responses from the people. Similar actions demanded of people are found elsewhere in the OT; an example is the story of leprous Naaman, who was told to dip seven times in the Jordan to be cleansed (2Ki 5:10). The healing of the afflicted people of Israel was not in the efficacy of the metal snake any more than the cleansing of Naaman was in the purging waters of the Jordan; the issue was a purposeful and deliberate response of faith in the mercy of the Lord. The improbability of a person’s being able to survive a deadly snake bite simply by looking at a metal image of a snake held high on a pole is seized on by our Lord to affirm an even greater imponderability: “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life” (Jn 3:14–15).
The reader of John 3 is impressed with the interplay of judgment and salvation themes. This creative admixture lends itself splendidly to the interplay of serpents and deliverance. By the initiative of God, the curse becomes the basis for salvation. This is a paradox that spans the testaments.
No one reading this passage can shirk the sense of foreboding that the snake conjures in many people. The snake reaches all the way back to the garden, the unwelcome and cunning intruder. (See the pun on ʿārûm, “crafty,” in Genesis 3:1, compared with ʿarûmmîm [“naked”] in 2:25.) Yet it is principally to the gospel of John that this text drives us: the contemptible bread leads to John 6:48–51, the contemptible snake to John 3:14.
In both parallels there are portraits of the Savior, Jesus. In some circles these days, it has fallen out of style to speak of biblical types. Typology has fallen on hard times. The abuse of typology in former generations, where every spiritual lesson one might derive from a text was declared to be a “type,” has led to a gradual but sure reaction against typology of any kind. Yet the idea of typology is a factor of the text of Scripture, not an innovation of “creative” interpretation (see John Bright, The Authority of the Old Testament [Nashville: Abingdon, 1967], 79–95).
If ever there was a less expected pairing of types, this would be it. The manna was an altogether gracious gift of God, which the people turned against as it eventually turned their stomachs. The snakes were an instrument of God’s judgment because of the peoples’ ingratitude and rebellious spirits; yet it was a metal copy of just such a snake that became the means of their deliverance.
The bread is a picture of Jesus; as the Bread of heaven he is the proper nourisher of his people. The bronze snake is a picture of Jesus, who became sin for us as he was suspended on that awful tree. The manna had to be eaten. The snake had to be seen. The commands of Scripture are for doing. The manna was no good if left to rot. The metal snake would not avail if none looked at it. The manna and the snake are twin aspects of the grace of God.
c. The Journey toward Moab and the Song of the Well (21:10–20)
10The Israelites moved on and camped at Oboth. 11Then they set out from Oboth and camped in Iye Abarim, in the desert that faces Moab toward the sunrise. 12From there they moved on and camped in the Zered Valley. 13They set out from there and camped alongside the Arnon, which is in the desert extending into Amorite territory. The Arnon is the border of Moab, between Moab and the Amorites. 14That is why the Book of the Wars of the LORD says:
“. . . Waheb in Suphah and the ravines,
the Arnon 15and the slopes of the ravines
that lead to the site of Ar
and lie along the border of Moab.”
16From there they continued on to Beer, the well where the LORD said to Moses, “Gather the people together and I will give them water.”
17Then Israel sang this song:
“Spring up, O well!
Sing about it,
18about the well that the princes dug,
that the nobles of the people sank—
the nobles with scepters and staffs.”
Then they went from the desert to Mattanah, 19from Mattanah to Nahaliel, from Nahaliel to Bamoth, 20and from Bamoth to the valley in Moab where the top of Pisgah overlooks the wasteland.
COMMENTARY
10–12 At last the people were on the march; they skirted Edom and made their way to the Arnon (v.13), the wadi that serves as the border between the region of Moab and that of the Amorites; the Arnon flows west into the midpoint of the Dead Sea. Along the way the people made encampments at Oboth (v.10), Iye Abarim (v.11), and the Zered Valley (v.12).
13–15 This portion of the itinerary includes a quotation from a fragment of a song in an ancient book called the “Book of the Wars of the LORD” (cf. the “Book of Jashar” in Jos 10:13; 2Sa 1:18), which is mentioned only here in the OT. We may presume that this book was an ancient collection of songs of war in praise of God (see comments on 10:3 for music in war); the poem fragment attests to the variety of sources used by the author of the book.
We may call this song fragment the “Song of Places.” It shows how distant we are from those days and the life they represent, for the song fragment is nearly unintelligible to us today. It seems merely to be a simple listing of names of places and their relative locations. Some have attempted to emend this text rather drastically in order to produce a “spiritual song” in which the Lord plays a significant role (see Notes). Such reconstructions are intriguing and may be (partly) correct. Yet in biblical times one might well have used songs to set in the memory various places of encampment in the wilderness. Those who were training for war in the army of the Lord (if that is the intent of the title of this old fragment) might have found that their lives would depend on knowing this ancient ditty. The reason for its inclusion here seems to be based on the catchwords “Arnon” and “Moab.”
While the three short poems in this chapter (vv.14–15, 17–18, 27–30) bristle with difficulties, they provide evidence of robust poetic activity in the period of Moses and the early history of the Hebrew people. These brief songs pale beside the beauty of the “Psalm of Moses” in Exodus 15. Perhaps the most significant recent book on the poetry of the ancient world is the magnum opus by Kitchen (Poetry of Ancient Egypt). He terms the first (rather bare) poem that he presents “A Litany of Victory” (pp. 3–6). He dates it to ca. 3000 BC and concludes: “it ranks accordingly as the oldest known written poem in the world.” All the talk from nineteenth century German critics aside—there should now be no question concerning the possibility of poetry (even great poetry) being written by Moses and his contemporaries, whether dated in the fifteenth or the thirteenth centuries BC.
16–18a The “Song of Places” (vv.14–15) leads to the “Song of the Well” in vv.17–18. The quest for water had been a constant problem during the wilderness experience (see Ex 17; Nu 20). At this new promise of water from Yahweh, the people burst forth with the triumphant words of the “Song of the Well,” a dramatic departure from their earlier behavior! When the people came to a likely spot, Yahweh instructed Moses to have a well dug. The place received the happy name beʾēr (“Beer,” meaning “well” in Hebrew). Here come also happy words from the Lord: “Gather the people together and I will give them water” (v.16). How fitting it is that this is a place of song!
The NIV’s rendering of the “Song of the Well” has much energy and enjoyment to it. Quite possibly this song came from the same collection as the “Song of Places,” also known as the “Book of the Wars of the LORD” (see v.14). It is possible to draw a spiritual lesson from this song, particularly since the idea of salvation and wells and springs are so closely connected (see, e.g., Isa 12). But it seems more likely that this was simply a song one might have sung in conjunction with digging a well. Instead of attempting to make some spiritual lesson from this brief song, this song is probably the nearest we come in the Bible to “popular music”—better, “folk music.” In this song there is a sense of the joy of knowing God even though the name of God is not mentioned. The association of princes and nobles with the digging of a well is likely a use of “power language” to ensure that the well will last a lengthy period.
18b–20 From Beer the people journeyed ever onward and finally came to the valley of Moab; there Pisgah was a fine lookout from which to spy out the land of Canaan. Only later (Dt 34:1) do we associate this peak with Moses’ final moments.
NOTES
14 C. L. Christensen (“Numbers 21:14–15 and the Book of the Wars of Yahweh,” CBQ 36 [1974]: 359–60) translates the poem as follows:
Yahweh came in a whirlwind;
He came to the branch wadis of the Arnon;
He marched through the wadis;
He marched, he turned aside to the seat of Ar.
He leaned toward the border of Moab.
This translation involves the following emendations: (1) The term 
(wāhēb; v.14) is usually translated as a place name, “Waheb,” otherwise unknown. Christensen emends it to “Yahweh” (yhwh). (2) The definite direct object marker 
(ʾet), which precedes this word, is emended to the verb “he came” 
(ʾātâ, a fairly rare verb meaning “to come”; see its use in Dt 33:2, where 
is used in parallel with the more common verb 
[bôʾ], “to come, enter”), here and in the next colon. (3) The supposed place name “Suphah” 
(sûpâ) is translated as “whirlwind” (as in Ps 83:15 [16]; Hos 8:7; Am 1:14; Na 1:3; et al.). (4) The term translated “slopes” 
(weʾešed; v.15) is emended to “he marched” 
(ʾāšār, “to advance, move forward”), as is the relative pronoun “that” 
(ʾašer) in the next colon.
Christensen’s approach is viewed as quite attractive by Wenham, 159–60, but as indemonstrable because of the numerous conjectures involved. Any perusal of the MT of these two verses, however, shows that this little fragment has presented numerous problems to interpreters through the ages. This fragment is a text-critical minefield.
18 
(nedîbê hāʿām, “nobles of the people”) is more poetic than official in function. The noun 
(nādîb, “noble”) does not have a fixed, social meaning as much as an honorific significance (paralleled with words such as 
[ṣāddîq], “righteous,” as in Pr 17:26). See J. P. Weinberg, “The word ndb in the Bible: A Study in Historical Semantics and Biblical Thought,” in Solving Riddles and Untying Knots: Biblical, Epigraphic, and Semitic Studies in Honor of Jonas C. Greenfield (ed. Ziony Zevit et al.; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1995), 371.
d. The Defeat of Sihon of Heshbon (21:21–31)
OVERVIEW
The victories over Sihon and Og are celebrated throughout Israel’s history, even to our own day in the Passover Haggadah. These battles formed the true beginning of victories. The defeat of Arad was a nuisance issue. Sihon and Og represented formidable opponents; their land became part of the inheritance of the tribes of Israel. There is a sense in which the area of Transjordan is somewhat touchy; we are ambivalent about these territories. They were a part of the promise, yet they were not the heart of the land. But they were the scenes of the first victories of the Hebrew people, a note of assurance from God that the greater victories were still to come (see Notes).
21Israel sent messengers to say to Sihon king of the Amorites:
22“Let us pass through your country. We will not turn aside into any field or vineyard, or drink water from any well. We will travel along the king’s highway until we have passed through your territory.”
23But Sihon would not let Israel pass through his territory. He mustered his entire army and marched out into the desert against Israel. When he reached Jahaz, he fought with Israel. 24Israel, however, put him to the sword and took over his land from the Arnon to the Jabbok, but only as far as the Ammonites, because their border was fortified. 25Israel captured all the cities of the Amorites and occupied them, including Heshbon and all its surrounding settlements. 26Heshbon was the city of Sihon king of the Amorites, who had fought against the former king of Moab and had taken from him all his land as far as the Arnon.
27That is why the poets say:
“Come to Heshbon and let it be rebuilt;
let Sihon’s city be restored.
28“Fire went out from Heshbon,
a blaze from the city of Sihon.
It consumed Ar of Moab,
the citizens of Arnon’s heights.
29Woe to you, O Moab!
You are destroyed, O people of Chemosh!
He has given up his sons as fugitives
and his daughters as captives
to Sihon king of the Amorites.
30“But we have overthrown them;
Heshbon is destroyed all the way to Dibon.
We have demolished them as far as Nophah,
which extends to Medeba.”
31So Israel settled in the land of the Amorites.
COMMENTARY
21–23 The Amorites, unlike the Edomites, were not related to the Israelites. But as in the case of their approach to Edom (20:14–19), Israel first requested a right of passage. The language of the request (v.22) is similar to what Israel had used with Edom. And the response of Sihon, king of the Amorites, was the same as Edom’s—a show of force to block the Hebrews’ path (v.23).
24–26 When Sihon tried to meet Israel with a show of force, he suffered an overwhelming defeat (v.24). The Transjordanian land of the Amorites extended from the Arnon River at the midpoint of the Dead Sea to the Jabbok River (v.24), which flows into the Jordan River some twenty-four miles north of the Dead Sea. Among Israel’s conquests were the cities of Heshbon and its dependent settlements (v.25). Heshbon had originally been a Moabite territory (see vv.25–30); Israel, however, wrested it from Sihon and the Amorite conquerors. It was this victory that cast a pale of fear into the Moabites (see 22:2–3). The syllogism was clear: Sihon had defeated Moab; Israel now defeated Sihon; Moab was next, and their defeat seemed imminent. Thus Balak king of Moab wished to transfer the battle arena from the field of men to the realm of the gods (see comment on 22:5–7).
27–30 Numbers 21 is unusual in its inclusion of three short songs. Possibly each of the three (vv.14–15, 17–18, 27–30) was included in the “Book of the Wars of the LORD” (see v.14). This third song in ch. 21, the “Taunt Song of Heshbon,” was originally an Amorite song celebrating their earlier victory over Moab (v.29); thus the phrase, “why the poets say” (v.27). Heshbon, the capital city of Sihon, had been wrested by the Amorites from an earlier Moabite king. Perhaps this king was Zippor, the father of Balak (see 22:2). A. H. van Zyl (The Moabites [Praetoria Oriental Series 3; Leiden: Brill, 1960], 7–10) observes that taunt songs were regularly used in warfare. If this was a song originally used against the Moabites, whom the Amorites had recently conquered, its reuse here by Israel must have been particularly galling to Moab. Indeed, it may serve as the “last nail in the coffin”—the reason for Moab’s call for Balaam.
In any ancient taunt song such as this, more was at stake than the reputation of the armies or the kings who participated in the battle. Ultimately, the outcome of a war in the ancient Near East was evaluated in terms of victories and defeats of respective gods. Note, for example, the dramatic story in 1 Kings 20 of the first battle between Ben Hadad of Aram (Syria) and Ahab of Israel. When the Israelites won this battle, the counselors of Ben Hadad instructed him on ways to improve his position for the next year’s encounter (1Ki 20:23–25). Their first line of advice was to fight the next battle on a plain rather than in the hills. They were positive that the Israelites won the battle because “their gods are gods of the hills” (v.23). Presumably, if they moved the battle to a turf that Israel’s “gods” did not control, the battle would be won for the Arameans (whose gods were believed to be powerful on level plains).
In the “Taunt Song of Heshbon,” it was not just the people of Moab who had been defeated by Sihon in the earlier engagement; it was their god Chemosh as well (v.29). But now a new God had come on the scene. His name was Yahweh, and his power was not limited by geography at all!
Since Israel had defeated the nation that had been the victor over Moab, the Moabites knew that they would likely fare poorly in battle against Israel. The victory of Israel over this nation gave them a new song to sing in irony and triumph. Verse 30 of the Song of Heshbon must have sent Moab reeling (see Notes).
31 The concluding verse of this section is a dramatic mark of accomplishment. After forty years of sojourn in the Desert of Sinai, now, at last, the people had entered the land of the Amorites—the land that would become theirs.
NOTES
21 J. van Seters (“The Conquest of Sihon’s Kingdom: A Literary Examination,” JBL 91 [1972]: 182–97) has argued strongly against the historical validity of the account of Israel’s conquest of these Transjordanian kingdoms. He maintains that the editor-redactor of Numbers 21 borrowed heavily from the (late) Deuteronomic tradition (see Dt 2:26–37; Jdg 11:19–26). His rather negative assessment is countered by John R. Bartlett in his rejoinder, “The Conquest of Sihon’s Kingdom: A Literary Re-Examination,” JBL 97 (1978): 347–51. Bartlett deals with each of van Seters’ points seriatim and concludes that it is more likely that the Deuteronomic passage is dependent on the text of Numbers, “for Deuteronomy removes the inconsistencies and clarifies the point left obscure in Numbers” (351). See also John R. Bartlett, “Sihon and Og, Kings of the Amorites,” VT 20 (1970): 257–77, for a critical analysis of the biblical representation of these two kings and their kingdoms in the biblical traditions.
30 Critical scholars have suggested numerous settings for this song other than that presented in this chapter. Martin Noth, for example, relates the victory song of Numbers 21 to the events of 32:28–36, the story of Gad’s victory in Transjordan (The Old Testament World [trans. Victor I. Gruhn; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1966], 75). Earlier, Bruno Baentsch (Exodus–Leviticus–Numeri [HAT; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1903], 584) held that the song referred to the defeat of Mesha, king of Moab, by Omri, king of Israel.
(ʾašer, “which”) is one of fifteen words in the MT that the scribes questioned by adding a dot or point over a letter (punctum extraordinarius); in this case the dot is over the 
(r). Ginsburg, 326–28, concludes that the ancient reasons proffered for this dot are unsatisfactory; he argues that the dot was added to mark a word that was defective and concludes that the word should be read as 
(ʾîš, “man”) as the parallel for 
(wannaššîm, “women”) in the earlier, parallel colon. He gives the following reconstruction as the probably original text of this difficult verse (with the explanation that the second bicolon explains that it was the people of Heshbon who were killed rather than that cities were destroyed):
We have shot at them,
Heshbon is destroyed even unto Dibon
The women also even unto Nopha
And the men even unto Medeba.
31 J. van Seters (“The Terms ‘Amorite’ and ‘Hittite’ in the Old Testament,” VT 22 [1972]: 64–81) views the term “Amorite” as an ideological and rhetorical term superimposed according to the Hebrew writer’s later thought rather than reflecting the historical situation in the land. To him the term moves in the direction of representing “super-human evil.” Without our accepting his critical evaluation of the historicity of the text of Numbers 21, it is possible for us to agree that van Seters points in a constructive direction when he speaks of the connotation of this term. He says (81), “One must be very skeptical about attributing any historicity to the conquest of the Amorite kingdoms of Sihon and Og in Transjordan. The accounts serve primarily as etiologies legitimizing Israel’s territorial claims east of the Jordan.” The “Amorites” were a symbol of evil, and Israel now rightly had come to dispossess them.
e. Israel’s Defeat of Og of Bashan (21:32–22:1)
32After Moses had sent spies to Jazer, the Israelites captured its surrounding settlements and drove out the Amorites who were there. 33Then they turned and went up along the road toward Bashan, and Og king of Bashan and his whole army marched out to meet them in battle at Edrei.
34The LORD said to Moses, “Do not be afraid of him, for I have handed him over to you, with his whole army and his land. Do to him what you did to Sihon king of the Amorites, who reigned in Heshbon.”
35So they struck him down, together with his sons and his whole army, leaving them no survivors. And they took possession of his land.
22:1Then the Israelites traveled to the plains of Moab and camped along the Jordan across from Jericho.
COMMENTARY
32–35 The region of this king and his people was east of the Sea of Galilee. By defeating Og, Israel became the victor over Transjordan from the region of Moab to the heights of Bashan in the vicinity of Mount Hermon. The victories over Sihon and Og were matters for singing (Pss 135:11; 136:19–20) and regular parts of the commemoration of the works of the Lord in the Passover celebration.
Significantly, this section begins with a notice that Moses sent spies to scout out the land before he began his attack on the region of Bashan (v.32). These spies must have done as they were instructed, in contrast to the rebellious tribal agents or spies of chs. 13–14. It is also notable that the battle was joined with the army of Og only after the word of the Lord had come to Moses assuring him of a divine victory (vv.33–34). This was to be the pattern of holy war, an obedient people following the sure word of their great God. The victory was complete because God’s ways were followed (v.35).
22:1 This section ends in 22:1 with the statement of the journey of Israel to the plains of Moab and their subsequent encampment near the Jordan River across from the city of Jericho. They were now on the lip of the land; Canaan—God’s gift—was in view. Soon the land would be theirs. But this verse also sets the stage for one of the most remarkable stories in the Bible—the dramatic encounter of Balaam, the pagan mantic, with Yahweh the God of Israel (22:2–24:25).
Thus ch. 21 of Numbers presents a remarkable shift in the fortunes of the people. They were still rebellious (and would continue to rebel—see ch. 25), but they were now on a victory march, not fearful of battle against the people of the land. At least they had learned this lesson from their parents: When God is for us, what can humans do against us? (cf. Ps 118:6). The wilderness still had sand, but the Hebrews were now moving with God—and they were moving away from that sand!
f. Balak and Balaam (22:2–41)
OVERVIEW
The misplaced verse number at the beginning of ch. 22 helps us read the story of Balak and Balaam in the context of the emerging power and nascent victories of Israel. The story of Balaam’s dramatic encounter with the Lord is of a piece. It stands by itself as a remarkable unit of great writing. Even though documentary scholars believe these three chapters afford them something of a field day in putative source analysis (see Note on 22:2), nonetheless the story reads as a unified whole; and it stands alone on its own merit.
i. The “call” of Balaam (22:2–20)
2Now Balak son of Zippor saw all that Israel had done to the Amorites, 3and Moab was terrified because there were so many people. Indeed, Moab was filled with dread because of the Israelites.
4The Moabites said to the elders of Midian, “This horde is going to lick up everything around us, as an ox licks up the grass of the field.”
So Balak son of Zippor, who was king of Moab at that time, 5sent messengers to summon Balaam son of Beor, who was at Pethor, near the River, in his native land. Balak said:
“A people has come out of Egypt; they cover the face of the land and have settled next to me. 6Now come and put a curse on these people, because they are too powerful for me. Perhaps then I will be able to defeat them and drive them out of the country. For I know that those you bless are blessed, and those you curse are cursed.”
7The elders of Moab and Midian left, taking with them the fee for divination. When they came to Balaam, they told him what Balak had said.
8“Spend the night here,” Balaam said to them, “and I will bring you back the answer the LORD gives me.” So the Moabite princes stayed with him.
9God came to Balaam and asked, “Who are these men with you?”
10Balaam said to God, “Balak son of Zippor, king of Moab, sent me this message: 11‘A people that has come out of Egypt covers the face of the land. Now come and put a curse on them for me. Perhaps then I will be able to fight them and drive them away.’”
12But God said to Balaam, “Do not go with them. You must not put a curse on those people, because they are blessed.”
13The next morning Balaam got up and said to Balak’s princes, “Go back to your own country, for the LORD has refused to let me go with you.”
14So the Moabite princes returned to Balak and said, “Balaam refused to come with us.”
15Then Balak sent other princes, more numerous and more distinguished than the first. 16They came to Balaam and said:
“This is what Balak son of Zippor says: Do not let anything keep you from coming to me, 17because I will reward you handsomely and do whatever you say. Come and put a curse on these people for me.”
18But Balaam answered them, “Even if Balak gave me his palace filled with silver and gold, I could not do anything great or small to go beyond the command of the LORD my God. 19Now stay here tonight as the others did, and I will find out what else the LORD will tell me.”
20That night God came to Balaam and said, “Since these men have come to summon you, go with them, but do only what I tell you.”
COMMENTARY
2–3 The story of Balaam begins with the gut-wrenching fear of Balak, son of Zippor, king of Moab. With the vast army of Israel now encamped on the edge of his territory, he feared the worst. The text uses the verb gûr (“was terrified”; v.3) to describe his fear, indicated by the adverb meʾōd (“very”) as intensified, then brought into even sharper focus by the strong term qûṣ (“to feel a sickening dread”; “filled with dread,” NIV; GK 7762). Rabbi Hirsch, 390, explains that this verb suggests that which causes such violent emotion within that it may provoke one to vomit: “All that they had became distasteful, despicable, yea repulsive at the thought of the children of Israel” (cf. Marcus Jastrow, A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature [2 vols.; New York: Pardes, 1950], 2:1339).
Balak’s fear was intensified because of the victories Israel had recently won over his neighboring northern enemies (see Nu 21). A new, stronger enemy was now present—one before whom Balak and his people seemed powerless. Balak was not aware that Israel actually had no designs on the land of Moab. Yahweh was about to give Canaan to Israel, but the land of Moab was a gift of the Lord to Moab. In fact, the Lord had prohibited the Hebrews from any attack on the territorial integrity of Moab in their wars of conquest (Dt 2:9). Israel, under God’s blessing, fell under divine limits. God was sovereign over all Israel’s actions.
Yet there was a reason for Moab’s fear: The events of the exodus and the salvation of Israel were designed by the Lord to provoke fear in all nations (see Dt 2:25). The defeat of the Amorite kings Sihon and Og to the north of Moab (21:21–35; cf. Dt 2:26–3:11) put it in an especially difficult position. The taunt song of 21:27–30 would have been particularly galling to Moab (see above).
4 The proverbial figure of an ox licking the grass is particularly fitting for a pastoral people. Balak knew how quickly the fragile grasses of the lands of Moab could be eaten by large numbers of beasts given free range. The image of Israel as an ox is an emphatic symbol of her strength and power. The association of Moab to the Midianites in this verse is more significant than we might first think. It would be another plot developed by the Midianites in collusion with Moab that would finally bring great disaster on Israel (ch. 25, Israel’s apostasy at Baal Peor).
5–7 Balak believed that there was no available military means to allow them to withstand the forces of Israel. Hence he sought to battle Israel on the level of pagan divination. He sent for a diviner with an international reputation, Balaam son of Beor (v.5)—a drastic move to use the supernatural means of the effective curse. This move was predicated on the pervasive belief in the ancient world of the power of the spoken word. The diviner with the most remarkable reputation of the day, it turns out, was Balaam.
Balaam should be understood to be the pagan counterpart to Moses the man of God. The discovery of texts attributed to Balaam at Deir ʿAlla in Jordan compares to the 1993 discovery at Tel Dan of the “Beit David” inscription, concerning which many articles have been written. Pride of place goes to the initial presentation by its discoverers. See Avraham Biran and Joseph Naveh, “An Aramaic Stele Fragment from Tel Dan,” IEJ 43 (1993): 81–98; the same authors prepared this major report, “‘David’ Found at Dan: Inscription Crowns Twenty-Seven Years of Exciting Discoveries,” BAR 20/2 (March/April, 1994): 26–39. In each case, we now have the first instance of these names (Balaam and David) found in demonstrably ancient texts outside the Bible.
The recovery of the prophetic texts of Balaam in Aramaic from the sixth century at Deir ʿAlla demonstrates how famous this man was in the ancient Near East, even centuries after his death (see Jacob Hoftijzer, “The Prophet Balaam in a 6th-Century Aramaic Inscription,” BA 39/1 [March 1976]: 11–17). The fact that the prophetic text was written on a wall indicates that it was an important historical example of the oracles of this diviner that might be preserved for posterity. Stephen A. Kaufman observes that the texts of these inscriptions “remain enticingly obscure” and that perhaps we need the powers of a Balaam to help banish the darkness (“Review Article: The Aramaic Texts from Deir ʿAlla,” BASOR 239 [Summer 1980]: 71–74).
Balaam, it turns out, was an internationally known prophet, a diviner expert in examining the entrails of animals and observing natural phenomena to determine the will of the gods. He was not a good prophet who went bad or a bad prophet who was trying to be good. He was altogether outside Israel’s prophetic tradition, but he must have thought that the Lord God of Israel was like any other deity he could manipulate by mantic acts. But from the early part of the narrative, when he first encountered the true God in visions, and in the humorous narrative of the journey on the donkey, Balaam began to learn what for him was a strange, bizarre, even incomprehensible lesson: An encounter with the God of reality was fundamentally different from anything he had ever known.
Verse 5 presents several problems of the interpretation of words. The name “Balaam” seems to be an example of a deliberate corruption of names by the Hebrew scribes; the transparent meaning of his name, bil ʿām, is “devourer of the people” (see Notes). The letter of Balak to Balaam indicates the intent he had: to bring a curse on a people who were under a blessing of a god. This story thus takes us into the mysterious world of blessing and cursing in the ancient Near East. It was believed that some persons were agents of the gods who could utter curses or blessings that would bind the will of the gods to these declarations. Since Israel seemed to Moab to be too formidable a force to attack on the battlefield, the decision—prompted by Balak’s Midianite advisors—was to attack them on a spiritual level. If their blessing could be destroyed, they would no longer be a threat.
8–11 The language of v.8 and the conversation Balaam had with the Lord in this section have led many readers to believe that Balaam actually was a believer in Yahweh, the God of Israel. The most significant phrasing along this line comes in his words of v.18: “the LORD my God.” It seems best, however, based on the subsequent narrative, to take Balaam’s words as examples of braggadocio. Balaam is universally condemned in the Scripture for moral, ethical, and religious faults (see 31:8, 16; Dt 23:3–6; Jos 13:22; 24:9–10; Jdg 11:23–25; Ne 13:1–3; Mic 6:5; 2Pe 2:15–16; Jude 11; Rev 2:14).
The character of Balaam continues to be a conundrum in biblical study. From the early church fathers to the most recent interpreters, many have argued that he was a good prophet who went bad, or a bad prophet who attempted to go right. The classic study of his person by Bishop Joseph Butler (“Upon the Character of Balaam,” in The Works of the Right Reverend Father in God Joseph Butler, D.C.L., Late Lord Bishop of Durham [Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1850], 2:80) concluded: “So . . . the object we have now before us is the most astonishing in the world: a very wicked man, under a deep sense of God and religion, persisting still in his wickedness, and preferring the wages of unrighteousness, even when he had before him a lively view of death. . . . Good God, what inconsistency, what perplexity is here!”
Rather than see Balaam as a true believer in Yahweh who was caught up in greed, it is preferable for us to understand that he was a sorcerer, more specifically, a bārū (“diviner”; see Note on v.8), for whom the God of Israel was just another deity he thought he might manipulate. Samuel Daiches (“Balaam—A Babylonian bārū,” in Assyrische und Archaeologische Studien: H. V. Hilprecht gewidmet [Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1909], 60–70) argued that the considerable emphasis on magical elements in these chapters is best explained by understanding Balaam as a bārū diviner of the Mesopotamian type (see esp. v.7, “the fees for divination”; Jos 13:22 speaks of Balaam as “the soothsayer” [haqqôsēm] “who practiced divination” [NIV]). Daiches finds special interest in the descriptions in 22:40–41, the preparatory sacrifice; 23:1–2, the offering of seven bulls and seven rams on seven altars; 23:2, the sacrifices brought by both the diviner and the person for whom he divines; 23:3, the expression of Balak as “the owner of the sacrifice” standing by his offering; 23:3, the difficult word šepî, usually translated “barren height” but possibly instead better rendered as “quietly” or “step by step,” describing the manner of Balaam’s mantic acts. William Albright, 231, regarded the researches of Daiches as in the main valid and impressive; they seem to point to the correct view.
The narrator of this chapter shows his strong aversion to the pagan prophet Balaam by the interchange of the name for God (Yahweh, “the LORD”) in Balaam’s mouth (v.8) and the term “God” as the narrator speaks of him (v.9). By this subtle interchange, the narrator demonstrates his distance from Balaam’s outrageous claims. That God did speak to Balaam is not to be denied; it is just that Balaam did not yet realize that the God of Israel was not like the supposed deities of his usual machinations.
12–20 The words of v.12 reveal the nature of the crisis. Israel was under the blessing of the Lord as the heritage of the Abrahamic covenant (Ge 12:1–3). Balaam was being sought by Balak to bring Israel under a divine curse; this situation God would not allow, for Israel was “blessed.” Moreover, one who would attempt to curse Israel would bring himself under God’s curse (cf. Ge 12:3). The story of Balaam is thus an example of the folly of attempting to destroy the eternal blessing of the people of the Lord.
The first words of God to Balaam prohibited him from accompanying the emissaries of Balak (v.12). But when these emissaries returned to Balak, he would not accept their report of Balaam’s refusal to come with them. He sent grander and nobler representatives, with greater and finer promises of gifts for this mantic to return with them (v.15). In these descriptions we discover potent images from the Eastern world. Balaam first said that nothing could change his mind (v.18). Then in a dream he was given permission to go with them (v.20).
There appears to be a contradiction between the permission God granted to Balaam in v.20 and the prohibition he had issued earlier (v.12), as well as the anger of the Lord that was displayed against Balaam on his journey (v.22). The difficulty is best seen as lying in the contrary character of Balaam rather than in some fickle flaw in the character of God. God first had forbidden him to go to Moab to curse Israel; then God allowed Balaam to go to Moab, but only as he would speak at the direction of the Lord. Balaam’s real intentions, however, were known to the Lord, and hence in his severe displeasure he confronted the pagan mantic on the road.
2 The text of Numbers 22 has been used by some critical scholars as a primary locus to test their approaches to the source analysis of the Bible. A. H. Edelkoort (Numeri [Tekst en Uitleg: Praktische Bijbelverklaring; Groningen: Bij J. B. Wolters’ Uitgevers-Maatschappij, 1930], 170), for example, speaks of the Balaam story as the result of “three threads promiscuously twisted”; he concludes (p. 21) that the final redaction did not come before the time of Second Isaiah, after ca. 500 BC. Ladislas Martin von Pákozdy (“Theologische Redaktionsarbeit in der Bileam-Perikope [Num 22–24],” in Von Ugarit Nach Qumran [Berlin: Alfred Töplemann, 1958], 176) remarks on the masterful skill of the final redactor who, “forming so artfully of his ancient and written tradition, and in the spirit of the prophetic religion, was able to create such a unity out of diverse theological concepts” (all trans. of foreign sources are mine). My approach will presume a unified whole in the text as it stands. Questions of the origin of these chapters are highly interesting, but the answers appear to be unusually subjective.
5 Some critical scholars, such as Sigmund Mowinckel (“Der Ursprung der Bil‘amsage,” ZAW 48 [1930]: 237), have suggested that Balaam and Bela (Ge 36:32) were confused in the Scriptures, as they are both called “the son of Beor.” However, Albright, 231, argued strongly that such an association cannot be maintained, suggesting that the original name of Balaam might have been something such as Yabil-ʿammu (an Amorite name from the thirteenth century BC made up of an imperfect plus a divine name), a name meaning “The [divine] uncle brings forth.” The Hebrew connotation, “The devourer of the people,” was an intentional change, not unlike the change of the original name of Jezebel from that which honored Baal to that which held Baal in contempt. The process in debasing her name involved the dropping of the letter 
(bet); an original 
(ʾabîzebel, “My [divine] Father is Prince”) became the corrupted form 
(ʾîzebel, “Un-exalted”; see Leah Bronner, The Stories of Elijah and Elisha as Polemics against Baal Worship [Leiden: Brill, 1968], 9–10); the element 
(ʾî) is the Phoenician negation. See also the discussion below on the meaning of the name of Cozbi (Nu 25:14), the woman who joined Zimri in defiling the entrance to the Holy Place.
(petôrâ, “at Pethor”) may be identified as a reference to the city Pitru (Pi-it-ru) of the Assyrian texts, a city located on the river Sagur, near its junction with the Euphrates (indicated by the words “the River” in this verse). Pitru is mentioned by Shalmaneser III (ca. 859–824 BC) in the annalistic report of 853 BC. L. Yaure, however (“Elymas–Nehelamite–Pethor,” JBL 79 [1960]: 297–314), says that this term should be translated not as a place name but as a descriptive nomen agentis, “the interpreter.”
(benê-ʿammô, “in his native land”) is perhaps the most difficult of the phrases to identify in this verse. The NIV has rephrased the traditional understanding, “in the land of the sons of his people” (as in the LXX). Albright (“Some Important Recent Discoveries: Alphabetic Origins and the Idrimi Statue,” BASOR 118 [1950]: 11–20), in an article describing an inscription on a statue of King Idrimi of Alalakh (ca. 1480–1450 BC), believed he had found the solution to this phrase as a place name. He observed that Idrimi, king of Alalakh, ruled also over three lands: Mukishkhe, Niʾ, and ʿAmau, the last being the place intended by our text—the land of ʿAmau, the region of the Sajur Valley between Aleppo and Carchemish. This translation has been accepted by the NEB, JB, and La Sainte Bible/Segond. The resultant translation of v.5 with all these data in place would be: “So he sent messengers to Balaam the son of Beor, to Pethor [Pitru], which is near the River [Euphrates] in the land of the people of ʿAmau.”
These several data all suggest that Balaam was a North Syrian from the northern Euphrates Valley, near Haran of the patriarchal stories. Such accords remarkably well with the words of his opening bicola (23:7a, pers. trans.):
Balak brought me from Aram,
the king of Moab from the eastern mountains.
Further, this location for Balaam places him in the general area of Laban, called “the land of the eastern peoples” (Ge 29:1) and Paddan Aram (Ge 25:20). It is also the general area of the newer view of the possible location of Ur, the hometown of Abram and Sarai (rather than the great city of Ur near the Persian Gulf, excavated by Sir Leonard Woolley). This viewpoint has been advanced since the discovery and publication of texts from Ebla (beginning in 1976), where a northwestern Ur is indicated. (See Barry J. Beitzel, The Moody Atlas of the Bible Lands [Chicago: Moody Press, 1985], 82–83, map 24; see also discussion by Walter C. Kaiser Jr., A History of Israel: From the Bronze Age through the Jewish Wars [Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1998], 55–57.)
On Balaam as a “liver diviner” (one who engaged in extispicy) as described in the text, see William W. Hallo, “Before Tea Leaves: Divination in Ancient Babylonia,” BAR (March/April 2005): 32–39; a review and explanation article of a major work by Danish Assyriologist Ulla Koch-Westenholz, Babylonian Liver Omens: The Chapters Manzazu, Padanu and Pan Takalti of the Babylonian Extispicy Series, Mainly from Aššurbanipal’s Library (Copenhagen: Carsten Niebuhr Institute of Near Eastern Studies, University of Copenhagen, Museum Tuscalam Press, 2000).
6 Three times in this verse Balak uses forms of the Hebrew verb 
(ʾārar, “to curse, bind with a curse”; GK 826). This verb is cognate to the Akkadian ʿararu A (“to curse,” or in weaker contexts, “to treat with disrespect”; CAD I, “A” Part II, 234–36). One example of this word in an Akkadian text illustrates its foreboding connotation:
May the great gods of heaven and nether world curse him [li-ru-ru (šu)], his descendants, his land, his soldiers, his people, and his army with a baleful curse; may Enlil with his unalterable utterance curse him [li-ru-ur-šu-ma] with these curses so that they speedily affect him. [CAD I, “A” Part II, 235]
This example has the element of the inflexible nature of a curse once uttered. There is a sense in which the curse may be said to be “bound” on one. The Hebrew cognate 
(ʾārar) seems to be associated with effective force, too, as is certainly true when God is the actor or the subject of the verb (see Ge 3:14, “cursed [
, ʾārûr] are you more than all cattle”; 12:3, “I will curse [
, ʾāʾōr].”
Paul van Imschoot writes in Theology of the Old Testament (trans. Kathryn Sullivan and Fidelis Buck; Tournai: Desclee & Co., 1965), 1:189–90:
The efficacy of the word is attributed either to the formula itself—this is the case of the magic formulas of all countries and times—or to the power of him who says it; also then it may be considered as capable of constraining the gods and remains in the sphere of magic. . . . In Israel, without doubt, the use of magic formulas has existed at all times among the lower classes, but has been reproved by the official religion (Ex 22:17; Lev 20:6, 27; Dt 18:9–13; 1Sa 15:23; 28:3; Mic 5:11; Jer 27:9; Ez 13:18–20; Mal 3:5). The efficacy of curses and of blessings is derived from Yahweh (Pr 3:33; Sir 4:6; Ge 12:3; Nu 22:6; 23:8); the curse can be obstructed (Nu 22:22 ff.), weakened (Pr 26:2), or changed into a blessing by Yahweh (Dt 23:6); it is ordinarily pronounced in the form of a prayer (Jer 15:15; 18:19–23; Ps 109, etc.).
U. Cassuto (A Commentary on the Book of Genesis [trans. Israel Abrahams; Jerusalem: Magnes Press, The Hebrew University, 1961, 1964], 2:155) also observed the ancient belief in the power of the spoken curse to effect the will of gods in the lives and destinies of the peoples:
In the ancient East there was current the belief, based on the concept of the magic power of the spoken word, that blessings and curses, and particularly curses, once uttered, act automatically and are fulfilled of their own accord, as it were, unless another force opposes and annuls them.
But Cassuto goes on to explain, 2:156, that in the true religion of Israel such ideas are intolerable:
The sublime religion of Israel cannot acquiesce in such a conception. In the view of Israel’s Torah, it is impossible to imagine that a man’s word should have the power to effect anything without God’s will, for only from the Lord do evil and good issue. Human blessings are, according to the Torah, no more than wishes and prayers that God may be willing to do this or that. So, too, human imprecations, in so far as they are not iniquitous, are, in the ultimate analysis, but prayers that God may act in a given way.
8 On the meaning of bārū, Noordtzij, 199, says:
The bārū belongs to the priestly class, and his specialty is “seeing” what will happen on the basis of phenomena that escape the common person, but are found, e.g., in the liver of a ritually slaughtered animal, or in the configuration of drops of oil on water, or in the stars, or in the shape of the clouds. Such bārūs were believed to be able to influence the will of the gods because of their secret knowledge and mysterious manipulations, and to force the gods to do, or not to do, a given thing.
A most freakish approach to the complex problem of the character of Balaam was taken by James Black (“A Discharge for Balaam,” in Rogues of the Bible [New York: Harper & Brothers, 1930], 59–79). (I owe thanks to Tremper Longman III for his apt suggestion of the use of “freakish” to describe this anti-Semitic and racist point of view.) He argued that the good Balaam has been confused by “Jewish prejudice in the Bible” with a wicked man of the same name; one was a true worshiper of the Lord, and the other was a soothsayer or oracle-monger of the Midianites. With great passion, he said that it is the duty of Christian people to rediscover and then “to rehabilitate the true Balaam, to grant him a discharge from the world’s calumnies.” The good Balaam was a “great white soul who loved the will of God to his own worldly loss,” but Jewish prejudice against seeing a Gentile believer in the Lord led them deliberately to confuse the textual witness to his character.
An unusually bizarre approach to Balaam is proffered by Mary Douglas, self-described as an “anthropologist of Scripture.” She opines that the story was written in the fifth century as a veiled satire against the pompous Nehemiah! In In the Wilderness: The Doctrine of Defilement in the Book of Numbers (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2001), 233, she writes:
Nehemiah is a natural butt. One of the strange things about his political history is that it is written like a private confession to God. The way he dramatizes himself, his sanctimoniousness and self-glorification, are ridiculous. He thinks he can do anything, he admits he beats people up (Ne 13:25), he makes out he knows what God wants, but he does not. Balaam works well as a skit on Nehemiah, stupidly berating and beating the ass on which he rides. With this reading the animal has to be a female, because she stands for Israel. The people of Israel recognize the Lord better than the governor.
ii. The donkey story (22:21–41)
21Balaam got up in the morning, saddled his donkey and went with the princes of Moab. 22But God was very angry when he went, and the angel of the LORD stood in the road to oppose him. Balaam was riding on his donkey, and his two servants were with him. 23When the donkey saw the angel of the LORD standing in the road with a drawn sword in his hand, she turned off the road into a field. Balaam beat her to get her back on the road.
24Then the angel of the LORD stood in a narrow path between two vineyards, with walls on both sides. 25When the donkey saw the angel of the LORD, she pressed close to the wall, crushing Balaam’s foot against it. So he beat her again.
26Then the angel of the LORD moved on ahead and stood in a narrow place where there was no room to turn, either to the right or to the left. 27When the donkey saw the angel of the LORD, she lay down under Balaam, and he was angry and beat her with his staff. 28Then the LORD opened the donkey’s mouth, and she said to Balaam, “What have I done to you to make you beat me these three times?”
29Balaam answered the donkey, “You have made a fool of me! If I had a sword in my hand, I would kill you right now.”
30The donkey said to Balaam, “Am I not your own donkey, which you have always ridden, to this day? Have I been in the habit of doing this to you?”
“No,” he said.
31Then the LORD opened Balaam’s eyes, and he saw the angel of the LORD standing in the road with his sword drawn. So he bowed low and fell facedown.
32The angel of the LORD asked him, “Why have you beaten your donkey these three times? I have come here to oppose you because your path is a reckless one before me. 33The donkey saw me and turned away from me these three times. If she had not turned away, I would certainly have killed you by now, but I would have spared her.”
34Balaam said to the angel of the LORD, “I have sinned. I did not realize you were standing in the road to oppose me. Now if you are displeased, I will go back.”
35The angel of the LORD said to Balaam, “Go with the men, but speak only what I tell you.” So Balaam went with the princes of Balak.
36When Balak heard that Balaam was coming, he went out to meet him at the Moabite town on the Arnon border, at the edge of his territory. 37Balak said to Balaam, “Did I not send you an urgent summons? Why didn’t you come to me? Am I really not able to reward you?”
38“Well, I have come to you now,” Balaam replied. “But can I say just anything? I must speak only what God puts in my mouth.”
39Then Balaam went with Balak to Kiriath Huzoth. 40Balak sacrificed cattle and sheep, and gave some to Balaam and the princes who were with him. 41The next morning Balak took Balaam up to Bamoth Baal, and from there he saw part of the people.
COMMENTARY
21–28 The pagan mantic, the donkey, and the angel of the Lord were brought together in this truly tragicomic scene. The internationally known seer was blind to the reality of the angel of the Lord, but his proverbially dumb beast was able to see the spiritual reality of the living God on the path. Balaam as a bārū prophet was a specialist in animal divination. Here his own “stupid” animal saw what he was too blind to observe.
Against the assertion of many critical scholars who state that the episode with the donkey contributes nothing to the story line, both Mowinckel (“Der Ursprung,” 260) and von Pákozdy (“Theologische Redaktionsarbeit,” 17–72; see Notes on 22:2–20) have noted that the episode serves the purpose of slowing the action and heightening the tension of the story. In fact, it is the “best part” of the story (so Goldberg, 106), which is one of studied ridicule. We observe the prophet Balaam as the blind seer who saw less than a dumb animal. In this graphic representation of Balaam pitted against the donkey, we also notice a more important contrast, as Goldberg avers: the contrast of Balaam and Moses. The long shadow of Moses falls across the pages of the Balaam story even though Moses is never named once. Moses spoke face to face with God (see ch. 12); Balaam did not even know that God was near—but his donkey did!
This section is the ultimate in polemics against paganism. It is well known that the ass has been depicted from the earliest times in proverbial thought and literature as a subject of stupidity and contrariness. Yet here the “stupid” ass saw the angel of the Lord and she then attempted to protect her rider from God’s drawn sword. Three times the hapless Balaam beat his donkey.
Then the donkey spoke (v.28). Some have imagined too much here. The donkey did not give a prophetic oracle; she merely said what a mistreated animal might say to an abusive master if given the chance. There was no preaching from the donkey! Others have stumbled, of course, at the improbability of an animal’s speaking, for such is the stuff of fairy tales. What keeps this story from the genre of legend or fairy tale is the clear fact that the animal did not speak of its own accord but as it was given the power to do so by the Lord. Only an exceedingly limited view of God would deny him the ability to open the mouth of a dumb animal; such an objection should lead one to a rereading of Job 40–41.
Noth, 179, observes that the speaking of the ass is not particularly stressed but is an integral part of the story and is attributed to a miracle on the part of the Lord, “which indicates how directly and unusually Yahweh acted in this affair of blessing or curse for Israel.” The speaking of the donkey is affirmed in the NT (2Pe 2:16); it was a genuine element in the righteous acts of the Lord. It is not that this miracle is the focus of the text; on the contrary, the miracle is just an amazingly humorous way to humiliate the prophet Balaam. Before the Lord revealed himself to Balaam, he first “got his attention” in this dramatic fashion. Balaam had to learn from a donkey before he could learn from God. This episode is one of the most amusing stories in the Bible.
29–30 The high camp of the story is furthered by Balaam’s words, “If I had a sword in my hand, I would kill you right now” (v.29). The ridiculous picture of the hapless Balaam looking for a sword is precious; there was a sword very near, but the object was not about to be the donkey (vv.23, 31–33). Again, the donkey said only what a donkey who was being so abused might say. We err in talking about this text as though God spoke through the donkey. Here is no oracle, no prophecy, no poem; she merely said she had been a good donkey. We also laugh as we hear Balaam talking with her, as though nothing were out of the ordinary. So heightened is his rage that he doesn’t even show surprise at the voice that comes from his donkey. So who (or what) is really “dumb” here?
31–33 The wording “Then the LORD opened Balaam’s eyes” follows the same structure as in v.28, “Then the LORD opened the donkey’s mouth.” The opening of the eyes of the pagan prophet to see the reality of the living God was the greater miracle. The animal was but a brute beast; the prophet was a man bent on trafficking with false gods.
34–35 The words of Balaam to God, “I have sinned” (v.34), might lead us to think that he was truly repentant. Only the later outcome of the story shows this conclusion to be false (see chs. 25 and 31). His appears to have been the confession of error of sorts, but it was a confession that fell short of the repentance of saving faith. Doubtless Balaam spoke with one eye on the sword that menaced from above.
The Lord told Balaam to continue on his journey but to “speak only what I tell you” (v.35). The point of the whole chapter is this: Balaam the pagan mantic would not be able to utter curses as he had planned to do. Instead, he would be the most surprised of all; he would be the most remarkable instrument of God in blessing his people, Israel. The one great gain was that Balaam was now more aware of the seriousness of the task before him; he would not be able to change the word that the Lord would give to him (see 23:12, 20, 26).
36–38 Balak’s sense of urgency heightens the comic element in this story. He was so anxious to have Balaam begin his work of cursing that he went to some distance to meet him at the border of his land, and then he upbraided his visitor for the delay in his journey. Doubtless Balak was puzzled over the words with which Balaam greeted him: “I must speak only what God puts in my mouth” (v.38). My interpretation is based on the presupposition that ordinarily Balaam believed he could say pretty much what he pleased to say—if the price was right—in the belief that the will of the gods would in some manner correspond with his words; but not this time. Nevertheless, we are led by the narrative into the enemy’s camp, and we learn of their consternation over the power of God in the camp of Israel.
39–41 Verses 39–41 speak of the propitiatory sacrifices that Balak and Balaam engaged in as they prepared for the mantic acts. It seems unlikely that these sacrifices were for Yahweh. The pieces given to Balaam presumably would have included the livers; for as a bārū diviner, Balaam was a specialist in liver divination. Numbers 24:1 reports that Balaam subsequently gave up on his acts of sorcery, as the power of the word of the Lord came on him. But at the beginning, he started his procedures as he always had. Yet never had he spoken as he was about to speak.
g. Balaam’s Seven Oracles (23:1–24:25)
OVERVIEW
Chapters 23–24 of Numbers form a close unit based on the oracles of Balaam. Characteristically to elegant Semitic style, these oracles come in a set of seven. The first four oracles are lengthier, the last three brief; nonetheless, each oracle has its own independent nature within the corpus and is introduced in the same manner (23:7a, 18a; 24:3a, 15a, 20b, 21b, 23a). Considering the role that the number seven plays in the narrative of this section (see the sevens in 23:1, 14, 29) and in the Torah in general, this feature can hardly be accidental. The oracles also show a sense of progression and development. The structure shows a repetitive nature, but the repetition is not static, as the text displays a development, a growing intensity—indeed, a crescendo. My analysis follows this line of approach.
i. Balaam’s first oracle (23:1–12)
(a) The setting of the oracle (23:1–6)
1Balaam said, “Build me seven altars here, and prepare seven bulls and seven rams for me.” 2Balak did as Balaam said, and the two of them offered a bull and a ram on each altar.
3Then Balaam said to Balak, “Stay here beside your offering while I go aside. Perhaps the LORD will come to meet with me. Whatever he reveals to me I will tell you.” Then he went off to a barren height.
4God met with him, and Balaam said, “I have prepared seven altars, and on each altar I have offered a bull and a ram.”
5The LORD put a message in Balaam’s mouth and said, “Go back to Balak and give him this message.”
6So he went back to him and found him standing beside his offering, with all the princes of Moab.
COMMENTARY
1–6 The elaborate sacrificial actions of Balaam and Balak in these verses are to be contrasted to the sacrificial texts already described in Numbers. The sacrifices here are not those of chs. 15 and 28–29. These sacrifices are pagan acts that contrast with the true worship of God. The use of the number seven is significant in this section: seven bulls and seven rams on seven altars. These sacrifices were prepared as a part of Balaam’s actions as a bārū (see comments on 22:8). The number seven was held in high regard among Semitic peoples in general; the numerous animals would provide abundant livers and organs for the diviner from the east. Balaam was in charge; Balak was now his subordinate.
The most arresting element of the introductory section is in the words, “God met with him” (v.4), and, “the LORD put a message in Balaam’s mouth” (v.5). Despite the pagan and unsavory actions of this ungodly man, the Lord deigned to meet with him and to speak through him. These actions are utterly remarkable. Our presumption in saying that God never uses an unclean vessel is not quite accurate. God may use whatever vessel he wishes; the issue concerns what happens to an unclean vessel when God has finished using it for his purposes. It appears that such vessels are tossed aside, dashed on the road.
The story is dramatic as Balaam returned to those who had sent for him (v.6). They were standing by the altar and hoping for a word from heaven that would destroy their presumed foe. They received a word from heaven, all right; but that word was far from what they expected.
NOTE
3 
(šepî, “barren height”) is a word Samuel Daiches believes to be a term of pagan mantic actions (for more on this, see comment on 22:8, describing the manner of Balaam’s behavior). More recently Karl Elligen defends the meaning “bare height” (“Der Sinn des hebraischen Wortes 
,” ZAW 83 [1971]: 317–29).
(b) The oracle: The blessing of Israel is irrevocable (23:7–10)
OVERVIEW
The theme of this first oracle centers on the notion of the blessing of Israel. This blessing was unique. It was altogether different from anything Balaam (or Balak) had ever experienced. It was an irrevocable blessing; hence, any attempt to curse Israel would be ineffective. Israel was a nation distinct from all others. Her uniqueness was to be found in her God. The oracle may be outlined in the following way.
- I. Introductory formula: Balaam takes up his oracle (v.7a)
- II. Exordium: Balaam states his purpose to curse Israel (v.7b)
- III. Blessing
- A. Balaam is unable to curse Israel (v.8)
- 1. God has not cursed Israel
- 2. Balaam cannot curse Israel
- B. Balaam blesses Israel as unique among the nations (vv.9–10a)
- 1. Balaam views Israel as unique among the nations
- 2. Balaam regards Israel as immune from curses
- C. Balaam expresses a desire to share in Israel’s blessing (v.10b)
- A. Balaam is unable to curse Israel (v.8)
7Then Balaam uttered his oracle:
“Balak brought me from Aram,
the king of Moab from the eastern mountains.
‘Come,’ he said, ‘curse Jacob for me;
come, denounce Israel.’
8How can I curse
those whom God has not cursed?
How can I denounce
those whom the LORD has not denounced?
9From the rocky peaks I see them,
from the heights I view them.
I see a people who live apart
and do not consider themselves one of the nations.
10Who can count the dust of Jacob
or number the fourth part of Israel?
Let me die the death of the righteous,
and may my end be like theirs!”
7 The Hebrew word māšāl (GK 5442) is more usually translated as “proverb”; here the translation “oracle” is appropriate. The distinctive nature of the prophecies of Balaam is established in the use of this word; none of the prophecies of the true prophets of Israel is described by this term. There are seven poetic oracles in the set: the first four are longer, have introductory narrative bridges, and are set as exquisite poetry (23:7–10, 18–24; 24:3–9, 15–19); the last three oracles are brief, are much more difficult to understand, and follow one another in what we may call a staccato pattern (24:20, 21–22, 23–24).
The words of the exordium (v.7b) are problematic in terms of their poetic arrangement. The accents suggest an imbalanced pair of bicola with a 4:1 count, with the resultant translation:
Balak the king of Moab brought me from Aram,
from the mountains of the east.
But a more natural alignment of the bicolon would be a more balanced pair with a 3:2 count:
From Aram Balak brought me,
the king of Moab from the eastern mountains.
The result is a balanced line of what we may call complementary parallelism. The verb gaps the couplet, and the words of the second member explain more fully the meaning of the corresponding words of the first.
Then follow the instructions Balak gave to the erstwhile agent of curse:
Go, curse for me Jacob!
And go, execrate Israel!
These words form a balanced bicolon of 3:3 meter, with emphatic verbal forms expressing the great urgency with which Balak beseeched Balaam to come. The two verbs are ʿārar (the verb “to curse,” as in 22:6) and zāʿam (“to speak against with indignation”; see Ps 7:11, “a God who expresses his wrath every day”). In the couplet, these verbs work together to give the sense of anger and indignation, to speak of execration. “Jacob” and “Israel” are regularly occurring pairs, of course; they are interchangeable words marking out the people of Yahweh’s covenant. In these words there is the call, witting or not, for Yahweh to break his promise to the patriarchs.
8 Yet that which Balaam had been hired to do he was unable to do. The blessing of Israel was inviolable; Balaam had no power to attack their blessing. God forbade him to speak in a curse on his people, who were unlike the nations of the world:
How may I imprecate
whom God has not imprecated?
How may I execrate
whom Yahweh has not execrated?
The pattern is unusual here, with long bicola subdivided into two units: 2/3:2/3. The word mâ is used at the beginning of each of the two units to indicate utter impossibility. The new synonym for curse is qābab, a word used elsewhere in the corpus (22:11, 17; 23:8, 11, 13, 25, 27; 24:10). God is called both ʾēl and yhwh in the parallel cola.
9 In verse 9 Balaam viewed Israel as unique among the nations:
As I see him from the top of the mountains,
and as I gaze at him from the hills—
Look! A people that dwells alone;
it is not reckoned among the nations!
These two lines of bicola are also nicely balanced with clear parallel terms and concepts. There seems to be a protasis and an apodosis in the respective lines of the bicola. We are brought alongside Balaam, and with him we look down. With him we discover with shock: this people was not like any other; they were alone, not a part of the families of the nations. Their distinction was in their relationship with their God. As he is holy, so they are holy. The first bicolon of the verse has a 3:2 pattern; the second a 3:3 pattern (in accents). The term “look!” adds a degree of excitement and urgency.
10 Here is Balaam’s wistful desire to share in Israel’s blessing! He who had come to curse the people wished himself to be blessed along with them. This irony is exquisite. The expression rendered “my end” speaks of the glorious future, of life beyond the grave. That Balaam never participated in the death of the righteous is not learned until 31:8, 16.
Who may number the dust of Jacob?
Who can count the dust-cloud of Israel?
O that I might die the death of the upright!
Ah, that my latter end might be like his!
These two lines of bicola are nicely balanced (4:3 and 4:3), with the relationship between them presenting exasperation and futility. Just as Balaam could not “get their number,” so he realized that he was not a part of their destiny. One almost comes to a point of feeling sorry for Balaam at this point. Further, the words concerning “getting the number” of Israel serve as a double entendre in this book. Balaam wanted to “get the number” in a mantic sense, to have a handle for control. The book has made much of “numbers” as a means of displaying God’s great blessing on his people. This feature is an unexpected, though minor, confirmation of the rhetorical use of numbers within this text.
NOTES
7 As I mentioned in the comments on ch. 10, the descriptions of poetic structure in this commentary include counts of accents. This system is not based on a concept of Western meter; Semitic and Egyptian poetry do not demonstrate metrical concepts that we find in much (but not all) Western poetry (ancient and modern). But the poetry of Israel and her neighbors was infused with rhythm, and the accentuation (with basically one “beat” per word) most likely signifies that pattern. Describing Egyptian poetry, Kitchen (Poetry of Ancient Egypt, 480) writes, “It would seem clear that principal words (nouns, verbs, adjectives) and certain compound clusters bore the rhythmic stresses in a line.”
The principal, classic work on the accents used in the MT is William Wickes, Two Treatises on the Accentuation of the Old Testament (Library of Biblical Studies; ed. Harry M. Orlinsky; repr., New York: Ktav, 1970). The accents are discussed briefly in GKC (sec. 15, 57–63). See also P. Paul Joüon, Grammaire de l’Hébreu biblique (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1947), sec. 15, 45; cf. 39–46.
10 Rather than emending 
(ûmispār, “or number”), as many have done, it seems best to regard this word as an “abbreviation” (or shorter formation) for 
(ûmî sāpar (“and who may count?”). This approach yields a nice balance with the first word, “who may number?” See Ginsburg, 168; G. R. Driver, “Abbreviations in the Massoretic Text,” Text 1 (1960): 112–31.
(rōbaʿ, “the fourth part,” NIV) seems to be a rather poor parallel to the word “dust” in the first colon. I accept as probable a solution proposed by a long line of scholars, namely, that the word rbʿ may be compared with the Akkadian turbu ʿu (“dust cloud”) and the Arabic rabaʿun, with the same meaning. See H. L. Ginsberg, “Lexicographical Notes. 3. rōbaʿ, Dust,” ZAW 51 (1933): 309; James Barr, Comparative Philology and the Text of the Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon, 1968), index; D. Miller, “Animal Names in Ugaritic,” UF, 2:184.
11Balak said to Balaam, “What have you done to me? I brought you to curse my enemies, but you have done nothing but bless them!”
12He answered, “Must I not speak what the LORD puts in my mouth?”
COMMENTARY
11–12 In the introductory oracle the major elements of the passage are on display. Balaam was unable to curse Israel; Israel was unique because of her blessing from the Lord. Balak is furious—and Yahweh is sovereign. The words of the consternation of Balak and those forming the response of Balaam are marvelous; we are supposed to chuckle as we witness the work of God among the enemies of his people.
ii. Balaam’s second oracle (23:13–26)
(a) The setting of the oracle (23:13–17)
13Then Balak said to him, “Come with me to another place where you can see them; you will see only a part but not all of them. And from there, curse them for me.” 14So he took him to the field of Zophim on the top of Pisgah, and there he built seven altars and offered a bull and a ram on each altar.
15Balaam said to Balak, “Stay here beside your offering while I meet with him over there.”
16The LORD met with Balaam and put a message in his mouth and said, “Go back to Balak and give him this message.”
17So he went to him and found him standing beside his offering, with the princes of Moab. Balak asked him, “What did the LORD say?”
COMMENTARY
13–17 Trying to cover all the angles, Balak attempted to reduce the power of the people by selecting a point where their immense numbers would be obscured. Alas for Balak, the oracle that followed exceeded the first in its blessing on Israel. Again we sense the idea of numbers in this text. There was a power in numbers in the ancient world. If one were confronted only with a small percentage of the whole, Balak reasoned, the enormity of the nation would not cause the gods to bless when they were requested to curse Israel. Again sevens were used in the offerings, meant as magical charms like those used in mantic rites of idolatry, not presentations of the true worship of holy Yahweh. The note of “Pisgah” (v.14; see 21:20) causes the reader to think of Moses, even though he is not mentioned. His long shadow is everywhere present.
The result of all this frenetic activity was the same as at first. Again the Lord met Balaam and gave him a new word, to the consternation of Balak, positioned as he was in pious pretense at his pagan altar.
(b) The oracle: the source of Israel’s unique blessing (23:18–24)
OVERVIEW
The theme of this oracle extends the first oracle’s theme by making it more explicit. The uniqueness of Israel was found in her unique relationship to Yahweh. The oracle may be outlined as follows.
- I. Introductory formula: Balaam takes up his oracle (v.18a)
- II. Exordium: Balaam demands the attention of his hearer for the stunning oracle he is about to pronounce (v.18b)
- III. Blessing
- A. Israel’s unique blessing issues from her unique God (v.19)
- 1. God is unlike humans in his person
- 2. God is unlike humans in his word
- B. Israel’s unique blessing is irrevocable in her God (v.20)
- 1. Balaam is commanded to bless
- 2. Balaam is powerless to curse
- C. Israel’s unique blessing is explained by the presence of her God (vv.21–23)
- D. Israel’s unique blessing is to be exhibited by her power in battle (v.24)
- 1. As a lion she rises for the kill
- 2. As a lion she feasts on the slain
- A. Israel’s unique blessing issues from her unique God (v.19)
The introductory formula and exordium (v.18) are characterized by a full use of fixed pairs of parallel words as well as by the use of arresting figures. The person of God as the effective force in Israel permeates the passage. God is different from humans; his word is different from that of humans. God, not humankind, is the source of blessing. God is with his people and is their King. God is the Deliverer from Egypt and is the strength of his people. Because of God, his people become victorious.
18Then he uttered his oracle:
“Arise, Balak, and listen;
hear me, son of Zippor.
19God is not a man, that he should lie,
nor a son of man, that he should change his mind.
Does he speak and then not act?
Does he promise and not fulfill?
20I have received a command to bless;
he has blessed, and I cannot change it.
21“No misfortune is seen in Jacob,
no misery observed in Israel.
The LORD their God is with them;
the shout of the King is among them.
22God brought them out of Egypt;
they have the strength of a wild ox.
23There is no sorcery against Jacob,
no divination against Israel.
It will now be said of Jacob
and of Israel, ‘See what God has done!’
24The people rise like a lioness;
they rouse themselves like a lion
that does not rest till he devours his prey
and drinks the blood of his victims.”
18 The introductory monocolon is followed by a bicolon of 3:4 meter and marked by unusual energy. The introduction reads:
And he took up his oracle and said:
“Rise up, O Balak, and hear!
Give ear to me, O son of Zippor!”
The naming of Balak in the second member as “son of Zippor” is a fine use of parallelism.
19 The words “God is not a man, that he should lie” describe both the immutability of the Lord and the integrity of his word. Balaam is himself a foil for God. Balaam is constantly shifting, prevaricating, equivocating, changing—he is himself the prime example of the distinction between God and humanity.
God is not a man, that he is able to lie,
Nor is he human, that he is able to change;
Has he said, and will he not do it?
Or has he spoken, and will he not confirm it?
Again two lines of bicolon mark this verse (4:2 and 4:3 meter), with the pairs enhancing each other. Balaam’s view of gods was based on his own human failings. Now he confronts God, who is not at all like humans in their failures. This fact is the stunning reality. All others may change; God—even with all of his power—cannot change, for he cannot deny himself (cf. 1Sa 15:29; Ps 89:35–37; Heb 6:16–18). God must fulfill his promise, for he has bound his character to his Word.
20 The blessing of God is thus irrevocable:
Look! I have received [orders] to bless;
since he has blessed, I am unable to revoke it!
Verse 20 is a bicolon with 3:3 meter that advances the implication of v.19 to the present situation. Since Yahweh is unlike fickle people, the command to bless is not subject to change.
21 That the first declaration of the kingship of the Lord in the Pentateuch was made by Balaam is a suitable improbability. It was precisely because God is the King that he was able to use Balaam for his own ends—to bless his people in a new and wonderful manner.
He does not see evil in Jacob,
nor does he regard trouble in Israel.
Yahweh his God is with him.
And the battle cry of a King is in him.
The negative wording of the first bicolon contrasts with the most positive elements in the second. The meter is 3:3 and 3:3. At first blush the wording of this verse is nearly incredible. The whole course of Israel’s experience in the wilderness was one evil after another, one trouble on another. Yet it was evidently the standing of Israel that was in view here rather than her state. It is also possible that the words “evil” and “trouble” in this verse are not used to refer to moral issues but to mantic concerns. That is, God does not look on his people with “an evil eye” or a hostile glance. This interpretation may fit better with the first bicolon of v.23. When Israel was presented in the context of a hostile environment, it was the blessing of Israel that was maintained. Only within the family context was the sinfulness of the people addressed. Since Yahweh the King was in their midst, they were invincible from outside attack.
22 The wild ox (aurochs) of the ancient Near East is a traditional image of power (see also 24:8). The KJV’s “unicorn” was wrong from the beginning; the Hebrew expression speaks of two horns (dual), which the NIV paraphrases as “strength.”
This bicolon (3:3) is powerful in its imagery. The verbal form is a participle, describing ongoing action. God was still in the process of bringing his people from Egypt; he would soon complete his work by bringing them into his land. And along the way he was their strength. They were not empowered by magic but by his person, not by potion but by his presence.
23 The reason for Israel’s eventual triumph is given in a new way in this verse: there is “no sorcery against Jacob.” Balaam speaks here from his frightful experience. He had no means in his bag of tricks to withstand the blessing of Israel. Instead of the tricks of the sorcerer, it will be said of Israel: “See what God has done!”
For there is no divination against Jacob,
neither is there augury against Israel.
Now it must be said for Jacob,
and for Israel—“What God has done!”
These two bicola display 3:2 and 3:3 meter; the first is complementary and the second is completive. The two lines form a contrastive parallel, the first negative and the second positive (as in v.19); there is a relationship of cause and effect here. Since there is no possibility of the use of magic either for or against Israel, whatever comes of Israel will truly be regarded as the work of God. This verse forms an insider’s key to the whole of Balaam’s work. He had come to use magic, but he could not “get their number” (v.10). He had come to bring a curse, but he found them blessed. He had come to bring a divination and an augury, but he found such ineffective. God was in control, and Balaam was his puppet in this spiritual Punch and Judy show.
24 As a lioness on the hunt, Israel was about to arise and devour its foes (see 24:9).
Ah! A people rises as a lioness,
and as a lion it rouses itself.
It will not lie down until it devours its prey,
and drinks the blood of the slain.
At this point the would-be victim of the curse of Balaam and Balak becomes the instrument of the destruction of its own enemies. As a lioness (the huntress), Israel was about to rouse herself and would soon bring her foes to destruction. She would not rest until the enemy was devoured, its blood lapped clean at the end of the chase. These two bicola (of 3:2 and 4:2 meter) are closely connected with contrasting verbs of rising and lying down and with their display of positive and negative contrasts. The effectiveness of the lion image was not lost on Israel. Witness the seal from Megiddo with the figure of the roaring lion, inscribed, “Belonging to Shemaʿ, / servant of Jeroboam” (ANEP, item 276). The image hearkens back to the earliest patriarchal period (cf. Ge 49:9). The use of the image of the lion is a way of speaking of Israel’s vocation as the warrior of God (see Mic 5:8).
NOTE
23 
(naḥaš, “sorcery”; GK 5728) is an important term in the context of the Balaam oracles. This noun is used here and in 24:1. The verbal form is used in the Piel with the meaning, “to practice divination, observe signs.” It may even have the sense of “to cast a spell” or “to utter a magical curse” (key texts include Ge 30:27; 44:5, 15; Lev 19:26; Dt 18:10; 2Ki 17:17; 21:6; 2Ch 33:6). Divination in all its forms was prohibited in Israel; here we learn that there is no divination that may be made against Israel. The other mantic word used in this verse is 
(qesem, “divination, augury”; GK 7877). This is also a word that is always used in a negative cast in the viewpoint of normative Yahwistic faith. It is prohibited in Israel in Deuteronomy 18:10 (along with naḥaš; cf. 1Sa 15:23; Eze 13:6, 23).
25Then Balak said to Balaam, “Neither curse them at all nor bless them at all!”
26Balaam answered, “Did I not tell you I must do whatever the LORD says?”
COMMENTARY
25–26 The tragicomic nature of the story is seen in the aftermath. Balak appeared incredulous. He gasped, “What have you done to me!” in v.11. Then he said, in essence, “Stop it all together.” But Balaam was unstoppable in his mission from Yahweh, Lord of Israel.
iii. Balaam’s third oracle (23:27–24:14)
(a) The setting of the oracle (23:27–24:2)
27Then Balak said to Balaam, “Come, let me take you to another place. Perhaps it will please God to let you curse them for me from there.” 28And Balak took Balaam to the top of Peor, overlooking the wasteland.
29Balaam said, “Build me seven altars here, and prepare seven bulls and seven rams for me.” 30Balak did as Balaam had said, and offered a bull and a ram on each altar.
24:1Now when Balaam saw that it pleased the LORD to bless Israel, he did not resort to sorcery as at other times, but turned his face toward the desert. 2When Balaam looked out and saw Israel encamped tribe by tribe, the Spirit of God came upon him.
COMMENTARY
23:27–24:2 Once more Balak tried another tack. Perhaps a change of location might lead to a change of words (23:27). The mention of Peor (v.28) takes on a horrible association in Numbers 25; it would appear that this place was the Moabite center for the worship of the god Baal. Von Pákozdy (“Theologische Redaktionsarbeit,” 174; see Note on 22:2) believes this section means that Balaam was being asked by Balak to call up his own deity (a demon), one on whom he had some hold, some handle.
Again the sevens both of altars and of animals were prepared (23:29–30), but this time there was a significant change. Balaam did not go about his normal routine of sorcery (24:1). This time, “the Spirit of God came upon him” (v.2). This unexpected language (rûaḥ ʾelōhîm) is used to prepare the reader for the heightened revelation that was about to come from the bizarre messenger. The oracles build in intensity and depth of meaning.
(b) The oracle: the beauty and strength of Israel (24:3–9)
OVERVIEW
Here follows an outline of the oracle.
- I. Introductory formula: Balaam takes up his oracle (v.3a)
- II. Exordium: Balaam, empowered by the Holy Spirit, speaks in a new way of the source of his revelation (vv.3b–4)
- III. Blessing
- A. The blessings of Israel will be demonstrated in the land (vv.5–7)
- 1. Israel’s dwellings will be beautiful (v.5)
- 2. Israel’s productivity will be bountiful (v.6)
- 3. Israel’s resources will be plentiful (v.7a)
- 4. Israel’s king and kingdom will be powerful (v.7b)
- B. The blessings of Israel are in her God (v.8)
- 1. Israel’s God is her deliverer (v.8a)
- 2. Israel’s God is her protector (v.8b)
- 3. Israel’s God makes her victorious (vv.8c–e)
- C. The blessings of Israel are certain (v.9)
- 1. Israel is like a lion, sovereign and grand (v.9a)
- 2. Israel’s blessing is vouchsafed by the promise of God (v.9b)
- A. The blessings of Israel will be demonstrated in the land (vv.5–7)
3And [Balaam] uttered his oracle:
“The oracle of Balaam son of Beor,
the oracle of one whose eye sees clearly,
4the oracle of one who hears the words of God,
who sees a vision from the Almighty,
who falls prostrate, and whose eyes are opened:
5“How beautiful are your tents, O Jacob,
your dwelling places, O Israel!
6“Like valleys they spread out,
like gardens beside a river,
like aloes planted by the LORD,
like cedars beside the waters.
7Water will flow from their buckets;
their seed will have abundant water.
“Their king will be greater than Agag;
their kingdom will be exalted.
8“God brought them out of Egypt;
they have the strength of a wild ox.
They devour hostile nations
and break their bones in pieces;
with their arrows they pierce them.
9Like a lion they crouch and lie down,
like a lioness—who dares to rouse them?
“May those who bless you be blessed
and those who curse you be cursed!”
COMMENTARY
3–4 The introduction to this oracle is extensive and descriptive of Balaam’s experience in the presence of the Lord. Now Balaam’s eyes are opened (see 22:31, where the Lord opened Balaam’s eyes to see his presence). Balaam then took up his third oracle:
The utterance of Balaam son of Beor,
even the utterance of the strong man whose eye[s] is [are] opened;
the utterance of one who hears the words of God,
who sees the vision of Shadday—
falling down, but whose eyes are uncovered.
These words are truly remarkable. The use of the term “oracle, revelatory utterance” (neʾum) three times adds significant solemnity—and divine authority—to these words, as do the lines descriptive of his own personal experience on the road. As Saul had his experience on the road to Damascus, so Balaam had his experience on the road to Moab. In both cases there was divine revelation. In the case of Saul, the revelation was one of grace; in the case of Balaam, it was one of judgment. But both revelations included the protection of the true people of God from those who wished to do them harm.
The (now customary) introductory monocolon of this verse is followed by a bicolon (4:4) that is self-descriptive of past and present experience. A tricolon (3:4:3) follows in v.4, where the first colon repeats the word neʾum of the previous verse. These words are so expressive of something new in Balaam’s experience: he has now heard God and seen the vision of him. He lay prone before him, but his eyes were now opened (in the Hebrew, the word “eye” is first singular [v.3] and then plural [v.4]) to a wonder he had never even dreamed of—the true God! The seer now saw, but the seer Balaam was still not a man of faith, not a familial member of the people of God (see again 23:10: “Let me”).
5 Balaam spoke prophetically. He looked down on the tents in which the people were dwelling and was given a vision of their future. When he saw the orderliness of the encampments, he saw their coming grandeur.
O how beautiful are your tents, O Jacob,
your encampments, O Israel.
This verse is one bicolon (3:2) celebrating the astonishment of Balaam as he gazed on the beauty of the encampments of Israel and viewed, by a divine gift of true vision, their coming glory. The words “your tents” (ʾōhāleykā) and “your encampments” (miškenōteykā, from the verb šākan, “to dwell”; see “he saw Israel dwelling” [šōkēn; Qal active participle], v.2) provide a lovely example of synonymous parallelism. Balaam was looking at tents in the wilderness; the Spirit of God gave him a vision of future cities with homes and buildings.
6 Balaam exulted in luxuriant terms concerning the blessings that would waft upon the people of Israel in their future dwelling in their new land. The people would have a sense of Eden in the lushness of their blessing from Yahweh. These words are among the most treasured in Torah respecting the blessings of the Lord on his people.
As palm trees that stretch themselves out,
as orchards beside a river,
as aloes planted by Yahweh,
as cedars by the waters.
Verse 6 has two lines of bicola with complementary parallelism throughout. The first line displays 2:3 meter, the second 3:2, thus forming an altogether satisfactory set. The meaning of the first word (translated here as “palm trees”) is problematic. The word nāḥāl appears to be the common term “wadi” (see the NIV’s “like valleys”). Yet the other nouns in this verse are terms for trees. It seems that here we find a homonym of nāḥāl that denotes a type of tree or a cluster of trees. The NEB and the JPS’s Torah translation render “palm tree” by following a suggestion made already in BDB (636), which compares the Hebrew word with an Arabic term for the date palm. Further, the verb “to stretch” (nāṭâ) seems more suitable to the stretching of the boughs of trees than the sprawl of wadis.
7 This potent, prophetic verse speaks of luxurious productivity as well as of the majesty of the coming king of Israel.
Water flows from his buckets,
and his seed is by many waters;
his king is higher than Agag,
and his kingdom is exalted.
This verse has two lines of bicola (2:3 and 3:2) in an unusual pairing of ideas: “water and seed” tied to “king and kingdom.” The ideas of water and seed probably point to vital luxuriance in the future inhabitation of the land. The words may also have a double entendre: sexual fecundity and productivity (see Note).
The most problematic issue here is the reference to “Agag” (ʾagag). Because a man named Agag was the opponent of King Saul in the tenth century BC (see 1Sa 15:7–33), the mention of this name in a text that is ostensibly from a period hundreds of years earlier has led critical commentators to take this reference to Agag as a telltale sign that this oracle, and the others like it, were written in the time of David (or later) and were then projected backward into the remote past (see, e.g., Otto Eissfeldt, “Sinai-Erzählung und Bileam-Sprache,” HUCA 32 [1961]: 188).
But what may seem like a “slam dunk” by the critical player here may turn out to be only an “air ball.” First, why would a passage that critics believe was designed to magnify David use the name of the Amalakite king whom Saul defeated? Even though Saul’s behavior following the battle turned out to be seriously compromised (see the powerful condemnation of Saul by Samuel in 1 Samuel 15:22–23), nonetheless, the story presents Saul—not David—as the victor over Agag (see Note). How could a reference to the might of Agag advance David’s prestige?
Second, it is possible, that the reference to Agag is based on a common, royal name among the Amalekite kings (as the names Abimelech in Philistia and Ben-Hadad in Syria). In this case the use of this name here may grow out of memories of the attack on Israel by Amalek (see Ex 17:8–13) and, more recently, when Israel first entered battle against Canaan—and lost! (see Nu 14:45).
Third, it is also possible the name “Agag” is used in a specific, predictive prophecy of a future victory of a king of Israel over a great enemy. In the words, “Their king will be greater than Agag,” we may have a heilsgeschichtliche continuity that begins in the wilderness with the attacks of Amalek in Israel’s recent past (Nu 14:45), that leads to the future victory of Saul over his nemesis, Agag (1Sa 15:32–33), and that culminates in the final victory of Israel’s greatest King (Yeshua) over all her enemies (styled under the title “Agag”). This interpretation seems to fit with the prophecies that follow in the fourth oracle (see v.17). The fact that the Spirit of God fell on Balaam (v.2) gives the reverent reader a sense of expectation for just such a dramatic convergence of ideas.
8 This broad interpretation suggested for v.7 also fits with the direction of v.8. It is stunning to hear the central words of Israel’s salvation (“God is bringing him out of Egypt”) recited by one who was an outsider and a hostile foe (see comments on 25:1).
God is bringing him out of Egypt,
he is his aurochs horns!
He will devour the nations, his enemies,
their bones he will crush,
and their arrows he will shatter.
That the first couplet is repetitive of the second oracle (see 23:22) helps tie the corpus together, as well as emphasize its central importance. The only change is in the pronoun “him” (here singular, but plural [“them”] in 23:22). Again the power of Israel’s God is compared to that of the horns of the aurochs. A tricolon projecting a time of ultimate victory over all enemies (as in v.7’s reference to Agag) follows. The imagery of victory is in the manner of a lion (as in v.9).
There is a tightly woven connection in these verses. The tricolon has the pattern 3:2:2, with complementary parallelism of the strong verbs “to devour,” “to crush,” and “to shatter.” An Akkadian text speaks of the crushing of bones in battle: “I had his (own) sons crush these bones, the bones of PN, which they had taken to Assyria from GN” (CAD IV, 342; here “PN” stands for “personal name,” “GN” for “geographical name”). This is a stark image of complete victory over one’s enemy.
9 The theology of blessing and cursing in the Abrahamic covenant (Ge 12:2–3) is now made an explicit part of the oracle of blessing. Perhaps here Balaam was reasserting his wistful desire to be a part of Israel’s blessing (see 23:10).
He crouches, he lies down as a lion,
and as a lion, who dares to rouse him?
All who bless you are blessed;
but all who curse you are cursed.
These two lines of bicola have 3:3 and 2:2 meter, thus giving a sense of balance and conclusion. The idea of the lion is taken from the second oracle (see 23:24). The stunning climax is in the blessing of God on all who bless Israel. This theme, of course, takes us back to the original promise of God to Abram (Ge 12:3). The irony cannot be missed. In his actions Balaam brings a curse on his own head even as he speaks words of blessing!
NOTE
7 Rembert Sorg (Ecumenic Psalm 87 [Fifield, Wis.: King of Martyrs Priory, 1969], 36, 46–52) presents an argument that the phrasing of the first part of the verse is to semen virile; he makes similar comments on the words of our Lord in John 7:37–39: “out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water” (KJV). His point is not without problems (!), but he argues that John 7:37–39 is based on our text.
Concerning the use of the name 
(ʾagag, “Agag”), we may observe that David did defeat the armies of the Amalekites, but no particulars are given of these events, just a summary of the loot he took and what he did with what he seized from many nations (Edom, Moab, Ammon, Philistia, Amalek, and Zobah; see 2Sa 8:11–12; 1Ch 18:11). There is no mention of the name “Agag” in these verses.
10Then Balak’s anger burned against Balaam. He struck his hands together and said to him, “I summoned you to curse my enemies, but you have blessed them these three times. 11Now leave at once and go home! I said I would reward you handsomely, but the LORD has kept you from being rewarded.”
12Balaam answered Balak, “Did I not tell the messengers you sent me, 13‘Even if Balak gave me his palace filled with silver and gold, I could not do anything of my own accord, good or bad, to go beyond the command of the LORD—and I must say only what the LORD says’? 14Now I am going back to my people, but come, let me warn you of what this people will do to your people in days to come.”
COMMENTARY
10–14 The oracles could well have ended with the great third utterance from Balaam. But there was one grander yet to come. Balak was beside himself with anger (see Note). He raged and struck his hands while ranting. He observed that at this point Balaam had given three distinct blessings on Israel (v.10). At least Balak got that much right. In his disgust with the failure of Balaam to curse Israel, Balak now dismissed him without pay—the ultimate insult in answer to his greed (2Pe 2:15).
Balaam was ready to leave; the whole situation must have been uncomfortable for him as well! But before he left, he was constrained by the Lord to speak again—this time his greatest oracle. In the phrase “in days to come,” we recognize the signal in biblical literature for the distant future.
NOTE
10 Balak’s anger, 
(wayyiḥar-ʾap bālāq, “and Balak’s anger raged”), is expressed in the idiom, “his nose became red with rage”; this suggests a famous line from a popular Hollywood film; Balaam might have been the first to say to a powerful man, “The truth? You can’t handle the truth!”
iv. Balaam’s fourth oracle (24:15–19)
OVERVIEW
Unlike the preceding oracles, there is no set up for this fourth one, nor is there any aftermath. Of sole importance is the oracle itself; its outline follows.
- I. Introductory formula: Balaam takes up his oracle (v.15a)
- II. Exordium: Balaam, about to utter his most important oracle, expands the exordium of the preceding section (vv.15b–16)
- III. Blessing
- A. Israel has a coming deliverer (v.17)
- 1. The deliverer will come in the future (v.17a–b)
- 2. The deliverer will be like a star and a scepter (v.17c–d)
- 3. The deliverer will bring victory over his enemies (v.17e–f)
- B. Israel has a coming dominion (vv.18–19)
- 1. Her enemies will be destroyed (v.18)
- 2. Her people will have dominion (v.19)
- A. Israel has a coming deliverer (v.17)
15Then he uttered his oracle:
“The oracle of Balaam son of Beor,
the oracle of one whose eye sees clearly,
16the oracle of one who hears the words of God,
who has knowledge from the Most High,
who sees a vision from the Almighty,
who falls prostrate, and whose eyes are opened:
17“I see him, but not now;
I behold him, but not near.
A star will come out of Jacob;
a scepter will rise out of Israel.
He will crush the foreheads of Moab,
the skulls of all the sons of Sheth.
18Edom will be conquered;
Seir, his enemy, will be conquered,
but Israel will grow strong.
19A ruler will come out of Jacob
and destroy the survivors of the city.”
COMMENTARY
15–16 As in the third oracle (vv.3–4), the introduction to the fourth oracle is lengthy (vv.15–16), thus helping to prepare the reader for the startling words of the prophecy to come:
The utterance of Balaam the son of Beor,
even the utterance of the strong man whose eye is opened;
the utterance of one who hears the words of God,
who knows the knowledge of the Most High,
who sees the vision of Shadday—
falling down, but whose eyes are uncovered.
As we compare this section with 23:3–4, we find one new colon: “who knows the knowledge of the Most High.” This expansion changes the arrangement of the lines in the second verse from a tricolon to two lines of bicola (3:3 and 3:3). The addition of the new colon tends to intensify the anticipation of the blessing that follows; the repetition helps to tie these oracles together, to give us a sense of crescendo and climax.
17 Without question the most debated and the most important verse in the oracular corpus is v.17. While arguments may be presented to the contrary, the approach here is to take the prophecy of the star out of Jacob and the scepter out of Israel as ultimately a specific prophecy of the coming messianic Ruler, the Lord Yeshuaʿ, the Messiah (see Note). Israel’s future Deliverer will be like a star and a scepter in his royalty and will bring victory over the enemies of his people (see also v.19). That a prophecy of the Lord himself would be given through the improbable prophet Balaam is remarkable and reminds us of the unexpectedness of the thoughts of God (Isa 55:8).
I see him, but not now,
I behold him, but not near,
a star shall march out from Jacob,
and a scepter shall rise from Israel—
and shall crush the temples of Moab,
even the skulls of the sons of Sheth.
This verse presents the grand idea that Israel has a coming deliverer. This keenly debated verse has been debased by some, devalued by others, and allegorized by still others (see Note). For our part, in agreement with many in the early church and in early Judaism (see Note), we believe this text speaks of the coming of the Messiah. That this prophecy should come from one who was unworthy makes the prophecy all the more dramatic and startling.
Indeed, the notion that Balaam, of whom no part was God’s, could speak of the coming of the Messiah, who is completely God, is a fascinating aspect of the biblical doctrine of inerrancy. The truth of Scripture could never finally be dependent on the worthiness of the writer or the personal piety of the speaker, else we would have gradations in inspiration and shades in trustworthiness. I say this reverently but strongly: The words of Balaam the pagan mantic, when he was speaking under the control of the Holy Spirit of God, were as sure as the words of the Savior Jesus found in a red-letter edition of the NT!
Balaam was unworthy of the words that passed through his lips, even as others were unworthy of the role they played in the salvation history of the Bible. But the words were not compromised; it was the Spirit who gave him utterance (v.2). It was also the Spirit who directed the process that led to these words’ being included in the Torah of God (a point I develop more fully in my essay “The Theology of the Balaam Oracles,” in Tradition and Testament: Essays in Honor of Charles Lee Feinberg [ed. John S. Feinberg and Paul D. Feinberg; Chicago: Moody Press, 1981], 79–119).
The terms “star” and “scepter” do not demand a future, messianic interpretation. These words certainly may speak of the promise of a king such as David, Israel’s greatest king in the historical period. In fact, a type of fulfillment of these words may be seen in the heroic actions of Phinehas in his smiting of the couple who offended all decency at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting (see 25:7–8). But I believe and argue that the hints in the verse point farther than to David; ultimately these words reach beyond him. The setting for the text is “in days to come” (see again v.14), an eschatological notice. The inclusion of these words in the text is for the final victory over the enemies of Israel. The section reaches to the end because it reaches all the way to the Savior.
The first bicolon has the meter 3:3 in a complementary parallelism that is unusually moving: “but not now,” “but not near”—words that stress the futurity of the referent. The second line of bicola has a 3:3 meter and speaks of the marching of the star-scepter as a great victor. These nouns speak of the royalty of the Messiah.
The third bicolon in the verse has a 3:2 meter with complementary parallelism, describing the shattering of the enemies in a complete judgment. That Jeremiah 48:45 serves as an important parallel of our words helps to solve the problem of the word the NIV renders “skulls” (see Note). The other problematic word in this verse is “Sheth,” a word that may refer to early inhabitants of Moab (and so a parallel word to “Moab”; see Note). The point of the verse, of course, is that the coming King will be the ultimate victor over all of his enemies (cf. Pss 2; 110; Rev 19–20).
18–19 There is a sense in which the modern reader might regard these verses as somewhat anticlimactic compared to what follows. Yet this feature is not at all unusual in biblical prophecy. One can pick almost any well-known messianic text (Isa 9:6–7; Mic 5:2) and find it to have what appear to be rather humble associations. Yet the wording of these two verses does not present something insignificant; the verses advance the idea of v.17 that the coming Deliverer will have the great victory and will provide a dominion for his people.
And Edom will become a possession,
and Seir, his enemies, will be a possession,
while Israel is demonstrating power.
One from Jacob will have dominion,
and shall destroy the remnant of the city.
Verse 18 is made of one line of tricolon with a 3:4:4 meter; the first two cola are complementary, and the third is expansive of these two. Edom and Seir are correlative terms (Ge 32:3; 36:8–9; Dt 1:44; 2:4, 8, 12; et al.). The pairing of these two words may be the key to understanding the pairing of Moab and Sheth in v.17 (see Note on v.17). In the time of Moses, Edom was a nation that Israel was forbidden to attack. The future projection of the text assumes a time of Edomite enmity against Israel (cf. the book of Obadiah), for which the nation finally receives its comeuppance for refusing passage to the Hebrews (see 20:14–21). David became a victor over Edom (2Sa 8:14). But after the division of the kingdom, Edom became independent (2Ki 8:20–22) and remained an implacable foe of Israel, thus inviting the final wrath of God (Isa 63:1–6).
In the eschaton, words such as “Edom” and “Seir” stand for any enemies of the people of God and of their Messiah. That is, it is not necessary to this prophecy that these nations exist in the end times; they stand for all peoples who are in opposition to the work of Yahweh and the establishment of His Anointed (see Ps 2:1–2). Conversely, it is necessary for Israel to be in place in the end times in order for this prophecy (and other such texts) to be fulfilled (see Ro 9–11).
The words contrasting to the ultimate downfall of Edom at the end of v.18 are to be stressed: Israel will grow strong while her enemies languish. This promise is also the point of v.19: Jacob will provide the ruler who will destroy all survivors of the enemies of God’s people.
Verse 19 forms a bicolon with 2:3 meter. There is no subject for the verb “will come out”; likely the referent is the Star-Scepter of v.17. The Star-Scepter makes Israel triumphant as he gains dominion over the enemies of God’s people. Messiah in his kingdom will exercise dominion over all peoples. The theme of this oracle is sustained: Israel’s ultimate blessing centers in her Deliverer from all enemies.
NOTES
17 Views on the interpretation of this “star and scepter” prophecy have ranged widely through time. Following are some significant samples of the range of opinion through time.
In early Judaism, Targum Onqelos commented on this verse: “When a mighty king of Jacob’s house will reign, and the Messiah will be magnified.” Targum Jonathan commented: “When there shall reign a strong king of the house of Jacob, and Messiah shall be anointed, and a strong scepter shall be from Israel.” In rabbinic works this section is tied to Messiah in y. Taʿanit (68.4); Debarim Rabba (sec. 1); Pesiqta Zutarta (58.1). Further, in the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Damascus Document (CD 7.9–20) ties this verse to Amos 9:11, the raising of the fallen booth of the house of David; in the War Scroll (1QM 7), the star-and-scepter passage is linked to the final battle of good and evil. Indeed, the text was a particular favorite among the Qumran covenanters (see F. F. Bruce, The Teacher of Righteousness in the Qumran Texts [London: Tyndale, 1956], 10).
Among the church fathers who interpreted the “star” of Numbers 24:17 to be prophetic of the Lord Jesus Christ was Justin Martyr (d. 166). His First Apology 32 presents an amalgam of Numbers 24:17; Isaiah 11:1; and 51:5: “Isaiah, another prophet, prophesying the same things in other words, said: ‘A star shall rise out of Jacob, and a flower will come forth from the root of Jesse, and upon his arm will the nations hope.’ The shining star has risen and the flower has grown from the root of Jesse—this is Christ.” Another is Athanasius the Great (d. 373); his On the Incarnation of the Word 33 includes the lines of Numbers 24:17 in a christological section.
However, the great Martin Luther was unable to see this prophecy as speaking of Christ because he regarded Balaam as unworthy of such a sublime subject (see Heinrich Bornkamm, Luther and the Old Testament [ed. Victor I. Gruhn; trans. Eric W. and Ruth C. Gritsch; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1969], 240, n. 72).
E. W. Hengstenberg (The Christology of the Old Testament and a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions [trans. Reuel Keith; abridg. Thomas Kerchever Arnold; repr., Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1970], 34–37), the great nineteenth-century defender of Christian orthodoxy, balked at this issue as well. After stating that the early Jewish scholars were unified in their understanding that this passage was predictive of the coming Messiah, he listed three reasons why he did not believe Numbers 24:17 was predictive of the Messiah Jesus: (1) Jewish traditional understanding of this passage was misguided, as this passage speaks of this-worldly expectations; (2) no NT passage explicitly cites this verse as fulfilled in Jesus the Messiah; and (3) the passage was fulfilled completely in David. Moreover, the martial imagery of the figure in the “star and scepter” prophecy is far removed from the Messiah, who will bring blessings to the peoples.
Many interpreters have allegorized the text. Some point, for example, to the star of Bethlehem in Matthew 2:1–12 as the fulfillment of the passage (see Paul L. Maier, “The Magi and the Star,” Mankind 3 [February 1972]: 5).
The most bizarre of approaches may have been that of John Allegro, who attempted to join this verse of the star and the scepter to his theory of a pan-phallic and hallucinogenic cult in Israel (The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross: A Study of the Nature and Origins of Christianity within the Fertility Cults of the Ancient Near East [repr., New York: Bantam Books, 1971]).
The word 
(weqarqar, “even tear down”) as it stands is a Pilpel infinitive of the rare root 
(qārar, meaning “to tear down [a wall]”), used elsewhere only in Isaiah 22:5, where it is also in dispute. Many emend this word to 
(weqodqōd, a word meaning “crown, head, skull”); see BHS marginal suggestion of Isaiah 3:17, where this word for “head” is used in parallel construction to 
(pē ʾâ, “temple”)—the word used in our verse’s 
(paʾatê mô ʾab, “temples of Moab”; cf. also Jeremiah 48:45, where these two words are parallel, but the pairing is slightly rephrased).
(kol-benê-šēt, “all the sons of Sheth”) is apparently a parallel ethnic term for Moab—the Shutu people in ancient Egyptian documents (so Albright, 220, n. 89). As v.18 balances “Edom” and “Seir,” so we may expect that v.17 balances “Moab” and “Sheth.”
v. Balaam’s fifth oracle (24:20)
20Then Balaam saw Amalek and uttered his oracle:
“Amalek was first among the nations,
but he will come to ruin at last.”
20 The remaining three oracles seem to spring almost involuntarily from the fourth oracle. They overlap the promise of the victory of Israel over all enemies; hence these oracles are “curse oracles,” imprecations. It may be that these were similar to the types of oracles that Balaam intended to present against Israel; instead these harsh words lash out against the foes of the covenantal community. Herein lies the final irony: Balak and Balaam had plotted to bring Israel under a curse, but in their machinations they only assured their own doom.
And he saw Amalek,
and he took up his oracle and said:
“First among the nations was Amalek,
but its end will be destruction.”
The structure of this brief oracle is simple. There is a bicolon that serves as the introduction, then a bicolon of prophetic indictment with a 3:3 metrical pattern.
The first defeat of Israel in the wilderness was at the hand of the Amalekites, when Israel went against them foolishly without the blessing of God (see 14:44–45; compare also the story of Israel’s defeat of the Amalekites in Ex 17:8–16). There will come a day of reckoning on Amalek that will be dreadful. The Amalekites were defeated by Saul (1Sa 14:48; but see 15:1–35) and David (1Sa 30:18; 2Sa 8:12). These defeats may be regarded as fulfillments of this prophecy. But there is also the possibility that the implications of this verse, as with the others in the set (see esp. Ex 17:16, which projects war with the Amalekites “from generation to generation”), extend into the days of the Messiah’s final victory over all enemies (see Ps 110; Rev 19). The final victory would be couched in the names familiar in the day in which they were given. Later on these names become prototypes for the enemies of Israel in the future.
vi. Balaam’s sixth oracle (24:21–22)
21Then he saw the Kenites and uttered his oracle:
“Your dwelling place is secure,
your nest is set in a rock;
22yet you Kenites will be destroyed
when Asshur takes you captive.”
COMMENTARY
21–22 The spotlight of judgment turns now from Amalek to the Kenites:
And he saw the Kenite,
and he took up his oracle and said:
“Your dwelling place is enduring,
and your nest is set in the cliff;
nevertheless, the Kenite shall be consumed
when Asshur takes him captive.”
The structure of this little oracle is somewhat similar to the preceding one. It begins with a couplet of introduction continues with a double bicola in the pattern 2:3 and 4:3.
This oracle is problematic in several respects; it is based on wordplays (the word “nest” [qēn; see Jer 49:16; Ob 4; Hab 2:9] is a pun (paronomasia) on the word “Kenite” [qēnî]) and seems to point to the distant day when the seemingly unassailable Kenites will be taken captive by Asshur (Assyria). Why the Kenites come under attack here is not explained, except that it is possible that they became associated with the Midianites, who come under the scourge of Israel (Nu 31). The mention of Assyria is also a surprise, as its ascendancy to power in the ancient Near East was centuries away from Balaam’s day; yet Assyria was known as a powerful city-state even in this early period. This text may be a powerful insight into the way of the prophets—the taking of familiar things and peoples and juxtaposing them in startling ways (cf. the celebrated series of puns [paronomasia] on city names in the preaching of Micah [Mic 1:10–16]).
vii. Balaam’s seventh oracle (24:23–25)
23Then he uttered his oracle:
“Ah, who can live when God does this?
24Ships will come from the shores of Kittim;
they will subdue Asshur and Eber,
but they too will come to ruin.”
25Then Balaam got up and returned home and Balak went his own way.
COMMENTARY
23–24 Balaam now presents his last oracle, one that is more difficult than any of the others to interpret—perhaps a fact that is fitting. The relative obscurity of the words compels attention; clarity may come as the time period of the oracle is realized in the future.
And he took up his oracle and said:
“Woe! Who can live except God establish him?
For ships will come from the direction of Kittim,
and they will afflict Asshur and they will afflict Eber,
and he also will come to destruction.”
The first verse has a bicolon with 3:5 meter; the introductory words set a grim stage for the words that follow. The second verse is in the form of a tricolon with 3:3 meter; yet the text is so corrupt that it presents an assortment of opportunities for guesses as to meaning and interpretation.
The translation (above) of the second colon of verse 23 leads one to a sense of utter dependence on the Lord. This is the lesson that is taught throughout the oracles. None is able to live, except by God’s establishment. All is in his grasp, “Ah!” Balaam realizes the ultimate futility of his vocation.
Verse 24, as it stands, mentions Asshur, which connects it with the preceding oracle (v.22). The reference to “ships from Kittim” presents unusual difficulties. The identification of Kittim in the early period of Israel’s history seems to be Cyprus. But ultimately the word was applied to Rome, as at Qumran (see, e.g., [1QM1:9–10] “From of old Thou hast announced to us the time appointed for the mighty deed of Thy hand against the Kittim”) and perhaps also (prophetically!) in Daniel (e.g., 11:30). The resulting meaning may refer to the final battle between forces of the west (the Kittim) and forces of the east (Asshur and Eber)—a battle in which both will be destroyed, presumably before a greater power than either (the Lord of glory).
The difficulties we face in interpretating this verse with precision do not obscure its general direction: one nation will rise and supplant another, only to face its own doom. In contrast there is the implied ongoing blessing on the people of Israel and their sure promise of a future Deliverer who will have the final victory (vv.17–19). Further, the difficulties in this text suggest an early date for composition of the poem (the time of Balaam), not a late date (the time of David or later).
25 With these promises of a future Deliverer ringing in their ears, the defeated collaborators, Balaam and Barak, depart.
NOTE
25 We really have no idea how the story of Balaam and his donkey or the oracles of Balaam came into the Torah. That the question was asked from antiquity is evinced by the wording of b. Baba Batra 14b–15a: “Moses wrote his own book and the section concerning Balaam, and Job.” The inclusion of the section on Balaam and Job could only have been provoked by the question, “How did these sections come into the Bible?”
E. W. Hengstenberg (A Dissertation of the History and Prophecies of Balaam [trans. J. E. Ryland; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1848], 513) attempted to present a credible scenario for the authorship of the section by Moses. He says that when Balaam left Balak, he sought from the Israelites the payment he had been refused by Balak. In return for payment, he offered to relate the whole story to Moses. When Moses refused to give him payment, in revenge he turned to the Midianites and advanced the plan that led to the debacle of Numbers 25. Keil, 3:203, surmises that Balaam, in a (failed) attempt to save his life, communicated the events and the prophecies to whomever would have captured him after the battle with Midian (Nu 31).
Samuel Cox (Balaam: An Exposition and a Study [London: Kegan, Paul Trench, & Co., 1884], 14–15) suggested that Balaam suffered a judicial death (his understanding of Nu 31:8); at the trial he would have used the relating of the story and the prophecies as a part of his defense. Oswald T. Allis (The Old Testament: Its Claims and Its Critics [Philadelphia: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1972], 127) has suggested that the events and prophecies may have been granted to Moses by a direct revelation of the Holy Spirit.
Others posit that the story and the oracles may not have been added to the book of Numbers during the life of Moses but sometime later in Israel’s history as a way of finishing the story of Israel’s wilderness account. Harrison (IOT, 620, 630), for example, suggests the possibility that the materials may even have come from a Moabite source or through a disciple of Balaam. In point of fact, we simply do not know how these chapters became part of the book. All we know is that these chapters form an essential part of Numbers as God has had it come to the synagogue and the church. As Scripture, the words of Balaam’s prophecies are as true as the gospel, of which they—astonishingly—ultimately form a part.
h. Israel’s Final Rebellion with the Baal of Peor and the Death of the First Generation (25:1–18)
OVERVIEW
Many readers of Numbers have considered the events of this chapter as just another example of rebellion and judgment in the long, sorry story of Israel’s intransigence in the wilderness. Norman C. Habel was one of the first to observe that these events are something more than that; this was no mere peccadillo (see his Yahweh versus Baal: A Conflict of Religious Cultures: A Study in the Relevance of Ugaritic Materials for the Early Faith of Israel [New York: Bookman Associates, 1964], 24–25). As Rabbi Hirsch, 426, writes, “The sword of no stranger, the curse of no stranger had the power to damage Israel. Only it itself could bring misfortune, by seceding from God and his Torah.”
This chapter presents a formative encounter with Baal worship, an instance in the soon-to-be lengthy disaster that would one day engulf and destroy the nation. It is evocative of the sad images of Genesis 38, when Judah nearly became a practicing Canaanite in his separation from his brothers, his marriage to a Canaanite woman, the marriages he arranged for his sons with a Canaanite woman, and his participation in Canaanite ritual prostitution. It projects the images of the end of Israel and of Judah, which resulted in their becoming like the peoples of Canaan.
This section presents the ultimate rebellion of Israel in the wilderness. The time was at the end of the forty-year period of their wilderness experience. The place was the staging area for the conquest of the land of Canaan. The issue is that of apostasy from the Lord by participation in the debased, sexually centered Canaanite religious rites of Baal worship—that which would become the bane of Israel’s experience in the land. This chapter is an end and a beginning. It marks the end of the first generation; it also points to the beginning of a whole new series of wicked acts that would finally lead to Israel’s punishment (see comments on 33:50–56).
All the rebellions up to this point described in Numbers have centered in murmurings against Yahweh and against his servants Moses and Aaron. The people have provoked the anger of the Lord by grumbling about water and food and by refusing to believe that he was able to deliver on his promise to bring them into the land of Canaan. But this chapter stands out in the record of the experience of the Hebrews in their move from Sinai to Moab—it describes their involvement in the worship of another deity.
In a sense this chapter matches the grim account of Israel’s involvement in the pagan rites of the worship of the golden calf at the base of Mount Sinai (Ex 32). The apostasy of Israel in flagrantly worshiping the golden calf pointed back to Egypt. The golden calf was a symbol of the Egyptian bull-god Apis, likely referred to in Jeremiah 46:15 (see EBC1, 6:652). Apis was the sacred bull in Egypt, the incarnation of Osiris, a principal deity in Egypt. Exodus 32:6 reads, “So the next day the people rose early and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings. Afterward they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry”; see 1Co 10:6–8). The verb translated “to indulge in revelry” (leṣaḥēq, Piel infinitive construct of ṣāḥaq [GK 7464], meaning “to laugh” in the Qal and forming the base for the name “Isaac”) sometimes speaks of sexual involvement. It is a euphemism for “caressing” in sexual play (as in Ge 26:8). The present chapter describes Israel’s engaging in sexual acts in the worship of a god of Canaan.
i. The involvement of Israel in the worship of Baal Peor (25:1–3)
1While Israel was staying in Shittim, the men began to indulge in sexual immorality with Moabite women, 2who invited them to the sacrifices to their gods. The people ate and bowed down before these gods. 3So Israel joined in worshiping the Baal of Peor. And the LORD’s anger burned against them.
COMMENTARY
1 Shittim (haššiṭṭîm, “the acacias”; see 33:49, ʾābēl haššiṭṭîm [Abel Shittim], “the brook of the acacias”) is another name for the region of Israel’s staging for the conquest of the land; Shittim lay in Transjordan, across from the ancient city of Jericho (see Jos 2:1). The story of Numbers 25 has some breaks in it; it is not until 31:8, 16 that we learn that the principal instigator of the apostasy of the people of Israel was Balaam son of Beor (see Note on 22:5). Failing to destroy Israel by the means of the mantic curse, Balaam then seduced Israel with Canaanite practices of the sexually centered worship of the god Baal.
The phrase “Moabite women” is the connecting link that ties this chapter to the preceding ones (chs. 22–24). What the fathers of Moab could not do, their daughters accomplished by bringing Israel to its knees—sexually, morally, in false worship, and in great judgment. The verb zānâ (“to partake in immorality”), used to describe the action of the men, is often used to describe the behavior of a loose woman, a harlot. Here the people, as a unit, bewhored themselves with foreign, pagan women. Regularly in the ancient Near Eastern context, references to sexual imagery such as this suggest interconnecting circles of sexual immorality tied to sacral rites of prostitution, which were essential parts of pagan religious systems of the day.
2 The phrase “to the sacrifices of their gods” reminds us that the true worship of the Lord, which was sacrificial in nature, was easily compromised in the minds of the people, due in part to the nature of the sacrificial systems of their neighbors (see Ex 34:15; Dt 32:38; Jdg 16:23; 2Ki 10:19; Isa 57:7; Eze 20:28; Hos 4:19). Psalm 106:28 terms these pagan acts “sacrifices . . . to lifeless gods” (zibḥê mētîm)—as against sacrifices to the living Yahweh.
There is nothing in 24:25 to prepare us for the suddenness of 25:1. This chapter is the last word on the old generation. This was the end; the new was coming. The events in this chapter are no mere petty sins on Israel’s part. Israel’s engagement in the sexually centered worship of Baal was not only the evil of immorality; it was also a breach of the covenant with Yahweh, a worship of the gods of the land (v.3), and a foretaste of the ruin of the people in the unfolding of their history. That this terrible evil followed so closely on the heels of the blessings the Lord pronounced through the improbable prophet Balaam is most lamentable.
The Torah is hesitant to describe these licentious actions of pagan worship in detail; it refers to these events with considerable restraint for at least two reasons. (1) The people for whom these texts were first written were well aware of the issues; only we on this side of the vast chasms of time, culture, history, and language have questions about them. (2) To dwell unduly on the licentious character of the nature religions of the neighbors of Israel could itself become a subtle enticement to draw one in rather than to repel the reader from the evil itself. Consider a modern example: Few people peruse racy magazines to read essays, despite common protestations to the contrary.
3 Verse 3 is especially telling; the crafting of the verse is powerful. The wording contrasts the actions of Israel with God’s evaluation of her:
And so Israel was yoked to Baal Peor;
but Yahweh was enraged against Israel.
The verb “to be yoked” (ṣāmad; “joined,” NIV) is a binding together, as oxen are yoked in a common task. In this case Israel was “yoked” to pagan peoples in the worship of their god. The verb speaks of adapting to the worship patterns of a foreign people—an abhorrent concept, such as the false yokings from which Israel was prohibited (see Dt 22:10; cf. 2Co 6:14). This passage is the first encounter of Israel with Baal, and it forms the death rattle of the first generation.
The word “Peor” describes a mountain in Moab (see 23:28) where the local manifestation of Baal was worshiped. In v.18 Peor is used alone of the god (see 31:16; Jos 22:17). Some writers see this religion as distinct from the Baal worship of Canaan; we agree with Habel (Yahweh Versus Baal, 25; see Overview) that the Baal worship at Peor was a part of the same broad religion as that which was found throughout Canaan.
The wrath of the Lord is wayyiḥar-ʾap (lit., “a reddening of his nose”), a flashing of his rage. These anthropomorphisms (better, anthropopathisms) are vivid ways to describe what is unimaginable—to be on the receiving end of the wrath of God. The point of the Torah is not to show how often God rages or how violent are his judgments. The texts regularly assert how slow he is in coming to rage (see again Ex 34:5–7). But God has his flash point; his rage has a trigger. The rage of the Lord should have been expended against Moab and Balaam because of their effrontery; but here it is directed against Israel. They have deflected his rage from others to themselves by their obdurate folly.
NOTES
1 
(wayyāḥel, “began”) may be an example of double entendre. The root 
(ḥālal) III means “to pollute, defile, profane,” in the Niphal, Piel, and Pual stems. In the Hiphil, as here, the verb means “to begin.” It is used in the same way in other odious contexts (e.g., Ge 6:1; 10:8 [“grew to be”]). In any event, the next verb, 
(liznôt, “to play the whore”) leaves nothing to the imagination. The root 
(zānâ) has the idea of “fornication” in Genesis 38:24; Leviticus 21:9; Deuteronomy 22:21; Hosea 4:13–14; et al.—all of which refer to women who engage in illicit sexual relationships. Here the verb is used of men. They went “whoring” after the women priestesses of Canaanite Baalism. It is a deficiency of our language that we have numerous words for loose women but few suitable terms for loose men. I say this is a “deficiency,” as we have no shortage of varieties of outrageous male sexual behavior in our culture.
2 The verb 
[emended; MT has 
-] (wayyištaḥawû, “and [they] bowed down”) is now parsed as a Hishtaphel preterit of the root 
, ḥāwâ (“to make oneself lie prostrate, bow oneself down”; GK 2556; see HALOT, 1:295–96) rather than a Hithpael preterit of the root 
(šāḥâ, “to bow down”), as listed in BDB 1005b. The force of the stem speaks of “causing oneself to bow down”; the Hishtaphel (used in the MT only with this verb) is causative-reflexive. This is the principal Hebrew term in the Bible for acts of worship, used of the worship of Yahweh (see Ge 22:5; Pss 29:2; 95:6; cf. Eph 3:14) as well as of pagan gods (as here). It is fitting that the biblical term for worship is physical in nature, but it entails internal realities. See Ronald Allen and Gordon Borror, “The Body of the Believer in Worship,” in Worship: Rediscovering the Missing Jewel (Portland, Ore.: Multnomah, 1982), 119–35; cf. Allen and Allen, 116–18.
ii. The judgment of the Lord on his errant people (25:4–5)
4The LORD said to Moses, “Take all the leaders of these people, kill them and expose them in broad daylight before the LORD, so that the LORD’s fierce anger may turn away from Israel.”
5So Moses said to Israel’s judges, “Each of you must put to death those of your men who have joined in worshiping the Baal of Peor.”
COMMENTARY
4–5 God’s rage against his people provoked a terrible judgment: those who were the leaders of the people in this awful act of impiety were to be put to death. The gravity of the sin called not only for death but also for a special display of the corpses of the offenders (see Note) in “broad daylight” so that those who would survive would be strongly warned of the consequences. As the animals and birds had been cut in half in the covenantal ceremony at the beginnings of Israel’s history (Ge 15:10), so the bodies of these rebels were to be dismembered and displayed in an awful symbol of divine judgment.
The expression “in broad daylight” (lit., “before the sun”) speaks of something done openly, publicly (so 2Sa 12:12; cf. “before the eyes of the sun” in the MT of v.11). The execution of the leaders was designed to divert his anger from the populace as a whole. The expression ḥarôn ʾap-yhwh (“fierce anger of Yahweh”) is used elsewhere of the anger of the Lord (32:14; Ex 32:19, 22; Dt 13:17; Jos 7:26; 1Sa 28:18; 2Ki 23:26; 2Ch 28:11; Zep 2:2; 3:8; et al.); but this anger may be averted or turned back, once it flashes against its target.
So Moses commanded the judges of Israel to kill those persons who had attached themselves to Baal Peor. The verb hārag (“to kill”; v.5) is usually used to speak of ruthless violence, murder (as in Ex 5:21). Here its use to speak of the judicial taking of life by the command of God is a rare one (so Ex 32:27; Lev 20:15–16; Dt 13:10).
Chapter 25 is the nadir of the book of Numbers. The sin it relates is worse even than the sins of chs. 12–14. This account describes the great sin at the end of the road. This may be one of the most indelicate texts of Scripture, one in which Israel’s judges are commanded to kill their own people who were engaged in the worship of Baal (v.5). At times we have trouble coming to grips with Scripture’s commands that Israel kill her enemies. This chapter is even more difficult for us to face, for it commands Hebrews to kill fellow Hebrews.
But these rebellious persons were like a cancer in the body. If they were not excised, they would soon ruin the lot. So the call was to kill and execute, and to do it quickly. Chapter 15 told of the public execution of one person, a blasphemer. Now the whole population was in danger.
NOTE
4 The NIV’s translation “kill them and expose them” is a rendering of 
(wehôqaʿ, “expose [them]”). From v.5 we understand that this verse calls for Moses to take the leaders of the people, execute them, and then “set them aside” or “expose them” to the Lord in broad daylight. The verb 
(yāqaʿ, “to set aside, expose”; GK 3697) is used in the Qal stem to describe a bone dislocation (Ge 32:25 [26], of Jacob’s thigh). Possibly here the meaning of the Hiphil is “to [kill them and then] expose them with legs and arms broken” (so KB, 398c; BDB says, “[used] of some solemn form of execution, but mng. uncertain,” 429c). Second Samuel 21:6, 9 may describe the same type of “exposing” of mutilated bodies (see also the Hophal in 2Sa 21:13). The Samaritan recension reads an explanatory line: “And Yahweh said to Moses, ‘Let them kill the men who have joined themselves to Baal Peor.’” This seems to be a smoothing of the Hebrew of v.4 based on the words of v.5. It is reading back a clearer idea into a verse where the text is less clear to later readers—a characteristic feature of the Samaritan text.
iii. The zeal of Phinehas (25:6–9)
6Then an Israelite man brought to his family a Midianite woman right before the eyes of Moses and the whole assembly of Israel while they were weeping at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. 7When Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest, saw this, he left the assembly, took a spear in his hand 8and followed the Israelite into the tent. He drove the spear through both of them—through the Israelite and into the woman’s body. Then the plague against the Israelites was stopped; 9but those who died in the plague numbered 24,000.
COMMENTARY
6 The wording of verse 6 is problematic. It is possible to take the verse as the NIV has rendered it and to sense in these words that something quite—but unspecified—was happening. But I suspect the actions described here were so very shocking that the scribes of Scripture found it to be quite repellent and that the precise nature of the offense was softened by slight euphemistic revisions in the wording through time (see Note).
Perhaps the verse is best read this way: “Then a certain Israelite man brought the Midianite woman to the Tent [of God] right before the eyes of Moses and the eyes of all the congregation of Israel; and they were sporting at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting.” This translation is based on some textual considerations (represented in the emphasized phrases; see Note) and on an attempt to reconstruct what may have been the most outrageous action of apostate behavior recorded anywhere in the Torah.
The MT reads in the first italicized instance “to his brothers” (ʾel-ʾeḥāyw), a phrase the NIV smoothes out as “to his family.” The LXX translates, “the man brought his brother to the Midianite woman.” Yet the mention of “brother” or “family” is not nearly as shocking as the possibility that the phrase should read “to his tent” (reading ʾel-ʾoholô [as in Ge 31:25, “Jacob pitched ʾet-ʾoholô [his tent]”] instead of ʾel-ʾeḥāyw). Because of what follows, the emended text “to his tent” must refer to the Tent of the Lord; i.e., a specific tent is in view. It is most shocking that the tent may be the Tent of Meeting.
This emendation and the change of meaning are prompted by the last phrase of the verse, which the NIV renders, “while they were weeping at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.” This suggests that it was Moses and the congregation of Israel who were weeping at the entrance to the holy precincts. This is certainly possible; the outrage of the events might have driven Moses and pious persons to weep and to beg God for forgiveness.
It seems likely, however, that the subject of the verb bōkîm, “weeping,” is not Moses and the congregation but the sinning Israelite and his Midianite partner. The focus of action in the verse is on them, not Moses. What they did was before Moses, in his presence—under his nose! And what they did was to engage in a sexual embrace in the manner of Baal worship—right at the entrance of the holy Tent of God! They were no longer copulating before an image of Baal, but—in outrageous behavior—in front of the Holy Place of Yahweh!
Thus the scribes, I suggest, have made a deliberate substitution of an opposite word, “weeping,” to replace “caressing,” in order to stress euphemistically the heightened enormity of this act. They were not weeping; they were laughing (šōqēp)—that is, they were engaged in delirious love-making (cf. Ge 26:8; Ex 32:6). Just as to say “curse God” was for the godly scribe an unthinkable thing actually to write down, so one might write “bless God” when “curse God” was intended (see 1Ki 21:10, 13; Job 1:5, 11; 2:5, 9; Ps 10:3; see Ginsburg, 366–67); here, to “cry” in the sacred precincts (as in a cry of remorse) is used to disguise the antithetical meaning, “to laugh in sexual pleasure”—while engaged as “one flesh” at the opening of the sacred tent.
The audacious action of this Israelite man and the Midianite woman is unparalleled and totally unexpected. The contempt for the holy things and the word of the Lord shown by Zimri and his Midianite lover, Cozbi (v.15), is unimaginable. This is the nadir of the first section of Numbers; here is Israel at her very worst. This provides an unhappy justification for the ways of the Lord; it also provides a theodicy of his judgment of the entire first generation.
The man was a blasphemer in the strongest sense. His sin was a deliberate provocation of the wrath of the Lord. He was flaunting and taunting holiness in an almost unbelievable crudity. The issue was so blatant, so outrageous, so unspeakable—I suggest—that the ancients had to hide the meaning somewhat in coded words. Those who read the text today find between the words that stand (which are awful enough) something that is truly an outrage against Majesty—something that is nearly unbelievable.
Many of those who saw this happening must have been so shocked that they were motionless. They must have been stunned by audacity, numbed by horror. Someone had to do something; finally, one man did act. Notice that the evil man in this verse is a Hebrew. It would have been bad enough had this been a foreign man with his foreign mate. But it was a prominent man from the congregation. This act, then, is the cause célèbre of v.1, the principal action of “playing the whore” with foreign women. This man’s disregard for the sacred (qōdeš) is so outrageous as to shock us even today, in our jaded, secular age.
The point was that in joining the sexual frenzies of the sacrificial feasts of Baal, the man and his priestess partner were attempting to transform the worship of Yahweh into the pattern of sexual rites that were the mode of Canaan. Had this outrage not been stopped, there could never have been true worship in the Holy Place again. They were making the place of entrance into a bordello, the entrance of the meeting place of God with humankind into a trysting spot. No wonder the ancients may have been uncomfortable with this text.
The woman was a Midianite. The enemy people were Moabites. This situation alerts us to the complexities involved in the relationships of the transient peoples of the ancient Near East at this time (cf. the Ishmaelites and Midianites in Ge 37:25–36). More importantly, the Hebrew of v.6 uses the definite article to identify the woman: “the Midianitess.” This suggests that she was not just one of the local sacred prostitutes but a person of prominence. I suggest that the article is used to mark her as a pivotal player. Perhaps she was the high priestess of the religion at Baal Peor. The story when read in this way explains the action of Phinehas in the next verses.
Priests were always male in Israel. Women could be priests in the pagan religions that surrounded Israel. In fact, the sexually centered religions of Canaan would have catered to women in their priestly orders, as some lists of priestly guilds in Ugarit attest. Women priests were so closely tied to the sexual outrages of Baal and Asherah worship that the very notion of a female priest conjured up images of sexual worship. Perhaps this reason helps explain why Israel had no women priests.
It was the brazenness of the acts of these two people that made them not just sinners but an abomination to the Lord. Here was a frontal assault on the true, high, and pure worship of the Lord that the priestly interests in Numbers stress repeatedly. Only an act of force equal to the nature of the affront would suffice. That powerful act came in the person of Phinehas.
7–8 When Phinehas the son of Eleazar saw what was happening right at the entrance of the tent (v.7), he reached for a “spear” (rōmaḥ) and drove it through the licentious couple (v.8; see 3:10 and notes for background to his actions). Everyone had observed what was happening; but Phinehas not only watched, he also acted. He came from the midst of the people as the protagonist. Possibly the implement he used was a spear that he took from a nearby soldier. It is hard to know what a priest would be doing with a spear (yet see the use of spears by pagan priests in 1Ki 18:28). It is just possible that here the Hebrew rōmaḥ might mean “knife,” as this would be the more expected tool for a priest to possess. It would be suitably ironic for him to have used a tool he normally used to kill animals in sacrifice to the Lord as the weapon to kill this sinning couple.
Phinehas was a grandson of Aaron (Ex 6:25). His name may have been Egyptian in origin; BDB (810) suggests Pe-nehasi (“the negro”), speaking of dark complexion. Phinehas was like a “man of the in-between” (ʾîš habbēnayim), as Goliath had been a “champion” to the Philistines (1Sa 17:4; cf. v.23—and by extension, the same phrase could have been used for David as he represented Israel). Phinehas was like a “mighty man of valor” (gibbôr ḥāyil; “man of standing,” NIV), as Kish the father of Saul is described (1Sa 9:1). He was also a true “servant of Yahweh” (ʿebed yhwh), as Moses is described (Dt 34:5). Ultimately, he was typical of Christ the Victor (see Pss 2; 110; Rev 19). He was an early embodiment of the “star” and “scepter” of 24:17, the smiter of Moab. He was the hand of God extended in rage against the profanation of his joy. Phinehas is one of the great heroes of faith in Scripture; though he is quite unknown to most of us, he is never forgotten by God. His zeal was that of one who feared the Lord, who waited on his mercy (Ps 147:11), but who also acted when not to act would be to sin.
Verse 8 says that Phinehas pursued the couple into the “vaulted canopy” (haqqubbâ; “tent,” NIV), a word used only here in the Bible. If our conceptualization of this story is correct, it is possible that the term qubbâ (GK 7688) refers to some canopy at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting. It would not be necessary to imagine that the couple was actually within the Most Holy Place, nor does it seem likely that they were in the man’s tent, as is commonly supposed. In any event, there is a grisly pun on the word haqqubbâ and the word for “her belly” (qobātâ).
That Phinehas pierced through the two of them is forcefully stressed: (1) the knife or spear could not have been a little thing but could well have been a narrow, sharp blade; (2) there would have taken a tremendous force for him to plunge the knife or spear through both bodies; (3) the emphasis on “both” stresses that they were oblivious to Phinehas, both caught up in their licentiousness, so that the knife would have gone through his back, pass below his sternum, and into her abdomen; and (4) with this bold act of the young priest the plague was stayed, which indicates that this couple’s act was not just an outrageous instance of debauchery; rather, likely they were the instigators of the pagan rites! Contemporary radio social commentator Dr. Laura Schlessinger would likely have a lively comment to describe their actions and sudden death—perhaps something along the lines of “hoping they had a lovely orgasm.” The purposeful shock in her hypothetical barb strikes at the blasé attitudes of so many people in our day who seem willing to break all bonds for momentary pleasure.
9 The number of those who died because of the flagrant actions of the people in their worship of the Baal of Peor (24,000 here; see 1Co 10:8, where the number 23,000 is given; see EBC2, 11:344) exceeded even those who died in the rebellion of Korah and his allies (14,700; see 16:49). If the numbers of the two census lists (1:46; cf. 26:51) are taken at face value (i.e., as “common numbers”), then the loss of 24,000 people, while certainly significant, is not overwhelming. If the numbers of the census lists are rhetorically inflated, as I have argued (see Introduction: Large Numbers), then we must ask whether this number was also inflated. It seems possible that this number and the number of those who died in Korah’s rebellion may be “common, rounded numbers.” If so, the enormity of the numbers who died in this plague was truly impressive—nearly 10 percent of the total population of 250,000.
NOTE
6 
(ʾel-ʾeḥāyw, “to his brothers”) is not a felicitous phrase in this verse. The NIV translates “to his family,” an attempt to smooth out an awkward idea. BHS lists a proposal in the apparatus to emend this term to 
(ʾel ʾoholô, “to his tent”); this reading appears to be superior—albeit adventuresome.
Ginsburg has sections on scribal activity in this vein entitled, “The Removal of Indelicate Expressions, Anthropomorphisms, &c. from the Text” (11.8.345–47), “The Emendations of the Sopherim” (11.9.347–63), and “Impious Expressions Towards the Almighty” (11.10.363–67). I propose that this verse constitutes another instance, one that Ginsburg did not himself mark.
iv. The Lord’s covenant with Phinehas (25:10–13)
10The LORD said to Moses, 11“Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest, has turned my anger away from the Israelites; for he was as zealous as I am for my honor among them, so that in my zeal I did not put an end to them. 12Therefore tell him I am making my covenant of peace with him. 13He and his descendants will have a covenant of a lasting priesthood, because he was zealous for the honor of his God and made atonement for the Israelites.”
COMMENTARY
10–11 The words of the Lord to Moses concerning Phinehas (v.10) take us back to the words of the Decalogue (Ex 20:4–6). The zeal of Phinehas for the honor of Yahweh became the occasion for the Lord’s covenanting with him and his descendants as God’s true priests. What a contrast this son of Eleazar is with the casual wickedness of his uncles Nadab and Abihu (see comment on 3:4).
Standard criticism regards the present shape of Numbers to be the work of P, the priestly source, lately designed to elevate the priests in the life of the people and their institutions. Thus, not only are chapters such as 15 and 19 significant in their calm presentation of sacrifices, worship, duties, and tithes, but so also is this chapter, as the hero of the piece was a priest.
For the more conservative reader whose understanding does not proceed from the putative P source, the emphasis on priesthood should still be maintained. Since the hero of our story is a priest, our estimation of the righteous priests should be enhanced. These men could be noble and brave; they were not just cultic functionaries. Then we remember that Christ is priest; he is noble and brave. The best in priests points to Christ. This is true of Aaron, Eleazar, and Phinehas. The chapter celebrates a great priest, just as it excoriates a terrible evil.
Verse 10 introduces an oracle of the Lord attached directly to the preceding, dramatic narrative. Its focus is on Phinehas, who had acted with the zeal of the Lord. There is almost a sense of pride in the way Phinehas is addressed in this text: “Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest” (v.11). This is the language of celebration. The zeal of Phinehas stayed the rage of Yahweh; the zeal of Phinehas restrained the zeal of the Lord to annihilate the nation. Perhaps in these words we should stand beside his father, Eleazar, and sense his pride in his son.
12 The Lord instituted his covenant with the priests through Phinehas. We often speak of the Abrahamic, Mosaic, and Davidic covenants. We should also speak of Yahweh’s covenant with Phinehas. He was priest by divine right, descended from the right family in an immediate line. He showed himself to be the rightful priest by his interest in divine righteousness. He was now confirmed priest by the rite of the divine covenant.
13 As in Yahweh’s covenant with Abram, this covenant was God’s doing; it involved the priest’s “seed,” and it is lasting (ʿôlām). In the case of Abram, God first chose him; then by Abram’s action of faith, the Lord confirmed his covenant with him (see Ge 12; 15; 22). In the case of Phinehas, he was already chosen by God, but in his action God’s covenant with him was confirmed.
Most surprisingly, by the action of Phinehas “atonement” (wayekappēr) was made for the people, for the plague was stopped (v.9). This chapter is a pivotal section in the theology of the Torah.
NOTE
12 The phrase 
(ʾet-berîtî šālôm, “my covenant of peace”) is somewhat problematic, as we do not usually find intervening pronominal suffixes in bound constructions. We would have expected 
(ʾet-berît šelômî, “the covenant of my peace”) as in 
(bekol-har qodšî, “in all my holy mountain”; Isa 11:9). Some have emended the word 
(šālôm, “[my covenant of] peace”) to 
(šillûm, “[my covenant of] requital”).
v. The aftermath of the rebellion (25:14–18)
14The name of the Israelite who was killed with the Midianite woman was Zimri son of Salu, the leader of a Simeonite family. 15And the name of the Midianite woman who was put to death was Cozbi daughter of Zur, a tribal chief of a Midianite family.
16The LORD said to Moses, 17“Treat the Midianites as enemies and kill them, 18because they treated you as enemies when they deceived you in the affair of Peor and their sister Cozbi, the daughter of a Midianite leader, the woman who was killed when the plague came as a result of Peor.”
COMMENTARY
14–18 Only after the role of Phinehas had been suitably celebrated were the names of the antagonists given. The Israelite was a prince of the house of Simeon, Zimri son of Salu (v.14). It is important that we realize this individual was not insignificant—here was one who should have ennobled himself and his father’s house. As the great pride of Eleazar must have swelled over the actions of his son that day, so there must have been extraordinary shame among the members of Zimri’s family on realizing what this promising young man had done.
Zimri had been named in praise of God. However, he is now remembered as the one who nearly destroyed his people in his flagrant, wanton attack on the pure worship of God. With his name turned on its head, he serves as a memorial to destruction. The name of his Midianite partner is given as Cozbi daughter of Zur (v.15). Her name is likely another example of names deliberately changed by Israel because of the contempt in which she was held (see comments on the name of Balaam in 22:5). “Cozbi” means “My Lie” or “Deception.” She stands forever memorialized as a prime example of the deception of the allure of pagan worship. Verse 18 speaks of her as one who was also from a noble house of her own people. Likely she was a priestess of her religion, a prototype of Jezebel, who would later be instrumental in bringing Baal and Asherah worship into the center of the life of Israel.
Because of their active participation in the seduction of the sons of Israel, the Midianites were put under the curse of God and were henceforth to be treated as enemies (v.17). They had been in league with Balak from the beginning of the confrontation (see comment on 22:4) and became the objects of a holy war of Israel to declare the glory of the name Yahweh (see ch. 31).
In the MT the words “after the plague” (see 26:1 NIV) actually form a separate verse at the end of the chapter (25:19). See Note on 26:1.