Study

a Bible passage

Click a verse to see commentary

Select a resource above

¹Then Balaam said to Balak, “Build me seven altars here, and prepare seven bulls and seven rams for me.” ²Balak did as Balaam had said; and Balak and Balaam offered a bull and a ram on each altar. ³Then Balaam said to Balak, “Stay here beside your burnt offerings while I go aside. Perhaps the L ord will come to meet me. Whatever he shows me I will tell you.” And he went to a bare height.

⁴ Then God met Balaam; and Balaam said to him, “I have arranged the seven altars, and have offered a bull and a ram on each altar.” ⁵The L ord put a word in Balaam’s mouth, and said, “Return to Balak, and this is what you must say.” ⁶So he returned to Balak, who was standing beside his burnt offerings with all the officials of Moab. ⁷Then Balaam uttered his oracle, saying:

“Balak has brought me from Aram,

the king of Moab from the eastern mountains:

‘Come, curse Jacob for me;

Come, denounce Israel!’

How can I curse whom God has not cursed?

How can I denounce those whom the L ord has not denounced?

For from the top of the crags I see him,

from the hills I behold him.

Here is a people living alone,

and not reckoning itself among the nations!

Who can count the dust of Jacob,

or number the dust-cloud of Israel?

Let me die the death of the upright,

and let my end be like his!”

¹¹ Then Balak said to Balaam, “What have you done to me? I brought you to curse my enemies, but now you have done nothing but bless them.” ¹²He answered, “Must I not take care to say what the L ord puts into my mouth?”

Balaam’s Second Oracle

¹³ So Balak said to him, “Come with me to another place from which you may see them; you shall see only part of them, and shall not see them all; then curse them for me from there.” ¹⁴So he took him to the field of Zophim, to the top of Pisgah. He built seven altars, and offered a bull and a ram on each altar. ¹⁵Balaam said to Balak, “Stand here beside your burnt offerings, while I meet the L ord over there.” ¹⁶The L ord met Balaam, put a word into his mouth, and said, “Return to Balak, and this is what you shall say.” ¹⁷When he came to him, he was standing beside his burnt offerings with the officials of Moab. Balak said to him, “What has the L ord said?” ¹⁸Then Balaam uttered his oracle, saying:

“Rise, Balak, and hear;

listen to me, O son of Zippor:

God is not a human being, that he should lie,

or a mortal, that he should change his mind.

Has he promised, and will he not do it?

Has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?

See, I received a command to bless;

he has blessed, and I cannot revoke it.

He has not beheld misfortune in Jacob;

nor has he seen trouble in Israel.

The L ord their God is with them,

acclaimed as a king among them.

God, who brings them out of Egypt,

is like the horns of a wild ox for them.

Surely there is no enchantment against Jacob,

no divination against Israel;

now it shall be said of Jacob and Israel,

‘See what God has done!’

Look, a people rising up like a lioness,

and rousing itself like a lion!

It does not lie down until it has eaten the prey

and drunk the blood of the slain.”

²⁵ Then Balak said to Balaam, “Do not curse them at all, and do not bless them at all.” ²⁶But Balaam answered Balak, “Did I not tell you, ‘Whatever the L ord says, that is what I must do’?”

²⁷ So Balak said to Balaam, “Come now, I will take you to another place; perhaps it will please God that you may curse them for me from there.” ²⁸So Balak took Balaam to the top of Peor, which overlooks the wasteland. ²⁹Balaam said to Balak, “Build me seven altars here, and prepare seven bulls and seven rams for me.” ³⁰So Balak did as Balaam had said, and offered a bull and a ram on each altar.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

3. And Balaam said unto Balak. In this respect, also, he imitates the true servants of God: for he seeks retirement, because God has almost always appeared unto His servants when they have been separated from the company of men. You would say that he was another Moses, when he exhorts the king to persevering prayer, and, in order that he may be more earnest in supplication, bids him remain perfectly still by the altars. Meanwhile he withdraws himself from the crowd, and the eyes of the witnesses, so that he may be more ready to receive the revelation. Since, however, there was no sincerity in him, we may probably conclude, that in vain ostentation he imitated the servants of God, that, like one of God’s councillors, he might bring forth the secrets from the shrines of heaven. I know not why some render the word שפי, shephi, alone, others, sad; ¹⁵⁵¹⁵⁵ A.V. “an high place.” Margin, “he went solitary.” “Onkelos explains the word שפי as יחידי alone; but Kimchi interprets it as גכוח a high place. Rabbi Jehuda expounds is it as נשבר affected with grief; etc.” — S.M. There is a curious error in the Fr., evidently arising from its dictation to an amanuensis, “le mot que j’ay translate Amen,” i.e., “a mont,” as it stands in the Fr. Text. it is more suitable to take it for a high place; which other similar passages confirm. The impostor, therefore, retired into a higher place, or summit, in order that he might come forth from thence more surely established as a prophet by his familiar intercourse with God.

¹⁵⁵ A.V. “an high place.” Margin, “he went solitary.” “Onkelos explains the word שפי as יחידי alone; but Kimchi interprets it as גכוח a high place. Rabbi Jehuda expounds is it as נשבר affected with grief; etc.” — S.M. There is a curious error in the Fr., evidently arising from its dictation to an amanuensis, “le mot que j’ay translate Amen,” i.e., “a mont,” as it stands in the Fr. Text.