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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.

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

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