Numbers 23

Balaam said to Balak, "Build me seven altars here, and get me seven bulls and seven rams ready."

1And Balaam said unto Balak, Build me here seven altars, and prepare me here seven oxen and seven rams.

NoteBalaam is a professional seer, hired by Balak, king of Moab, to put a curse on Israel, who are camped on Moab's border. Seven altars, each with a bull and a ram, is a large and formal offering; seven was the standard number for a complete ritual set throughout the ancient Near East. Sacrifice normally came before asking for an oracle: it was understood to secure the god's attention first.

2Balak did what Balaam said. Then Balak and Balaam offered a bull and a ram on each altar.

2And Balak did as Balaam had spoken; and Balak and Balaam offered on every altar a bullock and a ram.

3Balaam said to Balak, "Stay here beside your burnt offering while I go. Maybe the LORD will come to meet me. Whatever he shows me, I will tell you." Then he went off to a bare hilltop.

3And Balaam said unto Balak, Stand by thy burnt offering, and I will go: peradventure the LORD will come to meet me: and whatsoever he sheweth me I will tell thee. And he went to an high place.

NoteA burnt offering was an animal killed and burned whole on the altar, with no part kept back to be eaten. Balak stays with the offering while Balaam withdraws alone, as a diviner was expected to do to receive a message. KJV's "an high place" translates a Hebrew word that probably means a bare, treeless height; some take it instead as a hilltop shrine.

4God met Balaam there. Balaam said to him, "I have set up seven altars, and I have offered a bull and a ram on each altar."

4And God met Balaam: and he said unto him, I have prepared seven altars, and I have offered upon every altar a bullock and a ram.

5The LORD put a message in Balaam's mouth and said, "Go back to Balak, and this is what you are to say."

5And the LORD put a word in Balaam’s mouth, and said, Return unto Balak, and thus thou shalt speak.

Note"Put a word in his mouth" is the ordinary idiom for a message dictated word for word, which the messenger delivers without altering it. It is the hinge of the whole episode: Balaam has been paid to curse, and can only say what he is given.

6So he went back to Balak, and there Balak was, standing beside his burnt offering, with all the leaders of Moab.

6And he returned unto him, and, lo, he stood by his burnt sacrifice, he, and all the princes of Moab.

NoteThe princes, or leaders, of Moab are the delegation of nobles who fetched Balaam; they are present as official witnesses to whatever he says. Moab was a small kingdom east of the Dead Sea.

7Then Balaam began to speak his message: "Balak brought me from Aram; the king of Moab brought me from the eastern mountains. He said, 'Come, curse Jacob for me. Come, denounce Israel.'

7And he took up his parable, and said, Balak the king of Moab hath brought me from Aram, out of the mountains of the east, saying, Come, curse me Jacob, and come, defy Israel.

NoteKJV "took up his parable" translates the Hebrew word mashal: a formal saying delivered in poetry (an oracle or pronouncement, not a story with a moral. Aram lay far to the north-east, in the upper Euphrates region; Balak has sent hundreds of miles for a specialist. Jacob and Israel are two names for the same people) Jacob was the ancestor renamed Israel, and Hebrew poetry regularly pairs them in matching lines.

8How can I curse people God has not cursed? How can I denounce people the LORD has not denounced?

8How shall I curse, whom God hath not cursed? or how shall I defy, whom the LORD hath not defied?

NoteCursing here is a technical act, not an insult or a wish. A curse pronounced by a qualified specialist was believed to take effect by itself, which is why Balak pays for one. Balaam's answer is that the words are inert unless God has already spoken them.

9From the top of the rocky cliffs I see them; from the hills I look at them. Here is a people who live by themselves and do not count themselves as one of the nations.

9For from the top of the rocks I see him, and from the hills I behold him: lo, the people shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations.

NoteThe Hebrew is open in two directions: the people "dwell apart" can describe how they are camped, separate from everyone else, and "not reckoned among the nations" can mean either that they do not count themselves as one nation among others or that they have no place in the ordinary tally of peoples. The line is left unresolved.

10Who can count the dust of Jacob, or number even a fourth of Israel? Let me die the death of those who do right, and let my end be like theirs."

10Who can count the dust of Jacob, and the number of the fourth part of Israel? Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his!

Note"Dust" is the standard idiom for a quantity too large to be counted, used in the older promises to Abraham. "A fourth of Israel" reflects the camp's arrangement in four divisions on the four sides of the tent-shrine (Numbers 2): not even one division can be numbered.

11Balak said to Balaam, "What have you done to me? I brought you here to curse my enemies, and instead you have blessed them, and nothing else."

11And Balak said unto Balaam, What hast thou done unto me? I took thee to curse mine enemies, and, behold, thou hast blessed them altogether.

12Balaam answered, "Am I not bound to say exactly what the LORD puts in my mouth?"

12And he answered and said, Must I not take heed to speak that which the LORD hath put in my mouth?

13Balak said to him, "Please come with me to another place where you can see them. You will see only the outer edge of their camp, not all of them. Curse them for me from there."

13And Balak said unto him, Come, I pray thee, with me unto another place, from whence thou mayest see them: thou shalt see but the utmost part of them, and shalt not see them all: and curse me them from thence.

NoteA curse was widely thought to require the target in view. Balak moves Balaam to a place where only part of the camp can be seen, apparently hoping a smaller or different sight will make the curse take hold where the full view did not.

14So he took him to the field of Zophim, on the top of Pisgah. There he built seven altars and offered a bull and a ram on each altar.

14And he brought him into the field of Zophim, to the top of Pisgah, and built seven altars, and offered a bullock and a ram on every altar.

NoteZophim means something like "the watchers" or "lookouts." Pisgah is the ridge above the plains of Moab, north-east of the Dead Sea, high enough to look down over the Israelite camp.

15Balaam said to Balak, "Stay here beside your burnt offering while I go over there to meet the LORD."

15And he said unto Balak, Stand here by thy burnt offering, while I meet the LORD yonder.

16The LORD met Balaam and put a message in his mouth. He said, "Go back to Balak, and say this."

16And the LORD met Balaam, and put a word in his mouth, and said, Go again unto Balak, and say thus.

17When Balaam came to him, Balak was standing beside his burnt offering, with the leaders of Moab. Balak asked him, "What did the LORD say?"

17And when he came to him, behold, he stood by his burnt offering, and the princes of Moab with him. And Balak said unto him, What hath the LORD spoken?

18Then Balaam began to speak his message: "Get up, Balak, and listen. Hear me, son of Zippor.

18And he took up his parable, and said, Rise up, Balak, and hear; hearken unto me, thou son of Zippor:

NoteZippor was Balak's father. Addressing a man by his father's name is formal, heightened speech, suited to the opening of an oracle.

19God is not a man, so he does not lie. He is not a human being, so he does not change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and then not carry it out?

19God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?

NoteKJV "repent" does not mean being sorry for sin. In 1611 English it also meant simply changing one's mind or going back on a stated intention, which is the sense here.

20I have been given a command to bless. He has blessed, and I cannot undo it.

20Behold, I have received commandment to bless: and he hath blessed; and I cannot reverse it.

21He has not looked on wrongdoing in Jacob, and he has not seen trouble in Israel. The LORD their God is with them, and the shout that greets a king is among them.

21He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel: the LORD his God is with him, and the shout of a king is among them.

NoteThe two Hebrew nouns can mean either moral wrong (KJV "iniquity" and "perverseness") or misfortune ("trouble," "disaster"). So the line says either that God finds no fault in Israel or that he has no harm in store for them; both readings are ancient. The "shout" is teruah, a loud ritual cry or trumpet blast used both to acclaim a king and to signal in battle.

22God brought them out of Egypt. They have strength like a wild ox.

22God brought them out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of an unicorn.

NoteKJV's "unicorn" translates re'em, the wild ox or aurochs (a massive horned bovine, now extinct), not a one-horned horse. The image is of raw strength. The Hebrew also leaves it unclear whether the strength described is God's or the people's.

23There is no spell that works against Jacob, and no fortune-telling that works against Israel. Now it will be said of Jacob and of Israel, 'Look what God has done!'

23Surely there is no enchantment against Jacob, neither is there any divination against Israel: according to this time it shall be said of Jacob and of Israel, What hath God wrought!

NoteEnchantment and divination were professional techniques for reading omens and for altering events by ritual words, Balaam's own trade. The Hebrew preposition allows two senses: either that no spell can work against Jacob, or that no such practice is needed or found within Jacob.

24Look, the people get up like a lioness; they rise like a lion. They will not lie down until they have eaten what they hunted and drunk the blood of the killed."

24Behold, the people shall rise up as a great lion, and lift up himself as a young lion: he shall not lie down until he eat of the prey, and drink the blood of the slain.

NoteThe Hebrew names two lions, a lioness and a lion, and the picture is of a pride rousing itself to hunt. Drinking the blood of the slain is conventional poetry for a nation going to war and winning, not a description of ritual.

25Balak said to Balaam, "Then do not curse them at all, and do not bless them at all either."

25And Balak said unto Balaam, Neither curse them at all, nor bless them at all.

26But Balaam answered Balak, "Did I not tell you that I have to do everything the LORD says?"

26But Balaam answered and said unto Balak, Told not I thee, saying, All that the LORD speaketh, that I must do?

27Balak said to Balaam, "Please come, and I will take you to another place. Maybe it will please God to let you curse them for me from there."

27And Balak said unto Balaam, Come, I pray thee, I will bring thee unto another place; peradventure it will please God that thou mayest curse me them from thence.

28So Balak took Balaam to the top of Peor, which looks out over the wasteland.

28And Balak brought Balaam unto the top of Peor, that looketh toward Jeshimon.

NotePeor is a peak in Moab, later linked with the local god called Baal of Peor (Numbers 25). Jeshimon means "the wasteland", the dry country running down toward the Dead Sea; it may be a proper place-name or simply a description.

29Balaam said to Balak, "Build me seven altars here, and get me seven bulls and seven rams ready."

29And Balaam said unto Balak, Build me here seven altars, and prepare me here seven bullocks and seven rams.

30Balak did what Balaam said, and he offered a bull and a ram on each altar.

30And Balak did as Balaam had said, and offered a bullock and a ram on every altar.