Numbers 24: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Balaam stops looking for omens, sees Israel camped by tribes, and the Spirit of God comes on him, so he blesses Israel a third time instead of cursing it. Balak, furious, sends him home without the reward he had promised, and Balaam repeats that he can only say what the LORD tells him. Before leaving, Balaam gives a final set of oracles about what Israel will do to Moab in days to come, along with short sayings about Amalek, the Kenites, and ships from Chittim. Then Balaam and Balak each go their own way.

Claim by Claim

1. 24:1
   • Balaam saw that it was good in the LORD's eyes to bless Israel
   • Balaam did not go, as he had at previous times, to seek omens
   • Balaam set his face toward the wilderness
2. 24:2
   • Balaam lifted up his eyes
   • Balaam saw Israel dwelling according to its tribes
   • The spirit of God came upon Balaam
3. 24:3
   • Balaam took up his oracle
   • Balaam spoke
   • Balaam said this was the utterance of Balaam son of Beor
   • Balaam said this was the utterance of the man whose eye is opened
4. 24:4
   • Balaam said this was the utterance of one who hears the words of God
   • Balaam said he sees a vision of the Almighty
   • Balaam said he falls down
   • Balaam said his eyes are uncovered
5. 24:5
   • Balaam said Jacob's tents are good
   • Balaam said Israel's dwellings are good
6. 24:6
   • Balaam said they are spread out like valleys or streams
   • Balaam said they are like gardens beside a river
   • Balaam said they are like aloe trees the LORD has planted
   • Balaam said they are like cedars beside waters
7. 24:7
   • Balaam said water will flow from his buckets
   • Balaam said his seed will be in many waters
   • Balaam said his king will be higher than Agag
   • Balaam said his kingdom will be exalted
8. 24:8
   • Balaam said God brought him out of Egypt
   • Balaam said he has strength like that of a wild ox
   • Balaam said he will devour the nations that are his enemies
   • Balaam said he will break their bones
   • Balaam said he will pierce them through with his arrows
9. 24:9
   • Balaam said he crouched
   • Balaam said he lay down like a lion
   • Balaam said he lay down like a lioness
   • Balaam asked who will rouse him
   • Balaam said whoever blesses you is blessed
   • Balaam said whoever curses you is cursed
10. 24:10
    • Balak's anger burned against Balaam
    • Balak struck his hands together
    • Balak said to Balaam that he had called him to curse his enemies
    • Balak said Balaam had instead thoroughly blessed them
    • Balak said this had happened three times
11. 24:11
    • Balak told Balaam to flee to his own place
    • Balak said he had intended to honor Balaam greatly
    • Balak said the LORD had withheld Balaam from honor
12. 24:12
    • Balaam said to Balak that he had already spoken to the messengers Balak sent to him
13. 24:13
    • Balaam said that even if Balak gave him his house full of silver and gold, he could not go beyond the mouth of the LORD
    • Balaam said he could not do good or bad of his own heart
    • Balaam said he would speak whatever the LORD speaks
14. 24:14
    • Balaam said he was going to his own people
    • Balaam told Balak to come so he could advise him
    • Balaam said he would tell what this people would do to Balak's people in the latter days
15. 24:15
    • Balaam took up his oracle
    • Balaam spoke
    • Balaam said this was the utterance of Balaam son of Beor
    • Balaam said this was the utterance of the man whose eye is opened
16. 24:16
    • Balaam said this was the utterance of one who hears the words of God
    • Balaam said he knows the knowledge of the Most High
    • Balaam said he sees a vision of the Almighty
    • Balaam said he falls down
    • Balaam said his eyes are uncovered
17. 24:17
    • Balaam said he sees him, but not now
    • Balaam said he beholds him, but not near
    • Balaam said a star will come forth out of Jacob
    • Balaam said a scepter will rise out of Israel
    • Balaam said it will crush the corners of Moab
    • Balaam said it will break down all the sons of Sheth
18. 24:18
    • Balaam said Edom will become a possession
    • Balaam said Seir, his enemies, will become a possession
    • Balaam said Israel will act valiantly
19. 24:19
    • Balaam said one out of Jacob will have dominion
    • Balaam said he will destroy the survivor from the city
20. 24:20
    • Balaam looked at Amalek
    • Balaam took up his oracle
    • Balaam spoke
    • Balaam said Amalek was the first of the nations
    • Balaam said Amalek's end will be destruction
21. 24:21
    • Balaam looked at the Kenite
    • Balaam took up his oracle
    • Balaam spoke
    • Balaam said the Kenite's dwelling place is enduring
    • Balaam said the Kenite's nest is set in the rock
22. 24:22
    • Balaam said the Kenite will nevertheless be wasted
    • Balaam said this will last until Asshur carries you away captive
23. 24:23
    • Balaam took up his oracle
    • Balaam spoke
    • Balaam cried out in woe
    • Balaam asked who will live when God does this
24. 24:24
    • Balaam said ships will come from the coast of Chittim
    • Balaam said they will afflict Asshur
    • Balaam said they will afflict Eber
    • Balaam said that he too will perish forever
25. 24:25
    • Balaam rose up
    • Balaam went and returned to his place
    • Balak also went on his way

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

24:1

"Enchantments" in the King James is not stage magic. Balaam was a professional diviner, and on the earlier occasions he had gone off alone to look for omens, signs read from natural events or from the entrails of sacrificed animals, before delivering his verdict. This time he skips that step.

24:2

Israel is camped "tribe by tribe": the people were organized into twelve family groups, each descended from one of Jacob's sons, and each with its own assigned section of the camp. Balaam is seeing an ordered military-style encampment laid out below him.

24:3

"Took up his parable" translates a Hebrew word (mashal) that covers proverbs, taunts and formal poetry. Here it means a chanted oracle in verse, the kind of speech a professional seer was paid to deliver. Balaam speaks of himself in the third person, as such oracles conventionally did. "The man whose eyes are open" renders a rare Hebrew word whose sense is disputed; it may mean open, or it may mean shut. The point either way is that he sees what ordinary sight does not.

24:4

"The Almighty" here is Shaddai, an ancient title for God used mostly in old poetry and in the stories of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Its literal meaning is uncertain. "Falling into a trance, but having his eyes open" is literally "falling, with eyes uncovered", the seer drops to the ground while remaining aware of what he is shown. The King James word "trance" is an interpretation, not in the Hebrew.

24:5

Jacob and Israel are two names for the same man (the patriarch was renamed Israel) and Hebrew poetry uses them interchangeably for the nation descended from him. The two lines say one thing twice, which is how Hebrew verse works. "Tabernacles" in 1611 English simply meant tents or dwellings. It is not a reference to the tent-sanctuary called the tabernacle.

24:6

"Lign aloes" is the King James name for aloewood, a fragrant tropical timber burned as incense and used to scent clothing and bedding. It is not the medicinal aloe plant. The first comparison is uncertain: the Hebrew word can mean valleys or streambeds, and some read it instead as palm groves. Cedars were the prized building timber of the region, imported from Lebanon.

24:7

"Seed" means offspring, descendants, standard King James usage. Water pouring from buckets and abundant water for the seed are images of fertility and a large, prosperous population, in a land where water was the limit on both. Agag was a king of the Amalekites, a hostile desert people; the name may have been a royal title rather than one man's name. To be "greater than Agag" is to outrank the most formidable king the hearers could think of. Some ancient copies read "Gog" here instead.

24:8

The King James "unicorn" is a mistranslation by way of the Greek and Latin versions. The Hebrew re'em is the aurochs, the huge wild ox of the ancient Near East, hunted to extinction in modern times, a byword for untameable strength.

24:9

The closing line echoes the promise made to Abraham in Genesis: whoever blesses his descendants is blessed, whoever curses them is cursed. Balak hired Balaam precisely to curse them, so the oracle turns the curse back on the man who paid for it.

24:10

Striking the hands together was a recognized gesture of rage, scorn or derision, roughly like slamming a fist on a table. It is not applause.

24:11

"Honour" here means payment. Balak had promised Balaam a rich fee for his professional services; he is saying he now intends to pay nothing, and that it is the LORD's doing that Balaam goes home empty-handed.

24:13

"A house full of silver and gold" is a proverbial way of saying an unimaginable fortune. There were no coins yet; silver and gold were weighed out by the piece.

24:14

The King James "advertise" means inform or warn, its 1611 sense, with no connection to advertising. "The latter days" translates a Hebrew phrase meaning the far end of the future, the days to come. It does not necessarily mean the end of the world; it means a time well beyond the speaker's own.

24:16

"The most High" translates Elyon, another very old title for God, used alongside Shaddai in the previous line. Piling up ancient divine titles is part of the formal style of this kind of oracle.

24:17

A star and a scepter (a ruler's staff of office) both stand for a king. The oracle says a king will arise from Israel at some distance in the future (Balaam sees him, but "not now" and "not near." "Smite the corners of Moab" is ambiguous in Hebrew: the word can mean the sides or borders of the territory, or the temples of the head, hence "crush the skull." Moab is the kingdom Balak rules, so this is a threat against his own people. "The children of Sheth" is uncertain. It may mean the descendants of Seth, Adam's son, and so all humanity in that region; a related passage in Jeremiah reads the word as "tumult," giving "the sons of tumult") a name for a warlike people.

24:18

Edom was the nation descended from Esau, Jacob's brother, occupying the rugged country south-east of the Dead Sea. Seir is the mountain range at the heart of that territory, and the two names are used for the same place. "Will be taken over" means conquered and held as territory by someone else.

24:19

"Him that remaineth of the city" means the survivors, those left alive after a town has been taken. Ancient warfare regularly ended with the killing or enslaving of whoever remained inside the walls, and the line assumes that.

24:20

The Amalekites were nomads of the southern desert who had attacked Israel shortly after the escape from Egypt. "First of the nations" can mean first in time, the oldest, or first in rank, the foremost, the Hebrew allows both.

24:21

The Kenites were a small metalworking and herding people living in the rocky country south of Judah; Moses' father-in-law is elsewhere identified as one. There is a pun in the Hebrew that English cannot carry: their name (Kain) sounds like the word for nest (ken), and their strongholds were built high in the cliffs, out of reach.

24:22

Asshur is Assyria, the empire of northern Mesopotamia whose armies deported whole populations. The name is also that of a small Arabian tribe, and which is meant here is disputed. The verse repeats the Kain/nest wordplay of the previous line: the nest looks safe until someone comes to take it.

24:23

This line is one of the most damaged in the Hebrew Bible; the text as it stands is barely construable, and translators fill the gap differently, "who will survive when God does this," or "who can live unless God has willed it." The King James and the plain rendering both give one plausible reading of an obscure original.

24:24

Chittim (Kittim) originally meant Cyprus, and came to stand for the seafaring peoples of the western Mediterranean generally, later readers applied it to the Greeks and then the Romans. Eber is the ancestor whose name lies behind the word "Hebrew," though the term may also mean the peoples living "beyond" the Euphrates. The oracle predicts invaders arriving by sea who will overrun even the great inland powers, and then fall themselves.

24:25

"His place" is his homeland, far to the north-east near the Euphrates, the region he was summoned from at the start of the story.