Numbers 22:18

22:18 Balaam replied ¹  to the servants of Balak, “Even if Balak would give me his palace full of silver and gold, I could not transgress the commandment ²  of the Lord my God ³  to do less or more.

Numbers 22:34

22:34 Balaam said to the angel of the Lord, “I have sinned, for I did not know that you stood against me in the road. ⁴  So now, if it is evil in your sight, ⁵  I will go back home.” ⁶ 

Numbers 24:1

Balaam Prophesies Yet Again

24:1 ⁷ When Balaam saw that it pleased the Lord to bless Israel, ⁸  he did not go as at the other times ⁹  to seek for omens, ¹⁰  but he set his face ¹¹  toward the wilderness.

[22:18]  ¹ tn Heb “answered and said.”

[22:18]  ² tn Heb “mouth.”

[22:18]  ³ sn In the light of subsequent events one should not take too seriously that Balaam referred to Yahweh as his God. He is referring properly to the deity for which he is acting as the agent.

[22:34]  ⁴ sn Balaam is not here making a general confession of sin. What he is admitting to is a procedural mistake. The basic meaning of the word is “to miss the mark.” He now knows he took the wrong way, i.e., in coming to curse Israel.

[22:34]  ⁵ sn The reference is to Balaam’s way. He is saying that if what he is doing is so perverse, so evil, he will turn around and go home. Of course, it did not appear that he had much of a chance of going forward.

[22:34]  ⁶ tn The verb is the cohortative from “return”: I will return [me].

[24:1]  ⁷ sn For a thorough study of the arrangement of this passage, see E. B. Smick, “A Study of the Structure of the Third Balaam Oracle,” The Law and the Prophets, 242-52. He sees the oracle as having an introductory strophe (vv. 3, 4), followed by two stanzas (vv. 5, 6) that introduce the body (vv. 7b-9b) before the final benediction (v. 9b).

[24:1]  ⁸ tn Heb “it was good in the eyes of the Lord.”

[24:1]  ⁹ tn Heb “as time after time.”

[24:1]  ¹⁰ tn The word נְחָשִׁים (nÿkhashim) means “omens,” or possibly “auguries.” Balaam is not even making a pretense now of looking for such things, because they are not going to work. God has overruled them.

[24:1]  ¹¹ tn The idiom signifies that he had a determination and resolution to look out over where the Israelites were, so that he could appreciate more their presence and use that as the basis for his expressing of the oracle.