Balak the son of Zippor - The comparison of Numbers 22:4 with Numbers 21:26 suggests that Balak was not the hereditary king but a Midianite, and that a change of dynasty had taken place. His father's name, Zippor, "Bird," reminds us of those of other Midianites, e. g., Oreb, "Crow," Zeeb, "Wolf." Possibly the Midianite chieftains had taken advantage of the weakness of the Moabites after the Amorite victories to establish themselves as princes in the land.

And Balak the son of Zippor saw all that Israel had done to the Amorites. The word "Amorites" being particularly pointed, shows, as Aben Ezra observes, that Sihon and Og are both meant, and that there were not among the kings of the land of Canaan any so great as they; wherefore when Balak, who was the present king of Moab, saw what Israel had done to them, that they had conquered them, and seized upon their kingdoms: he reasoned within himself, and said, as Jarchi represents him, that if they could not stand before Israel, much less could he and his people; and the rather, since those kings Israel had subdued were too powerful for the king of Moab, and had taken part of his country from him, and yet Israel was too strong for them.

Balak--that is, "empty." Terrified (Deuteronomy 2:25; Exodus 15:15) at the approach of so vast a multitude and not daring to encounter them in the field, he resolved to secure their destruction by other means.

The rapid defeat of the two mighty kings of the Amorites filled the Moabites with such alarm at the irresistible might of Israel, that Balak their king, with the princes of Midian, sought to bring the powers of heathen magic to bear against the nation of God; and to this end he sent messengers with presents to Balaam, the celebrated soothsayer, in Mesopotamia, who had the reputation of being able both to bless and curse with great success, to entreat him to come, and so to weaken the Israelites with his magical curses, that he might be able to smite them, and drive them out of his land (Numbers 22:1-7). At first Balaam declined this invitation, in consequence of divine instructions (Numbers 22:8-14); but when a second and still more imposing embassy of Moabite princes appeared before him, God gave him permission to go with them, but on this condition, that he should do nothing but what Jehovah should tell him (Numbers 22:15-21). When on the way, he was warned again by the miraculous opposition of the angel of the Lord, to say nothing but what God should say to him (Numbers 22:22-35). When Balak, therefore, came to meet him, on his arrival at the border of his kingdom, to give him a grand reception, Balaam explained to him, that he could only speak the word which Jehovah would put into his mouth (Numbers 22:36-40), and then proclaimed, in four different utterances, what God inspired him to declare. First of all, as he stood upon the height of Bamoth-baal, from which he could see the end of the Israelitish camp, he declared that it was impossible for him to curse this matchless, numerous, and righteous people, because they had not been cursed by their God (Numbers 22:41-23:10). He then went to the head of Pisgah, where he could see all Israel, and announced that Jehovah would bless this people, because He saw no unrighteousness in them, and that He would dwell among them as their King, making known His word to them, and endowing them with activity and lion-like power (Numbers 23:11-24). And lastly, upon the top of Peor, where he could see Israel encamped according to its tribes, he predicted, in two more utterances, the spread and powerful development of Israel in its inheritance, under the blessing of God (Numbers 23:25-24:9), the rise of a star out of Jacob in the far distant future, and the appearance of a ruler in Israel, who would break to pieces all its foes (Numbers 24:10-24); and upon this Balak sent him away (Numbers 24:25).
From the very earliest times opinions have been divided as to the character of Balaam.
(Note: On Balaam and his prophecies see G. Moebius Prophetae Bileami historia, Lips. 1676; Lderwald, die Geschichte Bileams deutlich u. begreiflich erklrt (Helmst. 1787); B. R. de Geer, Diss. de Bileamo, ejus historia et vaticiniis; Tholuck's vermischte Schriften (i. pp. 406ff.); Hengstenberg, History of Balaam, etc. (Berlin, 1842, and English translation by Ryland: Clark, 1847); Kurtz, History of the Old Covenant (English translation: Clark, 1859); and Gust. Baur, Gesch. der alttestl. Weissagung, Giessen, 1861, where the literature is given more fully still.)
Some (e.g., Philo, Ambrose, and Augustine) have regarded him as a wizard and false prophet, devoted to the worship of idols, who was destitute of any susceptibility for the true religion, and was compelled by God, against his will, to give utterance to blessings upon Israel instead of curses. Others (e.g., Tertullian and Jerome) have supposed him to be a genuine and true prophet, who simply fell through covetousness and ambition. But these views are both of them untenable in this exclusive form. Witsius (Miscell. ss. i. lib. i. c. 16, 33ff.), Hengstenberg (Balaam and his Prophecies), and Kurtz (History of the Old Covenant), have all of them clearly demonstrated this. The name בּלעם (lxx Βαλαάμ) is not to be derived, as Gesenius suggests, from בּל and עם, non populus, not a people, but either from בּלע and עם (dropping one )ע, devourer of the people (Simonis and Hengstenberg), or more probably from בּלע, with the terminal syllable ם-, devourer, destroyer (Frst, Dietrich), which would lead to the conclusion, that "he bore the name as a dreaded wizard and conjurer; whether he received it at his birth, as a member of a family in which this occupation was hereditary, and then afterwards actually became in public opinion what the giving of the name expressed as an expectation and desire; or whether the name was given to him at a later period, according to Oriental custom, when the fact indicated by the name had actually made its appearance" (Hengstenberg). In its true meaning, the name is related to that of his father, Beor.
(Note: The form Bosor, which we find instead of Beor in 2-Peter 2:15, appears to have arisen from a peculiar mode of pronouncing the guttural ע (see Loescher de causis ling. ebr. p. 246); whereas Vitringa maintains (in his obss. ss. l. iv. c. 9), that Peter himself invented this form, "that by this sound of the word he might play upon the Hebrew בשׂר, which signifies flesh, and thus delicately hint that Balaam, the false prophet, deserved to be called the son of Bosor, i.e., בשׂר, or flesh, on account of his persuading to the indulgence of carnal lusts.")
בּעור, from בּער, to burn, eat off, destroy: so called on account of the destructive power attributed to his curses (Hengstenberg). It is very probable, therefore, that Balaam belonged to a family in which the mantic character, or magical art, was hereditary. These names at once warrant the conjecture that Balaam was a heathen conjurer or soothsayer. Moreover, he is never called נביא, a prophet, or חזה, a seer, but הקּסם, the soothsayer (Joshua 13:22), a title which is never used in connection with the true prophets. For קסם, soothsaying, is forbidden to the Israelites in Deuteronomy 18:10., as an abomination in the sight of Jehovah, and is spoken of everywhere not only as a grievous sin (1-Samuel 15:23; Ezekiel 13:23; 2-Kings 17:17), but as the mark of a false prophet (Ezekiel 13:9; Ezekiel 22:28; Jeremiah 14:14, and even in Isaiah 3:2, where קסם forms the antithesis to נביא). Again, Balaam resorts to auguries, just like a heathen soothsayer (Numbers 24:1, compared with Numbers 23:3, Numbers 23:5), for the purpose of obtaining revelations; from which we may see that he was accustomed to adopt this as his ordinary mode of soothsaying.
(Note: "The fact that he made use of so extremely uncertain a method as augury, the insufficiency of which was admitted even by the heathen themselves (vid., Ngelsbach, homer. Theol. pp. 154ff.), and which no true prophet among the Israelites ever employed, is to be attributed to the weakness of the influence exerted upon him by the Spirit of God. When the Spirit worked with power, there was no need to look round at nature for the purpose of ascertaining the will of God" (Hengstenberg).)
On the other hand, Balaam was not without a certain measure of the true knowledge of God, and not without susceptibility for such revelations of the true God as he actually received; so that, without being really a prophet, he was able to give utterance to true prophecies from Jehovah. He not only knew Jehovah, but he confessed Jehovah, even in the presence of Balak, as well as of the Moabitish messengers. He asked His will, and followed it (Numbers 22:8, Numbers 22:13, Numbers 22:18-19, Numbers 22:28; Numbers 23:12), and would not go with the messengers of Balak, therefore, till God had given him permission (Numbers 22:20). If he had been altogether destitute of the fear of God, he would have complied at once with Balak's request. And again, although at the outset it is only Elohim who makes known His will (Numbers 22:9, Numbers 22:20), and even when he first of all goes out in search of oracles, it is Elohim who comes to him (Numbers 23:4); yet not only does the angel of Jehovah meet him by the way (Numbers 22:22.), but Jehovah also puts words into his mouth, which he announces to the king of the Moabites (Numbers 23:5, Numbers 23:12, Numbers 23:16), so that all his prophecies are actually uttered from a mind moved and governed by the Spirit of God, and that not from any physical constraint exerted upon him by God, but in such a manner that he enters into them with all his heart and soul, and heartily desires to die the death of these righteous, i.e., of the people of Israel (Numbers 23:10); and when he finds that it pleases Jehovah to bless Israel, he leaves off resorting any longer to auguries (Numbers 24:1), and eventually declares to the enraged monarch, that he cannot transgress the command of Jehovah, even if the king should give him his house full of silver and gold (Numbers 24:13).
(Note: The significant interchange in the use of the names of God, which is seen in the fact, that from the very outset Balaam always speaks of Jehovah (Numbers 22:8, Numbers 22:13, Numbers 22:18-19), - whereas, according to the historian, it is only Elohim who reveals Himself to him (Numbers 22:9-10, Numbers 22:12), - has been pointed out by Hengstenberg in his Dissertations; and even Baur, in his Geschichte der alttestl. Weissagung (i. p. 334), describes it as a "fine distinction;" but neither of them satisfactorily explains this diversity. For the assumption that Balaam is thereby tacitly accused of hypocrisy (Hengstenberg), or that the intention of the writer is to intimate that "the heathen seer did not stand at first in any connection whatever with the true God of Israel" (Baur), sets up a chasm between Elohim and Jehovah, with which the fact that, according to Numbers 22:22, the wrath of Elohim on account of Balaam's journey was manifested in the appearance of the angel of Jehovah, is irreconcilable. The manifestation of God in the form of the angel of Jehovah, was only a higher stage of the previous manifestations of Elohim. And all that follows from this is, that Balaam's original attitude towards Jehovah was a very imperfect one, and not yet in harmony with the true nature of the God of Israel. In his Jehovah Balaam worshipped only Elohim, i.e., only a divine being, but not the God of Israel, who was first of all revealed to him according to His true essence, in the appearance of the angel of Jehovah, and still more clearly in the words which He put into his mouth. This is indicated by the use of Elohim, in Numbers 22:9-10, Numbers 22:12. In the other passages, where this name of God still occurs, it is required by the thought, viz., in Numbers 22:22, to express the essential identity of Elohim and the Maleach Jehovah; and in Numbers 22:38; Numbers 23:27, and Numbers 24:2, to show that Balaam did not speak out of his own mind, but from the inspiration of the Spirit of God.)
This double-sidedness and ambiguity of the religious and prophetic character of Balaam may be explained on the supposition that, being endowed with a predisposition to divination and prophecy, he practised soothsaying and divination as a trade; and for the purpose of bringing this art to the greatest possible perfection, brought not only the traditions of the different nations, but all the phenomena of his own times, within the range of his observations. In this way he may have derived the first elements of the true knowledge of God from different echoes of the tradition of the primeval age, which was then not quite extinct, and may possibly have heard in his own native land some notes of the patriarchal revelations out of the home of the tribe-fathers of Israel. But these traditions are not sufficient of themselves to explain his attitude towards Jehovah, and his utterances concerning Israel. Balaam's peculiar knowledge of Jehovah, the God of Israel, and of all that He had done to His people, and his intimate acquaintance with the promises made to the patriarchs, which strike us in his prophecies (comp. Numbers 23:10 with Genesis 13:16; Genesis 28:14; Numbers 24:9 with Genesis 49:9; and Numbers 24:17 with Genesis 49:10), can only be explained from the fact that the report of the great things which God had done to and for Israel in Egypt and at the Dead Sea, had not only spread among all the neighbouring tribes, as was foretold in Exodus 15:14, and is attested by Jethro, Exodus 18:1., and Rahab the Canaanites, Joshua 2:9., but had even penetrated into Mesopotamia, as the countries of the Euphrates had maintained a steady commercial intercourse from the very earliest times with Hither Asia and the land Egypt. Through these tidings Balaam was no doubt induced not only to procure more exact information concerning the events themselves, that he might make a profitable use of it in connection with his own occupation, but also to dedicate himself to the service of Jehovah, "in the hope of being able to participate in the new powers conferred upon the human race; so that henceforth he called Jehovah his God, and appeared as a prophet in His name" (Hengstenberg). In this respect Balaam resembles the Jewish exorcists, who cast out demons in the name of Jesus without following Christ (Mark 9:38-39; Luke 9:49), but more especially Simon Magus, his "New Testament antitype," who was also so powerfully attracted by the new divine powers of Christianity that he became a believer, and submitted to baptism, because he saw the signs and great miracles that were done (Acts 8:13). And from the very time when Balaam sought Jehovah, the fame of his prophetical art appears to have spread. It was no doubt the report that he stood in close connection with the God of Israel, which induced Balak, according to Numbers 22:6, to hire him to oppose the Israelites; as the heathen king shared the belief, which was common to all the heathen, that Balaam was able to work upon the God he served, and to determine and regulate His will. God had probably given to the soothsayer a few isolated but memorable glimpses of the unseen, to prepare him for the service of His kingdom. But "Balaam's heart was not right with God," and "he loved the wages of unrighteousness" (Acts 8:21; 2-Peter 2:15). His thirst for honour and wealth was not so overcome by the revelations of the true God, that he could bring himself to give up his soothsaying, and serve the living God with an undivided heart. Thus it came to pass, that through the appeal addressed to him by Balak, he was brought into a situation in which, although he did not venture to attempt anything in opposition to the will of Jehovah, his heart was never thoroughly changed; so that, whilst he refused the honours and rewards that were promised him by Balak, and pronounced blessings upon Israel in the strength of the Spirit of God that came upon him, he was overcome immediately afterwards by the might of the sin of his own unbroken heart, fell back into the old heathen spirit, and advised the Midianites to entice the Israelites to join in the licentious worship of Baal Peor (Numbers 31:16), and was eventually put to death by the Israelites when they conquered these their foes (Numbers 31:8).
(Note: When modern critics, such as Knobel, Baur, etc., affirm that the tradition in Numbers 31:8, Numbers 31:16; Joshua 13:22 -viz., that Balaam was a kosem, or soothsayer, who advised the Midianites to seduce the Israelites to join in the worship of Baal-is irreconcilable with the account in Numbers 22-24 concerning Balaam himself, his attitude towards Jehovah, and his prophecies with regard to Israel, they simply display their own incapacity to comprehend, or form any psychological appreciation of, a religious character such as Balaam; but they by no means prove that the account in Numbers 22-24 is interpolated by the Jehovist into the Elohistic original. And all that they adduce as a still further confirmation of this hypothesis (namely, that the weaving of prophetic announcements into the historical narrative, the interchange of the names of God, Jehovah, and Elohim, the appearance of the angel of the Lord, the talking of the ass, etc., are foreign to the Elohistic original), are simply assertions and assumptions, which do not become any more conclusive from the fact that they are invariably adduced when no better arguments can be hunted up.)