3 Balaam said to Balak, "Stand by your burnt offering, and I will go: perhaps Yahweh will come to meet me; and whatever he shows me I will tell you." He went to a bare height.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
And Balaam said unto Balak. In this respect, also, he imitates the true servants of God: for he seeks retirement, because God has almost always appeared unto His servants when they have been separated from the company of men. You would say that he was another Moses, when he exhorts the king to persevering prayer, and, in order that he may be more earnest in supplication, bids him remain perfectly still by the altars. Meanwhile he withdraws himself from the crowd, and the eyes of the witnesses, so that he may be more ready to receive the revelation. Since, however, there was no sincerity in him, we may probably conclude, that in vain ostentation he imitated the servants of God, that, like one of God's councillors, he might bring forth the secrets from the shrines of heaven. I know not why some render the word sphy, shephi, alone, others, sad; [1] it is more suitable to take it for a high place; which other similar passages confirm. The impostor, therefore, retired into a higher place, or summit, in order that he might come forth from thence more surely established as a prophet by his familiar intercourse with God.
1 - A.V. "an high place." Margin, "he went solitary." "Onkelos explains the word sphy as ychydy alone; but Kimchi interprets it as gkvch a high place. Rabbi Jehuda expounds is it as nsvr affected with grief; etc." -- S.M. There is a curious error in the Fr., evidently arising from its dictation to an amanuensis, "le mot que j'ay translate Amen," i.e., "a mont," as it stands in the Fr. Text.
Balaam apparently expected to mark some phenomenon in the sky or in nature, which he would be able, according to the rules of his art, to interpret as a portent. It was for such "auguries" (not as the King James Version "enchantments" Numbers 23:23) that he now departed to watch; contrast Numbers 24:1.
An high place - Or, "A bare place on the hill," as opposed to the high place with its grove of trees.
Stand by thy burnt-offering - We have already seen that blessing and cursing in this way were considered as religious rites, and therefore must be always preceded by sacrifice. See this exemplified in the case of Isaac, before he blessed Jacob and Esau, Genesis 27 (note), and the notes there. The venison that was brought to Isaac, of which he did eat, was properly the preparatory sacrifice.
And Balaam said unto Balak, stand by thy burnt offering,.... By which it appears that the sacrifices offered were of this sort, and there might be one, which was more peculiarly the burnt offering of Balak; though he might be more or less with Balaam concerned in them all; at which he was directed to stand while it was burning, presenting that and himself to the Lord, that he would have respect to both:
and I will go; depart from thence, at some little distance, unto some private place:
peradventure the Lord will come to meet me; upon the offering of these sacrifices to him, though he could not be certain of it, he having lately shown some displeasure and resentment unto him; and this was also in the daytime, when it was in the night he usually came unto him:
and whatsoever he showeth me I will tell thee; the whole of it, truly as it is, whether agreeable or not:
and he went to an high place; but he was in one already, and therefore if this is the sense of the word, he must go to another, into a grove in one of the high places, where he might be retired, and so fit for a divine converse; and the Targum of Onkelos renders it alone: but rather the sense is, that he went into a plain, as De Dieu has shown from the use of the word in the Syriac language; he was upon a high place, and he went down from thence into the plain, perhaps into a cave at the bottom of the hill, a retired place, where he hoped the Lord would meet him, as he did.
Stand by thy burnt offering--as one in expectation of an important favor.
peradventure the Lord will come to meet me: and whatsoever he showeth me--that is, makes known to me by word or sign.
he went to an high place--apart by himself, where he might practise rites and ceremonies, with a view to obtain a response of the oracle.
After the offering of the sacrifices, Balaam directed the king to stand by his burnt-offering, i.e., by the sacrifices that had been offered for him upon the seven altars, that he might go out for auguries. The meaning of the words, "I will go, peradventure Jehovah will come to meet me," is apparent from Numbers 24:1 : and "he went no more to meet with the auguries" (נחשׁים, see at Leviticus 19:26). Balaam went out to look for a manifestation of Jehovah in the significant phenomena of nature. The word which Jehovah should show to him, he would report to Balak. We have here what is just as characteristic in relation to Balaam's religious stand-point, as it is significant in its bearing upon the genuine historical character of the narrative, namely, an admixture of the religious ideas of both the Israelites and the heathen, inasmuch as Balaam hoped to receive or discover, in the phenomena of nature, a revelation from Jehovah. Because heathenism had no "sure word of prophecy," it sought to discover the will and counsel of God, which are displayed in the events of human history, through various signs that were discernible in natural phenomena, or, as Chryssipus the Stoic expresses it in Cicero de divin. ii. 63, "Signa quae a Diis hominibus portendantur."
(Note: See the remarks of Ngelsbach and Hartung on the nature of the heathen auspices, in Hengstenberg's Balaam and his Prophecies (pp. 396-7). Hartung observes, for example: "As the gods did not live outside the world, or separated from it, but the things of time and space were filled with their essence, it followed, as a matter of course, that the signs of their presence were sought and seen in all the visible and audible occurrences of nature, whether animate or inanimate. Hence all the phenomena which affected the senses, either in the elements or in the various creatures, whether sounds or movements, natural productions or events, of a mechanical or physical, or voluntary or involuntary kind, might serve as the media of revelation." And again (p. 397): "The sign in itself is useless, if it be not observed. It was therefore necessary that man and God should come to meet one another, and that the sign should not merely be given, but should also be received.")
To look for a word of Jehovah in this way, Balaam betook himself to a "bald height." This is the only meaning of שׁפי, from שׁפה, to rub, to scrape, to make bare, which is supported by the usage of the language; it is also in perfect harmony with the context, as the heathen augurs were always accustomed to select elevated places for their auspices, with an extensive prospect, especially the towering and barren summits of mountains that were rarely visited by men (see Hengstenberg, ut sup.). Ewald, however, proposes the meaning "alone," or "to spy," for which there is not the slightest grammatical foundation.
Stand by thy burnt - offering - As in God's presence, as one that offers thyself as well as thy sacrifices to obtain his favour. I will go - To some solitary and convenient place, where I may prevail with God to appear to me. Sheweth me - Reveals to me, either by word or sign. An high place - Or, into the plain, as that word properly signifies.
*More commentary available at chapter level.