1. Build me here seven altars. This elaborate cultic procedure turning on the sacred number seven, and, as it emerges, repeated three times, may be Balaam’s set professional regimen of preparation for delivering an efficacious curse or blessing, but there is a suspicion that it could also be a delaying tactic through which he postpones the moment when the LORD, as he has good reason to expect, will put a blessing and not a curse in his mouth. The number seven is also the number of times that Balaam’s vatic utterances are formally introduced by “and he took up his theme and he said.” The narrative also establishes a satiric parallel between the three times that Balak and Balaam set up altars and offer sacrifices and the three times that Balaam and his ass are stymied by the LORD’s messenger. Balak now plays the role of the thrice frustrated Balaam in the preceding episode, and Balaam, whose eyes have been “unveiled,” plays the role of the ass. In each of the three instances, the LORD “chances upon” or sets His spirit on Balaam, just as the LORD’s messenger stationed himself before the ass. (The verb “to station oneself” is here transferred to Balak, waiting by the sacrifice.) In the progression from instance to instance, Balak’s frustration mounts, just as Balaam’s did with the ass, for not only is the plan of execration repeatedly frustrated, but the blessings pronounced upon Israel become more extravagant from one oracle to the next. The monotheist’s satiric exposure of the polytheist’s delusions could scarcely be more brilliant.

3. in silence. The Hebrew adverbial form beshefi occurs only here, and its meaning is not certain.

7. he took up his theme. The Hebrew term mashal represented by “theme” is variously used in the Bible for different kinds of poetic composition—aphoristic, proverbial, rhapsodic. (Thus the poets called moshlim in 21:27 are rendered as “rhapsodes.”) Here the poetic utterance is oracular in nature. Mashal is not a term generally used for the pronouncements of the Hebrew prophets, and so it may have been deemed especially appropriate for this gentile seer.

8. What can I hex that El has not hexed. El, though it is also a Hebrew common noun that means “god,” is the proper name of the head of the Canaanite pantheon. One may resist Baruch Levine’s conclusion that the poem reflects a still polytheistic stage of thinking about gods in ancient Israel, but there is surely a certain teasing quality of hovering between two different theologies in the designations for God in the poem. A non-Israelite visionary such as Balaam might well speak of El in the old Canaanite sense, yet El appears to be a synonym, in the parallelism of the two versets of this line, with YHWH, the LORD, and in the second oracle (verse 22), El plays precisely the traditional role of YHWH in bringing Israel out of Egypt. This translation seeks to preserve the poem’s gesture toward the archaic by using the proper noun El instead of “God.”

9. see . . . gaze. The synonymous language of the line highlights the theme of seeing that was prominent in the tale of the ass.

them. The Hebrew says “it/him,” the antecedent being the collective noun “Israel.”

10. who counted. Reading, with the Septuagint umi sapar instead of the Masoretic umispar, “and the number of.”

the issue. The meaning of the unusual Hebrew term rovaʿ is in dispute. The verbal stem r-b-ʿ (akin to r-b-ts) does sometimes apply to copulation and so, perhaps, to the consequence of copulation. Others relate it to the number four, ʾarba_ʿ (thus Levine, “quarterland”); and still others, with an eye to a possible Akkadian cognate, understand it as another word for “dust,” or perhaps “dust cloud.”

the upright. An emendation of yesharim proposed by Levine produces yeshurun, “Jeshurun,” a synonym for Israel.

my aftertime. The Hebrew aḥarit is an abstract noun derived from aḥar, “after.” It is misleading to translate it as “afterlife” because Israel in this period had no real notion of an afterlife. What Balaam appears to be saying is that when he dies (an eventuality mentioned in the first verset here), he would like the name that lives after him to be as unassailable as that of the people of Israel. This view of life and death is closer to Homer than to later Judaism or Christianity.

18. Zippor’s son. The poem uses an archaic-poetic construct form, beno tsipor, instead of the usual ben tsipor, “son of Zippor.”

19. El is no man. The monotheistic point briefly stated in the first oracle (verse 8) is here expanded to a full-fledged theological proposition on God’s fixed intentions that resist any human manipulation.

20. I was taken. Reading luqaḥti instead of the Masoretic laqaḥti, “I took.”

and He blessed. A change of one vowel in the consonantal text yields the infinitive “bless,” which might make a better syntactic parallelism with the first verset.

22. like the wild ox’s antlers for him. Toʿafot, the word translated as “antlers,” usually means “mountain peaks” and perhaps is used metaphorically here for what juts out from the top of the wild ox’s head. To whom does this simile refer? The more cautious reading is that it is a representation of the fiercely triumphant Israel, now a militant people after its liberation from Egyptian slavery. It may, however, be more in keeping with the archaic character of the poem to see the animal imagery as a representation, in accordance with the conventions of Canaanite epic, of the fierce God who has freed Israel from Egypt.

23. Now be it said to Jacob / . . . what El has wrought. This line of verse follows directly from the assertion that there is no divining in Israel. Other nations may foolishly have recourse to soothsayers and word-magic professionals like Balaam, but Israel is immediately informed, whether through prophets or direct divine revelation, what God’s designs are.

24. like a lion arises. This image of the rising, bloodthirsty lion is a stock metaphor for martial prowess in biblical and other ancient Near Eastern poetry. The kenning “king of beasts” in the second verset of this line reflects a single Hebrew word: biblical Hebrew has five synonyms for lion (whatever distinctions there may have been among them have been lost with the passage of time), whereas English, alas, has none.

blood of the slain he drinks. The language here is similar to the startling picture in Job 39:30 of the eagle’s fledglings lapping up the blood of the slain. Altogether, Balaam’s second oracle has raised the stakes of frustration for Balak. Israel is envisaged now not merely as vast but as a fiercely indomitable warrior people—Balak now has not just been led off the road into the field but feels his leg crushed against the wall.

25. Neither to curse. Momentarily, Balak is so exasperated that he announces that he is dispensing altogether with Balaam’s professional services. But when Balaam replies that he is, after all, bound to carry out whatever the LORD tells him, Balak imagines that he may have better luck with this god on a third try.

27. Perhaps it will be right in the eyes of the god. Balak accepts the fact that Balaam’s words are dependent on this particular deity, but he clings to the hope that the deity at last will prove more favorably inclined to the plan of execration. The Hebrew ʾelohim could mean “God,” but the fact that it is prefixed by a definite article and that it is pronounced by a pagan makes the polytheistic sense of the term more likely.