Commentaria in Numeros
First, this is plain from the name ariolus itself; whence that Balaam was a magician, St. Cyril, Theodoret, Augustine, Ambrose, Nyssen, Procopius and Rabanus teach, whose places I shall cite at chapter 22:3. Secondly, because Balaam sought augury, as is plain from chapter 24:4, and to obtain it built seven altars to Baal himself, and offered victims to him, as is plain from chapter 22, last verse, and chapter 23:4. Thirdly, because he himself wished to curse Israel, and for this purpose sought these auguries and prophecies of the devil; but God met him instead of the devil, and compelled him unwillingly to bless Israel. He was therefore himself a magician, and sought speech with the demon, and was wont to consult him and be taught by him. Fourthly, that Balaam was not Eliu is plain from Job 32:2, where the Septuagint say that Eliu was from the region of Ausitis, that is, was an Idumean; but Balaam was from Mesopotamia, as is plain from Deuteronomy 23:4. Finally, that Balaam was an impious and perverse man is plain, not only from his evil will, by which he wished to curse the Hebrews, but also from the scandal of fornication and of the idolatry of Beelphegor, which he cast before them: whence also he was justly slain by them, as is plain…
He adds: “For that the oracles which Balaam is said to have uttered were true oracles, I mean delivered by divine inspiration, is manifest to those who read that history. For Balaam’s purpose was to pray evils on the Israelites, and to carry that out he had come from another country, called by the king of the Moabites, enticed by great rewards and honours, having no hope placed in the Israelites, by whom at length he was slain (below 31:8; Josue 13:22): how then could it be that, contrary to what he had proposed, he blessed the Israelites a second, a third and a fourth time? Because, namely, God himself was acting. This surely is confirmed by what Balaam…
WHO DWELT BY (near) THE RIVER—the Euphrates, namely, as the Chaldee translates, which is a river of Mesopotamia, and is called in Scripture by antonomasia the river, both for its greatness and because it was best known to the Hebrews. For the Euphrates was the boundary of the promised land given by God to the Hebrews, as is plain from Josue 1:4. For Balaam was a Mesopotamian, as I have already said: whence also in chapter 23:7 he himself says that he was called from Aram; and Mesopotamia in Hebrew is called Aram-naharaim, that is, Aram, or Syria, which lies between two rivers, namely the Euphrates and the Tigris, and is encircled by them. Balaam was therefore called from Mesopotamia by Balac into Moab, and when he thought of returning thence to his own, he migrated into Madian (invited perhaps by the Madianites, as here by Balac), and there with the other Madianites was slain, because he had again, with them, set himself against the Hebrews, as is plain from chapter 31:8. So Abulensis, Vatablus and others; although Andreas Masius, on Josue 13:22, thinks Balaam was a Madianite by origin, which opinion is not improbable.
BY THE RIVER OF THE LAND OF THE CHILDREN OF AMMON.—That is, by, or near, the Euphrates; for the Euphrates flows past the Ammonites. In Hebrew, for Ammon there is ammo, that is, of his people: so the Septuagint, Chaldee and more recent translators. But this sense is empty and tautological; for who does not know that Balaam dwelt among his own people? Better, therefore, our interpreter, from other Hebrew copies, read Ammon, or by Ammo understood Ammon; for the letter nun in Ammon is not a radical but a formative and adscititious one: whence also in Genesis 19, last verse, Ammon is not called Ammon, but in Hebrew ben-ammi.
SITTING (encamping) OVER AGAINST ME—as if to say: Israel now threatens me and my kingdom: curse him, and so turn him away from me.
6. FOR I KNOW THAT HE WHOM THOU SHALT BLESS IS BLESSED, AND HE WHOM THOU SHALT CURSE IS CURSED.
professed himself to be a hearer of the words of God, to know the doctrine of the Most High, to behold the vision of the Almighty, which there was certainly no reason for him to feign, nay, the most grave considerations deterred him from feigning. The same thing Balaam himself often asserted in express words, and that before Balac himself; and God more than once foretold to Balaam; and Moses narrated it as actually done.”
To the Rationalists objecting that Catholics, who think such a man, an impostor and soothsayer, a true prophet of God and honoured with divine apparitions, do not sufficiently consult the dignity of divine revelations, Meignan, op. cit. p. 489, rightly answers that Balaam was not merely an impostor and a thoroughly bad man, but a hierophant, like the seers of the ancient Greeks, for example Calchas, who, held in reverence by all, gave responses to kings and peoples, singular and extraordinary men indeed, in whom excellent truths are found mixed with base superstition, rare wisdom with madness, faith with deceit, in such wise that a sound judgment about them can scarcely be formed by anyone now, after so long a time and amid such dissimilar customs.
—as if to say: I have learned by experience that thy imprecations and divinations are true, and are actually verified, so that as thou dost divine, so good or evil actually befalls each. For so also our magicians and witches, often by the help of the demon, inflict evils, and again remove them when they will, and men and animals they restore to health. A fable of this kind: for Rabbi Solomon, in his manner, feigns, at this place, that God has every day one hour, in which He is angry with the wicked, and that Balaam knew this hour, and therefore was wont in that same hour to imprecate on some wicked man the curse of God, which presently befell him.
7. AND THE ANCIENTS OF MOAB, AND THE ELDERS OF MADIAN, WENT WITH THE PRICE OF DIVINATION.—In Hebrew it is, having divinations; but as sin is often taken for the sin-offering, so divination is here taken for the price of divination, by metonymy. So the Chaldee and others. Balaam was therefore a simoniac in selling, as Balac in buying, this malediction, at least in his own mind and conscience; since they expected it from Baal, whom they thought to be the true God. Morally, learn here how evil is the love of money, which destroyed Balaam: “For all things obey money.” Hence the Greeks feigned that a response was given by Apollo to Philip king of the Macedonians, that “he would gain the victory if he fought with silver spears,” that is, if he tempted his enemies to treachery with money: whence the same king, having experienced the power of money, said that “no citadel, however strongly fortified, could fail to be taken, if only he could send up to it an ass laden with gold.” Hence that saying of Glaber: “With a golden fist an iron wall is broken.” Wherefore Chilo rightly said, in Laertius, that “gold is tested on touchstones, the minds of men by gold”; and St. Ambrose, book On the Good of Death, chapter 5: “There is a snare in gold, bird-lime in silver.”
Rightly, therefore, wise and holy men have fled the love of money. Phocion, when Alexander had sent him a hundred talents, asked why among the Athenians Alexander sent these to him alone. The envoys answered that he thought him an upright man; then Phocion said: “Let him suffer me, then, to be such and to be thought such”; and he sent back all the money, asking only that he would release certain captives, says Isidore of Pelusium, book II, epistle 146. St. Antony, says St. Athanasius, having seen on the road a vast mass of shining gold, at once, as if fleeing a fire, rushed away to the mountain. Abbot Pambo, says Palladius, Lausiac History chapter 10, refused three hundred pounds of gold given by Melania:
8. TARRY HERE THIS NIGHT, AND I WILL ANSWER WHATSOEVER THE LORD SHALL SAY TO ME.—By night, according to his custom, Balaam wished to consult the demon, familiar to him (invoking him either by voice, or by magic signs and incantations), and he falsely pretended to them here the name of the Lord, as though he were consulting God, not the demon. But God presented Himself to him instead of the demon, and that not for his sake but for the sake of the Hebrews, whom He willed to bless through him. This will appear more fully in the next chapter, verse 4, and chapter 24:4.
GOD CAME—that is, an angel, bearing the person of God: he came, I say, either in an assumed body visibly, or only by a human voice, or conversing with him in the fancy of Balaam, by vision.
12. THOU SHALT NOT GO WITH THEM, NOR CURSE THE PEOPLE (the Hebrews), BECAUSE IT IS BLESSED.—Balaam, to obtain money from Balac, wished to curse the Hebrews; whence God forbids him to go to him: Because, He says, this people Israel is blessed, because, namely, I have blessed it, and will henceforth bless, that is, do it good, giving it all prosperity, so that it shall conquer all its enemies and obtain Chanaan.
Note: Moses learned and wrote these deeds and sayings of Balaam, not from man, but by God’s revelation.
18. I CANNOT ALTER THE WORD OF THE LORD.—Balaam, though impious and avaricious, nevertheless so far reverences God that he dares not resist the words and command of God; for he feared the wrath and vengeance of God.
20. GOD THEREFORE CAME TO BALAAM IN THE NIGHT, AND SAID TO HIM, etc.: GO WITH THEM.—Balaam was called a second time, and more urgently, by Balac: whence God, who at first had forbidden him to go, to blunt his avarice and his desire of cursing the Hebrews, here, now blunted and repressed, he permits him to go, but on this law, that he speak no other things than those which he shall hear from God; and that to this end, that through Balaam He might glorify Himself and His people Israel, and that Balac might be slain by Balaam as by his own sword. For Balac had wished Israel to be cursed and devoted to execrations through Balaam, and had said to him: “I know that he whom thou shalt bless is blessed, and he whom thou shalt curse is cursed.” Now God turns this upon his head, while He makes Balaam, called and prepared to curse, bless Israel, that Balac may persuade himself most certainly that he is blessed by God.