וירא בלק....לאמורי, “Balak had taken note of all that Israel had done to the Emorite” (foremost Canaanite tribe). The reference is, of course, to Israel having defeated Sichon and his army totally. Balak now reasoned that if that was what they had done to mighty Sichon, they would do the same to him and the Moabites. Therefore, he preferred to have the assistance of someone who was known to have good relations with the supernatural powers.

ועתה ילחכו הקהל את כל סביבותינו, “and now this horde of people and livestock will lick up every blade of grass in our vicinity.” They were not worried about their lives, apparently knowing that G–d had forbidden the Israelites to make war upon them, but they faced economic ruin nonetheless. (They must have known about what G–d had said in Deuteronomy 2,9 about not harassing Moav.)

כלחוך השור, “just like oxen lick up;” oxen are known not to have teeth in the upper parts of their gums, so that instead of chewing the grass they rub it in their mouths, unlike horses or donkeys. As a result also the roots of the grass are destroyed and will not grow again.

וארגשנו מן הארץ, “so that I will be able to expel them from the land.” He did not mean to exterminate them but merely to chase them away from land which was his. According to Rashi, he referred specifically to that part of Moav which Sichon had many years earlier conquered from Moav.

כי ידעתי את אשר תברך מבורך, “for I know that the ones whom you bless will be blessed.” Bileam (one of the people speaking in parables) had prophesied earlier that Moav would become a victim of Sichon, as we know from Numbers 21,27)

וילכו זקני מואב, “The elders of Moav went forth, etc.” The Talmud in tractate Sanhedrin folio 105, tells us that there never had been peaceful relations between Moav and Midian before, but now that both felt threatened, they became like dogs when afraid of wolves that threaten them, and they acted in unison.

וקסמים בידם, “and they had brought instruments .of divination with them.” They brought money with them to pay Bileam for employing divinations with which to curse the Israelites. This is the way the Jerusalem Talmud translated our verse. An alternate interpretation is that seeing that Balak himself was no novice in that art, he sent along samples of what he used when practicing divination.

וישבו שרי מואב עם בלעם, “the emissaries of Moav spent the night with Bileam.” This raises the question of why the elders of Midian did not remain there also? When they heard that Bileam was going to consult with the G–d of the Israelites about how to conduct himself, they reasoned that a father (G–d as Israel’s father-figure) will not display hatred for his son, so what possible answer could Bileam expect from him asking permission to curse G–d’s son? They therefore left.

בלק בן צפור, “Balak, son of Tzippor, etc.” He was one of three people mentioned in the Bible as not having answered G–d appropriately. The other two were Kayin and King Chizkiyah. When G–d had asked Kayin where his brother Hevel was (after Kayin had murdered and buried him Genesis 4,9) he answered: “am I my brother’s keeper?) He should have answered G–d that seeing G–d is omniscient He was well aware where Hevel was. Similarly, when G–d asked Bileam who the men were that had come to visit him that evening, he too should have answered that he was well aware that G–d knew full well who they were. When the prophet Isaiah, in Kings II 20,14 asked King Chizkiyah who his visitors were and what they had requested from him, he said only that they had come from Babylon. When Isaiah persisted in knowing why they had come, and what they had seen in his palace? He replied that he had shown them all the treasures in his palace. Isaiah then told him that as a result of the King’s foolishness, the time would come when the Babylonians would destroy Jerusalem and take with them all the treasures the king had so foolishly shown them. I am troubled by the fact that the Talmud refers only to these three people, omitting Adam, who when asked by G–d where he was hiding, did not say that he knew that G–d must be well aware of where he was, but pretended that he had thought that he could hide from Him. If he was smart enough to have given all the animals appropriate names, he must have known that their Creator would know where each one was at any given time. We would say that Chizkiyah should be removed from that list and Adam should be substituted, Actually, of the four we have mentioned only three spoke to G–d directly, namely Adam. Chizkiyah had been spoken to by the prophet, and prophets do not know everything.

אם לקרוא לך באו האנשים, “if these men who have visited you came to invite you (in your professional capacity) etc.” I would not want you to accuse Me of having been instrumental in your forfeiting a substantial fee for your services.” However, I want you to say only words which have been approved by Me.” (You are not free to use your power of speech freely)

ויחר אף אלהים כי הולך הוא , “G–d’s anger was kindled that he was walking (with them in the spirit);” although Bileam had been given permission to accept Balak’s invitation to come to him, he had not been given permission to curse the Israelites. It was obvious that unless he had intended to do just that, (manipulated G–d) he should have stayed at home. Bileam had thought that seeing the first time G–d had told him not to go to Balak, and now He had agreed to let him go, He must have changed His mind due to something having occurred after the first emissaries had returned to Moav. Seeing that Bileam was too anxious to collect his fee, he had not noticed that he had only been allowed to go אתם, with these emissaries, i. e. physically, but that he was still forbidden to go עמהם “with them in spirit,” something that G–d had forbidden already in verse 12. In order to save Bileam from committing a fatal sin, G–d even dispatched the angel as an obstacle, hoping that he would take the hint on his own. He hoped that Bileam would realise that G–d knew what he was up to.

ותלך בשדה, “she (the ass) walked in the field (instead of on the path).” Rashi’s comment on verse 26 based on Tanchuma that the angel showed Bileam a hint of the three founding fathers of the Jewish people, needs a super commentary. It appears to mean the following: the first time the angel positioned himself as an obstacle on the path, he did so that the ass could pass either to the right or to the left of him but could not proceed without making a detour, the choice that Avraham had given Lot (Genesis, 13,9). The sons of Avraham by Keturah and Hagar are viewed as partially his descendants, as they had a different mother than Sarah. In other words, Bileam would not be permitted to curse Yitzchak who was a descendant of both Avraham and Sarah. The second time the angel tried to obstruct the ass in a narrow passage in the vineyard, he did so in a manner that allowed the ass to squeeze by but painfully, this was a hint that even cursing Yitzchok’s descendants would be allowed only if he cursed Esau, not Yaakov and his descendants. The third obstruction, which forced the ass to lie down, as passage was blocked completely, was a hint to Bileam that on no account would he be permitted to curse any of the descendants of Yaakov and his twelve sons. This is what the angel showed Bileam, using the patriarchs as his symbol.

גם אותך הרגתי, “I would also have killed you.” Rashi considers this verse as having been truncated, as no reference was made to who would have been the angel’s first victim. I believe Rashi must be understood as follows: if we were to assume that he meant that the angel would have killed the ass first, this line would make perfect sense at this point. But, how are we then understand his adding in the same breath: “and her (the ass) I would have allowed to remain alive?” When we turn the verse around, as implied by Rashi, the meaning would be “not only would I have blocked your progress on this path, but if you had not taken the hint to turn around, I would have been forced to not only delay you but to also kill you in order to prevent you from getting to Balak.” In that event, I would not have needed to kill your ass. Once you had been dead, there would not have arisen the embarrassment of Bileam’s ass having been treated with more concern than its owner, as the dead cannot be embarrassed. However, thanks to the fact that even your ass talked to you and criticised you, this has saved your life as I did not want you to be considered as inferior to your beasts.

ואותה החייתי, “but I allowed her to remain alive.” From this wording it appears that Bileam’s two man servants had been killed by the angel as they have not been mentioned anymore.

ואפס את הדבר, “however, only the word, etc.;” (Bileam is warned that he will have to utter words against his will to do so). If these words refer to an earlier part of this chapter, as according to a different commentator, then we must assume that the angel had been sent as a warning, in order to frighten him.

וירא משם קצה העם, “from that point he was able to see part of the people.” Our author understands these words as meaning that he saw the entire nation from one end (קצה) of the camp to the other.