(Numb. 23:7:) SO HE TOOK UP HIS THEME AND SAID: IT IS FROM ARAM THAT BALAK HAS BROUGHT ME, THE KING OF MOAB FROM THE HILLS OF THE EAST. I was one of the exalted ones,⁵⁹ The midrash links this word with ARAM in Numb. 23:7. but Balak has brought me down to the pit of corruption.⁶⁰

footnotes: ⁵⁹ Ramim. ⁶⁰ Numb. R. 20:19; also above, Lev. 5:1 and the notes there.

(ibid.:) BROUGHT ME (yanheni, rt.: NHH) is to be understood just as you say (in Ezek. 32:18): BRING (rt.: NHH) THE MASSES OF EGYPT AND CAST THEM DOWN … UNTO THE LOWEST PART OF THE NETHERWORLD ALONG WITH THOSE WHO GO DOWN TO THE PIT.⁶¹) Balaam down to the grave. The unusual biblical translation is necessary to fit the sense of the midrash.

footnotes: ⁶¹ Thus Numb. 23:7 comes to mean that Balak BROUGHT (rt.: NHH

Another interpretation (of Numb. 23:7): FROM ARAM. I was with the highest (ram) of the high, and Balak has brought me down from my glory. The matter is comparable to one who was walking with the king. When he saw some robbers,⁶² he left the king and toured along with the robbers. When he returned to be with the king, he said to him: Go with whomever you have toured with, because it not possible for you to walk again with me. Similarly Balaam had been bound to the Holy Spirit. When he paired himself with Balak, the Holy Spirit departed from him. So he returned to being a diviner as in the beginning. Thus it is stated (at his execution in Josh. 13:22): BALAAM [BEN BEOR] THE DIVINER. Therefore did he cry: I was high up (ram), and Balak brought me down.

footnotes: ⁶² Gk.: lestai.

Another interpretation (of Numb. 23:7): IT IS FROM ARAM THAT BALAK HAS BROUGHT ME. Balaam said to Balak: We are alike, even both of us, for being ungrateful, because were it not for our father Abraham, there would have been no Balak. Thus it is stated (in Gen. 19:29): AND IT CAME TO PASS THAT WHEN GOD DESTROYED THE CITIES OF THE PLAIN, GOD REMEMBERED ABRAHAM AND SENT LOT AWAY. Except for Abraham, he would not have delivered Lot from Sodom; and you are one of the children of the children of Lot.⁶³ Moreover, if it were not for their father Jacob, I should not have been present in the world, because Laban had sons only through the merit of Jacob, since it is written at the beginning (in Gen. 29:9): RACHEL CAME WITH THE SHEEP. Now if he had sons, how was his daughter a shepherdess? As soon as Jacob came there, sons were given to him, as stated (in Gen. 31:1): NOW HE HEARD THE THINGS THAT LABAN's SONS WERE SAYING.⁶⁴ (Gen. 30:27:) BUT LABAN SAID UNTO HIM … I HAVE LEARNED BY DIVINATION THAT THE LORD HAS BLESSED ME FOR YOUR SAKE. So if it were not for their ancestors, you and I would not have been present in the world.

footnotes: ⁶³ As a Moabite, Balak was descended from Moab, the son of Lot. See Gen. 19:37. ⁶⁴ Jewish tradition gives three views on Balaam’s relation to Laban: That he was Laban himself, that he was Laban’s nephew, and that he was Laban’s grandson. See Ginzberg, vol. III, p. 354; vol.. V, p. 303, n. 229; vol. VI, pp. 123f., nn. 722f.; p. 130, n. 764.

(Numb. 23:7, cont.:) COME, PLEASE,⁶⁵ The word is not found in the Masoretic Text. CURSE JACOB FOR ME. Whoever curses them (i.e., the children of Jacob) is cursing himself, since it is stated (in Gen. 12:3): AND THE ONE WHO CURSES YOU, I WILL CURSE. It also says (in Gen. 27:29): CURSED BE THOSE WHO CURSE YOU,⁶⁶ AND BLESSED BE THOSE WHO BLESS YOU.

footnotes: ⁶⁵ Na. ⁶⁶ See above, Gen. 6:16.

(Numb. 23:7:) COME, CURSE JACOB FOR ME. If you had told me to curse another people, for example, [the children of] Abraham and Isaac, I would have been able to do so. But Jacob? When a king selects a portion for himself, and someone else gets up and speaks disparagingly about it, will he keep his life? Now these people are his heritage, his portion, and his treasure. Thus it is stated (in Deut. 32:9): FOR THE LORD's SHARE IS HIS PEOPLE; JACOB THE PORTION OF HIS HERITAGE. (Exod. 19:5:) AND YOU SHALL BE MY TREASURE FROM AMONG ALL THE PEOPLES….

(Numb. 23:7, cont.:) AND COME, DENOUNCE ISRAEL. When a king takes a crown and puts it on his head, and someone says of it that it is nothing, will he keep his life? Now in regard to these people it is written about them (in Is. 49:3): ISRAEL, IN WHOM I WILL BE GLORIFIED.