Chapter Twenty-Four

The third and fourth parables of Balaam concerning Israel. – A parable concerning Amalek. – A parable concerning the Kenites. – A parable concerning Assyria, Eber, and Kittim.

Numbers 24:1. Balaam saw that it pleased the Lord to bless Israel, and he did not go as he had gone the first and second time to seek omens, but he set his face toward the wilderness. Balaam became finally convinced that he could only bless the people of God, and therefore no longer withdraws from the altar to resolve his spiritual agitation.

Numbers 24:3. And he took up his discourse and said: Oracle of Balaam son of Beor, oracle of the man with eyes wide open, “With eyes wide open,” that is, with the gift of prophetic clear sight.

Numbers 24:4. Oracle of one who hears the words of God, who sees the vision of the Almighty, falling down with eyes uncovered: “Falling down but with eyes uncovered,” that is: although the prophet (by reason of human weakness) is subject to the possibility of moral falling and (in a state of prophetic ecstasy) to strong physical weakness – his mental eye does not cease to perceive the will of God.

Numbers 24:7. Water shall flow from his buckets, and his seed shall be like many waters; his king shall be higher than Agag, and his kingdom shall be exalted. Water is taken as a symbol of wealth and fertility, as an indispensable condition for abundant and rich vegetation. The name Agag (LXX: Gog; Slavonic: Gog) was, in all probability, a title of Amalek kings, just as the names: Abimelech – of the kings of Gerar; Pharaoh, Ptolemy – of the Egyptian; Caesar – of the Roman.

Numbers 24:17. I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near. A star shall come out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel; it strikes the princes of Moab and crushes all the sons of Sheth. Numbers 24:18. Edom shall be a possession, Seir shall also become a possession of his enemies; while Israel does valiantly. Numbers 24:19. One out of Jacob shall have dominion, and will destroy the survivors of the city. In the most immediate sense, reference is made partly to the power of Israel under its glorious earthly kings. In its full extent, the prophecy is referred by the Church to the times of the Messiah. The Church has appointed this prophecy as a patristic reading on the feast of the Nativity of Christ. According to one church hymn for this feast, “now from Jacob, as Balaam said, Christ is born; and the nations He rules, and His Kingdom shall be exalted by grace, abiding forever” (troparion, 5th ode of the canon for the Nativity). “The prophecies of the star-gazer magus Balaam are now being fulfilled,” it is said in another place, “for a star has shone forth from Jacob and has led the gift-bearing magi to the sun of glory, from Persia the kings” (troparion, 3rd ode of the canon for the Nativity).

Numbers 24:20. And he saw Amalek and pronounced his oracle, saying: Amalek was the first of the nations, but his latter end shall be utter destruction. The Amalekites (Gen 14:7) – an ancient Canaanite tribe that roamed between Egypt and Palestine (Exod 17; Num 13:30; 1 Sam 15:7). In them one can see the descendants of Amalek, one of the sons of Eliphaz, the firstborn of Esau by Adah (Gen 36:10). The military might of the Amalekites was finally crushed under David.

Numbers 24:21. And he saw the Kenites and pronounced his oracle, saying: Enduring is your dwelling place, and your nest is set in the cliff; The Kenites (Gen 15:19) – an ancient Canaanite tribe, who received their name (“ken” or “kin” – nest) perhaps from the auls or settlements they established for themselves in the mountains of the regions they inhabited (Vlastov). A part of the Kenites, through Moses’ relative Jethro, who is called a Kenite (Judg 1:16), became close to the Hebrews and settled in Palestine (Judg 1:16). A part became close to the Midianites and the Amalekites (1 Sam 15:5-7).

Numbers 24:22. But Cain shall be burned, and Asshur shall take you captive. The beginning of this verse is very different in the Greek-Slavonic text from the Hebrew-Russian, because the LXX understood the Hebrew qain in the sense of the common noun “nest,” and the verb “ebaer” in the sense of the proper name “Beor.” Either a raid by the Mesopotamian king Chusarsaph is meant (Judg 3:8), or the enslavement of the Israelites (and with them the Kenites) by the Assyrians.

Numbers 24:23. And he pronounced his oracle, saying: Alas, who shall live when God does this! The words “seeing Og” do not appear in the Hebrew text (as they are also absent in many manuscripts of the LXX according to Holmes). Balaam’s speech is addressed to Assyria, Eber, and Kittim.

Numbers 24:24. But ships shall come from Kittim and shall afflict Assyria and afflict Eber; and he also shall perish. “Ships shall come from Kittim and shall afflict Assyria.” By the name Kittim in the language of Holy Scripture are meant the islands and coasts of the Mediterranean Sea, located to the west of Palestine, such as: Macedonia, Greece, Italy, with their adjacent islands. In the first book of Maccabees, Alexander the Macedonian is presented as having come from the land of Hittim (Hettim, Kittim); according to the assurance of the Rabbis, Hittim and Macedonia are one and the same. Thus, the beginning of the enslavement of Assyria (a collective name for Asian monarchies) by Kittim can be seen in the conquests of Alexander the Macedonian (1 Macc 1:1). Subsequently, Greek hegemony in the East was replaced by Roman. “And shall afflict Eber”: there is meant the subjugation of the Hebrews to Greek and Roman dominion. “But he also shall perish.” The Greco-Roman empire (Kittim) in its turn fell under the blows of barbarous peoples.

Numbers 24:25. Then Balaam arose and went back to his place, and Balak went his own way. Balaam was not destined to return to his homeland. He was overtaken by death from the sword of the Hebrews, as divine retribution (Num 31:8) for the treacherous counsel given to Balak against the Israeli people (Num 25). * * * The LXX render the first half of verse 7 differently: a man shall come forth from his seed (Slavonic: “a man shall go forth from his seed”), so instead of the abstract concept “seed” of the original, they put the concrete concept of a person, in a distant sense – the Messiah.