gods in the ordinary sense · noun, common masculine plural absolute
came
וַיָּבֹ֥אvai.ya.Vo'
H935
to go or come (in a wide variety of applications) · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
Balaam
בִּלְעָ֑םbil.'Am
H1109
Bilam · proper noun, a man's name
said
וַיֹּ֕אמֶרvai.Yo.mer
H559
to say (used with great latitude) · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
men
הָאֲנָשִׁ֥יםha.'a.na.Shim
H582
a man in general (singly or collectively) · definite article + noun, common masculine plural absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Genesis 20:3 But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night, and said to him, Behold, thou art but a dead man, for the woman which thou hast taken; for sh…
Numbers 22:20 And God came unto Balaam at night, and said unto him, If the men come to call thee, rise up, and go with them; but yet the word which I shal…
Genesis 3:9-11 And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?
Genesis 4:9 And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother’s keeper?
Genesis 16:8 And he said, Hagar, Sarai’s maid, whence camest thou? and whither wilt thou go? And she said, I flee from the face of my mistress Sarai.
Exodus 4:2 And the LORD said unto him, What is that in thine hand? And he said, A rod.
2 Kings 20:14-15 Then came Isaiah the prophet unto king Hezekiah, and said unto him, What said these men? and from whence came they unto thee? And Hezekiah s…
Daniel 4:31-32 While the word was in the king’s mouth, there fell a voice from heaven, saying, O king Nebuchadnezzar, to thee it is spoken; The kingdom is…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Numbers 22:1-14
The children of Israel have at length finished their wanderings in the wilderness, out of which they went up (Num 21:18), and are now encamped in the plains of Moab near Jordan, where they continued till they passed through Jordan under Joshua, after the death of Moses. Now we have here,
I. The fright which the Moabites were in upon the approach of Israel, Num 22:2-4. They needed not to fear any harm from them if they knew (and it is probable that Moses let them know) the orders God had given to Israel not to contend with the Moabites, nor to use any hostility against them, Deu 2:9. But, if they had any notice of this, they were jealous that it was but a sham, to make them secure, that they…
Lodge here this night, and I will bring you word again, as the Lord shall speak unto me, &c.--God usually revealed His will in visions and dreams; and Balaam's birth and residence in Mesopotamia, where the remains of patriarchal religion still lingered, account for his knowledge of the true God. His real character has long been a subject of discussion. Some, judging from his language, have thought him a saint; others, looking to his conduct, have described him as an irreligious charlatan; and a third class consider him a novice in the faith, who had a fear of God, but who had not acquired power over his passions [HENGSTENBERG].
John Gill on Numbers 22:9
And God came unto Balaam,.... In a dream very probably, as he did to Abimelech and Laban, Genesis 20:3,
and said, what men are these with thee? who lodged with him that night. This he said, not as ignorant who they were, or from whence they came, or what they came about; but in order to lead on to a discourse with Balaam, and to have from him the account of the men, and their business, and to try his fidelity in relating the affair.
John Calvin on Numbers 22:8-11
And he said unto them, Lodge here this night. Inasmuch as he waits for a revelation from the true God, it is probable that he was not a magician or sorcerer, whose only power to divine arose from superstition or evil arts. We shall, indeed, see hereafter, that he was accustomed to use many impostures and deceptions; but it will be plain, from the evidence of facts, that he was furnished with the gift of prophecy. Not that he is to be reckoned among the true prophets whom God set over His Church, because neither was the perpetual office of prophesying conferred upon him, nor was it conjoined with that of teaching. For those servants of His, to whom God intrusted the office of prophesying, He…
The Church Fathers
There are many things that remained over for us when we were expounding the reading about Balaam and his donkey; and since it is a discourse bound by time, held in the church for the sake of edification, it did not have space enough for us to set forth each single word of Scripture in such a way that nothing at all should be left undiscussed, and to apply an explanation to each point, since indeed a style of this kind belongs rather to commentaries. Therefore those matters that seem worthy of inquiry we take up again, and, discussing them, we shall attempt to treat them with what explanation we can and to bring them into the open. But there is a further difficulty in the explanation of the history itself, namely how, when it is said that God came by night to Balaam first and asked who the men were that had come to him, and Balaam had answered that they had been sent by Balak, the son of Zippor, saying, "Come, and curse for me the people," God answered him, "You shall not go with them, nor shall you curse the people; for it is blessed"; yet again a second time it is said that God came to him by night and told him to go with them, but to observe this, that the word which God should give in his mouth, this he should speak; and again a third time, as he was going, an angel of God met him, to whom his journey seemed so far from proper or fitting that he even wished to kill him, had not the donkey, seeing the angel whom Balaam could not see, turned aside. And nevertheless, after he is blamed by the angel for having wished to go, he is again permitted by that very angel to go; only that he should keep the word which God should give in his mouth, so as to bring forth this alone and nothing further. All these things, then, have a difficult explanation; yet, as we have already said above, we shall give you in a few words occasions of understanding, so that you too may do what is written: that when these things are heard the wise may become wiser, and, "Give occasion to the wise, and he will be wiser." But before we come to the matter, we shall not even omit this, which, attending rather curiously, we observed in this place. In the letters of the Hebrews the name of God, that is God or Lord, is said to be written differently; for one thing is written for any god whatever, and another for God himself, of whom it is said: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God, God is one."…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Moab — The seed of the father, or, according to others, the desirable land, the eldest son of Lot (Gen. 19:37), of incestuous birth. (2.) Used to denote the people of Moab (Num. 22:3-14; Judg. 3:30; 2 Sam.…
Desert, Journey Of Israel Through The · Balaam not permitted to curse Israel — Balaam not permitted to curse Israel
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
The rapid defeat of the two mighty kings of the Amorites filled the Moabites with such alarm at the irresistible might of Israel, that Balak their king, with the princes of Midian, sought to bring the powers of heathen magic to bear against the nation of God; and to this end he sent messengers with presents to Balaam, the celebrated soothsayer, in Mesopotamia, who had the reputation of being able both to bless and curse with great success, to entreat him to come, and so to weaken the Israelites with his magical curses, that he might be able to smite them, and drive them out of his land (Num 22:1-7). At first Balaam declined this invitation, in consequence of divine instructions (Num 22:8-14)…
God prohibited Balaam from going with Balak’s messengers.
Rashi on Numbers 22:9
מי האנשים האלה עמך WHO ARE THESE MEN WITH THEE? — By putting this question He intended to delude him. And indeed he (Balaam) thereupon said: “It seems, then, that there are times when everything is not manifest to Him; His knowledge is not always alike. I will select a time when I can curse and when He will not observe it” (Midrash Tanchuma, Balak 5).
