to lift · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
parable
מְשָׁל֖וֹme.sha.Lo
H4912
properly · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
said
וַיֹּאמַ֑רvai.yo.Mar
H559
to say (used with great latitude) · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
Balaam
בִּלְעָם֙bil.'Am
H1109
Bilam · proper noun, a man's name
son
בְּנ֣וֹbe.No
H1121
a son (as a builder of the family name) · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
Beor
בְעֹ֔רve.'Or
H1160
Beor · proper noun, a man's name
said
נְאֻ֤םne.'Um
H5002
an oracle · noun, common masculine singular construct
man
הַגֶּ֖בֶרha.Ge.ver
H1397
properly · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
eyes
הָעָֽיִןha.'A.yin
H5869
an eye (literally or figuratively) · definite article + noun, common feminine singular absolute
open
שְׁתֻ֥םshe.Tum
H8365
to unveil (figuratively) · noun, common masculine singular construct
said
וּנְאֻ֥םu.ne.'Um
H5002
an oracle · conjunction + noun, common masculine singular construct
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
Numbers 23:7 And he took up his parable, and said, Balak the king of Moab hath brought me from Aram, out of the mountains of the east, saying, Come, curs…
Numbers 24:16 He hath said, which heard the words of God, and knew the knowledge of the most High, which saw the vision of the Almighty, falling into a tr…
Numbers 22:31 Then the LORD opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw the angel of the LORD standing in the way, and his sword drawn in his hand: and he bowed…
Numbers 23:18 And he took up his parable, and said, Rise up, Balak, and hear; hearken unto me, thou son of Zippor:
Numbers 24:4 He hath said, which heard the words of God, which saw the vision of the Almighty, falling into a trance, but having his eyes open:
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Numbers 24:1-9
The blessing itself which Balaam here pronounces upon Israel is much the same with the two we had in the foregoing chapter; but the introduction to it is different.
I. The method of proceeding here varies much in several instances. 1. Balaam laid aside the enchantments which he had hitherto depended on, used no spells, or charms, or magic arts, finding they did him no service; it was to no purpose to deal with the devil for a curse, when it was plain that God was determined immovably to bless, Num 24:1. Sooner or later God will convince men of their folly in seeking after lying vanities, which cannot profit. To what purpose should he seek for enchantment? He knew that God was out of the reac…
the man whose eyes are open--that is, a seer (Sa1 9:9), a prophet, to whom the visioned future was disclosed--sometimes when falling into a sleep (Gen 15:12-15), frequently into "a trance."
John Gill on Numbers 24:3
And he took up his parable,.... His parable of prophecy, as the Targums, his prophetic speech, which, with a loud voice, he expressed in the hearing of Balak and his nobles:
and said, Balaam the son of Beor hath said; the preface to his prophecy is pompous, and seems to be full of pride and vanity, and so the Targums of Jonathan and Jerusalem represent him;"the man who is more excellent than his father hath said, to whom hidden secrets, even what was hidden from the prophets is revealed to him;''and the Jews have a saying (t) that he that has an evil eye, a haughty spirit, and a large soul, or is covetous, is one of the disciples of Balaam the wicked:
and the man whose eyes are open hath s…
And the man whose eyes are open, [166] hath said. This preface has no other object than to prove that he is a true prophet of God, and that he has received the blessing, which he pronounces, from divine revelation; and indeed his boast was true as regarded this special act, though it might be the case that pride and ambition impelled him thus to vaunt. It is, however, probable that he prefaced his prophecy in this way by the inspiration of the Spirit, in order to demand more credit for what he said. From a consideration of this purpose we may the better gather the meaning of his words. Balaam dignifies himself with titles, by which he may claim for himself the prophetic office; whatever, the…
The Church Fathers
But let us now see what things Balaam declares in the third prophecy. "Balaam the son of Beor has spoken," he says, "the man who truly sees has spoken, he has spoken who hears the words of the Mighty One, who saw the vision of God in sleep, his eyes uncovered." It is truly astonishing how Balaam is held worthy of such great praise, who, having taken up his parable, pronounces these things about himself. For how Balaam should be a man who truly sees—he who devoted himself to divination and auguries, who also pursued magic, as we showed above—is very astonishing, unless perhaps, on account of what was said above, namely that the Spirit of God came to be in him and that the word of God was placed in his mouth, these such great proclamations are thought to have been written concerning him. For neither Moses nor any other of the prophets will easily be found exalted with such great praises. Hence these things seem to me rather to fit that people at the time when, now converted to the Lord, it laid aside the veil which was over its heart—"and the Lord is a Spirit." Therefore, finally, he says: "his eyes uncovered," as of eyes that until now had been closed and now, through the Spirit of God which has come upon him, with the veil removed, are uncovered. Now, then, is when he truly sees and truly hears the words of the Mighty One and sees the vision of God in sleep—that is, those things which were designated at their appointed times in sleep to the prophet Daniel, he will see fulfilled; and those visions which were brought to him in sleep he sees, that is, he understands and recognizes, with his eyes uncovered. For he will be made like those who were saying: "But we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord." Yet I would wish to inquire what those eyes of his are which are said to be uncovered: lest perhaps they be the very ones which in other passages of Scripture, as we read in certain copies, are called "the eyes of the earth," and that which Paul calls the sense of the flesh, when he says of a certain man: "vainly puffed up by the sense of his flesh." Concerning these eyes I believe the serpent also spoke to Eve: "For God knew that on whatever day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened"; and a little after: "and they ate," he says, "and the eyes of both were…
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
Beor — A torch. (1.) The father of Bela, one of the kings of Edom (Gen. 36:32). (2.) The father of Balaam (Num. 22:5; 24:3, 15; 31:8). In 2 Pet. 2:15 he is called Bosor.
Parable — (Gr. parabole), a placing beside; a comparison; equivalent to the Heb. mashal, a similitude. In the Old Testament this is used to denote (1) a proverb (1 Sam. 10:12; 24:13; 2 Chr. 7:20), (2) a…
Balaam · A prophet — A prophet
Prophecy · Gift of, sometimes possessed by unconverted men — Gift of, sometimes possessed by unconverted men
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).
Num 24:3 and Num 24:4 contain the preface to the prophecy: "The divine saying of Balaam the son of Beor, the divine saying of the man with closed eye, the divine saying of the hearer of divine words, who sees the vision of the Almighty, falling down and with opened eyes." For the participial noun נאם the meaning divine saying (effatum, not inspiratum, Domini) is undoubtedly established by the expression יהוה נאם, which recurs in Num 14:28 and Gen 22:16, and is of constant use in the predictions of the prophets; and this applies even to the few passages where a human author is mentioned instead of Jehovah, such as Num 24:3, Num 24:4, and Num 24:15, Num 24:16; also Sa2 23:1; Pro 30:1; and Psa…
The third oracle contains another description of God’s plan to bless Israel.
Rashi on Numbers 24:3
בנו בער — The grammatical form בנו is exactly like that in (Psalms 114:8) “To a spring of (מעינו) water” (see Rashi on Numbers 23:18). But a Midrashic statement is: Both of them (Balak and Balaam) were superior to their fathers, for it states (Numbers 23:18): “Balak — his son was Zippor”, i.e. that his father (Zippor) was his son (his inferior) in respect to royalty, and Balaam was greater than his father in prophecy (because it states here, בלעם בנו בעור i.e. Balaam — his son was Beor): he was, so to speak, a Maneh, son of a Half-Maneh (Sanhedrin 105a, Midrash Tanchuma, Balak 13, cf. Taanit 28b).
שתום העין WITH THE PENETRATING EYE — his eye was bored out and had been extracted and its eye…
