Commentary for Numbers 24:8

אל מוציאו ממצרים GOD WHO BROUGHT THEM OUT OF EGYPT — Who was the cause of all this greatness? God who brought them out from Egypt; by his strength and his sublimity HE EATS UP (יאכל) THE NATIONS (גוים) who are (צריו) HIS ADVERSARIES.

יאכל גויים צריו, a promise that will be fulfilled in the distant future. Moses repeats this in Deuteronomy 32,43 ונקם ישיב לצריו, “G’d will take vengeance on their oppressors.”

א־ל מוציאו ממצרים, "The G'd who has taken them out from Egypt, etc." We approach this on the basis of the tradition that when the Israelites left Egypt they had isolated all the sparks of sanctity which had been trapped inside Egypt by the forces of the קליפה, spiritually negative forces. We have explained already that holiness possesses the power to seek out and identify its branches (which had been lost temporarily). When Bileam speaks about מוציאו…כתועפות ראם לו, the subject is the Jewish people. [The word א־ל then is not to be translated as plain "G'd," but as "the divine power possessed by Israel." Ed.] These Israeliteshad taken out the sparks of sanctity previously trapped inside of Egypt by dint of their own holiness. The words: "he consumes nations which are its enemies" refer to the process which liberates the sparks of sanctity trapped inside the bodies of the pagans. These "sparks" will be absorbed by the collective "Soul" of the community of Israel. This is the mystical dimension of Proverbs 13,25: צדיק אכל לשבע נפשו, "The righteous eats in order to satisfy his soul" [as opposed to his body. Ed.]. ועצמותיהם יגרם, "and he crushes their bones." Bileam means that Israel crushes even the strongest parts of its opponents.