Commentaire sur Les Nombres 22:12

לא תלך עמהם THOU SHALT NOT GO WITH THEM — He said: If so, I will curse them in my own place. Whereupon God answered: לא תאור את העם THOU SHALT NOT CURSE THE PEOPLE. — He said to Him: If so, I will bless them. He replied to him: They do not need your blessing, כי ברוך הוא FOR THEY ARE ALREADY BLESSED. A parable! People say to the hornet: neither any of your honey nor any of your sting! (Midrash Tanchuma, Balak 6).

לא תלך עמהם. Even if you were not to curse the people they referred to you are not at liberty to go with them. The reason is that I do not want you to set your evil eye on these people even without uttering any words. (compare the expression נתן עיניו בו in B’rachot 58 In that instance the victim was reduced to a heap of bones.)

ויאמר אלוקים אל בלעם, "G'd said to Bileam, etc." Why did the Torah have to write אל בלעם? Why was it not sufficient for the Torah to write: ויאמר לו, or ויאמר אליו "He said to him?" Why did G'd have to say "do not go and do not curse?" Moreover, why did G"d have to give as the reason כי ברוך הוא, that Israel is already blessed? Our sages in the above-quoted Midrash write as follows: "In the event Bileam would say I will curse them from here, G'd added 'do not curse!' If Bileam were to say that in that event he would bless the Israelites, G'd told him not to bother as they were blessed already."

He said to Him “If so, I will curse them here.” Rashi is answering the question: Why is לא ["not go…not curse"] written twice? Let it write simply “Do not go with them to curse the people.” Furthermore, why did Hashem say to him “for they are blessed”? This might imply [merely] that he should go and curse the people in order to annul the blessings. Rashi answers that each one is a separate statement. Since he wanted to go, Hashem said to him, “Do not go”. And because he wanted to curse them where he was, Hashem said to him, “You shall not curse.” Finally when he asked to bless them, Hashem said, “For they are blessed” and thus they do not need your blessings. (Kitzur Mizrochi) You might ask: Since it says later that [Bil'am] only had the power to curse at the moment when Hashem is angry, and that Hashem was not angry for all of those days, why did He not give him permission to go? Then, even if he had cursed them it would not have been effective. It appears to me that Hashem knew that Yisroel were destined to be smitten on account of [the service of] Pe'or. Thus if he had gone and cursed them, people would have said that they died because of the curses of this evil man. Consequently, Hashem did not give permission for him curse, since it was not his curse that caused their deaths, but rather their sin. He also did not want [Bil'am] to bless them because He had already promised the Patriarchs that He would do good to Yisroel. [Hashem did not want] people to say that it was through Bil’am’s blessings that [Yisroel] were blessed with all this good.

V. 12. לא תאר וגו׳. Gehe nicht mit ihnen, denn du wirst den Zweck deiner Reise nicht ausführen. Du wirst diesem Volke nicht fluchen; selbst wenn du es wolltest, werde ich es verhindern; denn es ist gesegnet, das, was dieses Volk zum Volke macht, ist eben das, dem ich die ganze Förderung meiner Waltung zugesagt. Ihm soll selbst in der Vorstellung der Völker nicht der Fluch, sondern der Gottessegen bestimmt sein. Wäre Bileam ein Prophet der Wahrheit gewesen, hätte er wahrheitsgetreu Balaks Gesandten diesen Gottesausspruch mitgeteilt, es wäre ohne die ganze folgende Veranstaltung die Absicht der göttlichen Intervention erreicht gewesen. Es hätte Balak, es hätte Moab und Midjan Veranlassung gefunden, statt die Eroberungsmacht dieses Volkes zu fürchten, das ihm innewohnende sittliche Moment, dem Gott seinen Segen zugesagt, kennen zu lernen und sich mit ihm zu ihrem Heile zu befreunden. Allein

Do not go with them. For they are traveling on the king's road and Bil'am will be able to set his eyes upon them [Yisroel]. This is the main inference we should understand from Hashem's words, with them. However, He did not completely prevent Bil'am from traveling to Balak.

לא תאור את העם, ”do not curse the people.” G-d was well aware of the plague that would strike many Israelites who would worship Baal Peor, as a result of Bileam’s advice to seduce the Israelites by becoming sexually licentious. G-d did not want that plague to be attributed to Bileam’s curse.

I believe we have to explain the verse in accordance with what I have written about G'd asking why Bileam had honoured these people to let them sleep in the same room with him. Bileam had explained that these people were emissaries of a very exalted personage, Balak, etc. G'd now answered Bileam in the order in which Bileam had answered G'd's first question. As far as Bileam having explained the nature of these emissaries, G'd said: "do not go with them," i.e. they are not of the calibre that you should go with them. G'd informed Bileam that Balak had insulted him by sending such low-ranking emissaries. Bileam had failed to understand at the time when G'd asked him "who are these men?" G'd had meant: "are these people sufficiently high-ranking to bring you on such an errand?" Now Bileam understood G'd's meaning and he told the emissaries that G'd had refused to allow him to go with them, i.e. it was up to Balak to send higher ranking emissaries.

You shall not curse. Abstain from [using] the evil eye.

The reason that G'd related with so much concern for Bileam's dignity may not only have had to do with his standing as a prophet amongst the Gentiles, but may have reflected G'd's desire to reward him for telling the emissaries at the outset that his decision would hinge on whether G'd would permit him to go with them. We know that G'd does not withhold the reward due to any individual, even the reward due to Gentiles. It is illuminating to read how Sanhedrin 96 describes G'd rewarding Nebuchadnezzar who was a scribe of king Merodach of the Babylonians at the time for recalling a letter addressed to King Chiskiyah in which the king Merodach had blessed king Chiskiyah before blessing G'd. When Nebuchadnezzar found out about this error he chased after the courier and recalled the latter to have it changed. Nebuchadnezzar, a servant with no claim to the throne, later on became king. In this instance too, G'd repaid Bileam for honouring Him in the eyes of Balak's emissaries when He said to Bileam: "do not go with them." When we keep this in mind we can also understand why the Torah wrote "G'd said to Bileam," instead of "to him." The Torah meant that G'd honoured Bileam by advising him not to go with such low ranking emissaries. Bileam deserved to be addressed by name. Even if the mission itself would have been approved by G'd, it was below Bileam's dignity to respond to the pleas of such emissaries.

When G'd told Bileam לא תאור "do not curse," using the term for curse used by Balak instead of that which Bileam had pretended to quote, He made it plain to Bileam that He could not be fooled, that He was well aware of exactly what Balak's message to Bileam had been.

When G'd added: "for it is blessed," He wanted Bileam to understand that the reason for telling him "do not go," and "do not curse," were not the same, i.e. that they were both on account of Bileam's dignity. Bileam was not to assume that if only Balak would send higher ranking emissaries he would be allowed to go with them and curse the Jewish people. G'd added that the Jewish people were blessed, i.e. that even if Balak had sent emissaries of much higher rank Bileam would never be allowed to curse this people.

There is another way of explaining our verse; based on the fact that after all G'd knew that Bileam wanted to do evil and that eventually he would accompany Balak's emissaries. Inasmuch as G'd does not prevent man from exercising his choice, He eventually agreed for Bileam to go, allowing him to travel. I will explain the reason for this in due course. To this end G'd first told Bileam לא תלך עםהם, "you must not go with them," i.e. He forbade Bileam to travel. Had G'd only said "you must not go," He would not have left Himself an opportunity to say later on that Bileam could go, albeit subject to certain restrictions.

G'd was careful to add the words אל בלעם, "to Bileam," to hint to him why He forbade him to go. This was because Bileam wanted to do "his own thing," i.e. he wanted to go in order to curse the people. The next time, when G'd allowed Bileam to go, He did so in order for Bileam to do "G'd's thing", i.e. for Bileam to bless the people. The word עמהם suggests that he would make common cause with the emissaries. This is what G'd forbade.

When G'd said לא תאור ..כי ברוך הוא, "do not curse..for it is blessed," He wanted to counter Bileam's argument that inasmuch as the time had not come for Israel to occupy the lands of Ammon and Moav there was no harm in cursing the people at this time. G'd told Bileam not to curse the Jewish people at any time. As to Bileam's argument that the Jewish people were not yet on a spiritual level allowing them to occupy the lands of Ammon and Moav, G'd said that nonetheless ברוך הוא, they are blessed and must not be cursed. The term ברוך is only applied to the righteous seeing that righteousness is at the root of all blessing. G'd warned Bileam not to suspect that the reason why the Israelites had not yet been given the lands of Ammon and Moav was that they were guilty of wickedness. G'd chose to equate a righteous person or nation with a blessed person or nation, respectively.