Midrash sur Les Nombres 22:24

And the children of Israel possessed themselves of the Sihon’s land, from Arnon unto Jabbok, ‎even unto the sons of Ammon, and the children of Israel dwelt in all the cities of the Amorites. ‎And the children of Israel decided to fight also against the sons of Ammon, but the Lord said ‎unto them: Do not besiege the sons of Ammon, neither provoke a battle with them, for I will ‎not give unto you aught of their land. Therefore did not the children of Israel fight against the ‎sons of Ammon, but they turned away from them and journeyed by way of Bashan towards ‎the land of Og, king of Bashan. And Og, the king of Bashan, went forth against the Israelites to ‎fight with them, and he had with him many mighty men, and a great army of the people of the ‎Amorites. And Og, the king of Bashan, was an exceedingly powerful man, but Naron, his son, ‎was even more powerful than he, and Og said within his heart: Behold all the camp of the ‎Israelites covers three Parsaoth, and now I will slay them all with one blow without sword or ‎spear. And Og ascended Mount Jahaz and took up a large stone, three Parsaoth in length, and ‎placed it upon his head and he intended to cast it upon the camp of the children of Israel, to ‎slay all the Israelites with that stone. But the angel of the Lord came and perforated the stone ‎from over his head and the stone fell upon the neck of Og, and Og fell to the ground through ‎the weight of the stone around his neck. And Moses went down to him with a few men of the ‎Israelites, and he smote Og upon his ankles with a stick and slew him. And afterwards the ‎children of Israel pursued the sons of Og and their people, and they smote them and ‎destroyed them, so that there was not left of them a remnant. Then Moses sent some of the ‎children of Israel to spy out Jaazer, for Jaazer was a very prominent city, and the spies ‎searched it, and they trusted in the Lord, and the spies fought against the people of Jaazer. ‎And these men took Jaazer and its suburbs, and the Lord delivered them into their hands, and ‎they drove away the Amorites that were there. Thus the children of Israel conquered the two ‎kings of the Amorites and their land, sixty cities on the other side of Jordan, from the brook of ‎Arnon even to Mount Hermon. And the children of Israel journeyed and they came unto the ‎plain of Moab, which is on the other side of Jordan near Jericho. And when the sons of Moab ‎heard of all the evil which the children of Israel had done unto the two kings of the Amorites, ‎to Sihon and Og, all the people of Moab were in great fear of the Israelites,‎

(Numb. 22:24:) THEN THE ANGEL OF THE LORD STOOD IN A LANE BETWEEN THE VINEYARDS. Could he not have gone after him into the field?³³Tanh., Numb. 7:8; Numb. R. 20:14. It is simply that this is the nature of the Holy One. When a king of flesh and blood sends an executioner³⁴Lat.: speculator (“examiner”). to kill a particular person, he goes after him for many days, so that this person who has incurred the penalty of death <continues> eating and drinking, while the executioner goes after him from place to place. With the Holy One, however, it is not like that. Rather the executioner is in his place and whoever has incurred the penalty of death comes to him of his own accord. So that the angel would not be bothered with going after Balaam, he simply went ahead of him on the road, for it is so written (ibid.): THEN THE ANGEL OF THE LORD STOOD IN A LANE BETWEEN THE VINEYARDS…. He said to him: Shall the vineyards (i.e., Israel) be sold among the foxes?³⁵Cf. the parallel texts. Tanh., Numb. 7:8, has “to the foxes”; and Numb. R. 20:14 has “like foxes.”

... [T]he Holy One has pity on the honor of the creatures/b’riyot (here meaning “people”) and knows their needs. And He shut the mouth of the beast/b’heimah, for if she would speak, they could not make her serve or stand up to her /bah, for [there was] this silent one from the animals (the ass) and this wise one from the sages (Bil`am) – [and] when she spoke he could not stand up to her.