וַיִּשָּׂ֥א מְשָׁל֖וֹ וַיֹּאמַ֑ר נְאֻ֤ם בִּלְעָם֙ בְּנ֣וֹ בְעֹ֔ר וּנְאֻ֥ם הַגֶּ֖בֶר שְׁתֻ֥ם הָעָֽיִן׃
Et il proféra son oracle de la sorte: "Parole de Balaam, fils de Beor, parole de l’homme au lucide regard,
Rabbeinu Bahya
I wonder why the Torah bothered in this instance to tell us that while the Israelites were in the desert that one of them cursed the name of the Lord thus causing disrespect for G’d? Surely if all the Torah wanted was to teach us the penalty for such a blasphemer, all it had to write was a verse informing us (as it did anyway in verse 15) that anyone who curses the Lord employing His holy Name the tetragrammaton when doing so is guilty of being stoned to death? Even the Gentiles had been warned not to curse the Lord (compare Sanhedrin 56) seeing it is one of the seven commandments which is applicable to all of mankind. There certainly was no need to teach Israelites that this is a cardinal sin!
I suppose we must answer that the Torah hoped to achieve two objectives when not only spelling out this legislation here but illustrating it with a personal example so that we would remember this better. 1) The fact that this individual who was guilty of this sin is named is a compliment to the Jewish people, seeing that only one single person had been guilty of that sin during the forty years in the desert and even that person had been the son of an Egyptian father. 2) the story teaches the important principle that the only way to become guilty of this ultimate crime is to first pronounce the holy Name and then utter a curse upon it. This we derive from the wording of the Torah: ויקב בן האשה הישראלית את ה' ויקלל, “the son of the Israelite woman pronounced the name of the Lord and cursed it” (verse 11). The sequence in which the blasphemer acted made him liable to the death penalty. When someone means to bless the name of the Lord he has to do so in the reverse manner, i.e. first to concentrate on the individual letters of the tetragram and on their meaning and subsequently to pronounce the name (in the permissible formula). When done in such a manner one qualifies for the reward due to people who bless the Lord. There is an allusion to this sequence in Psalms 145,1, a psalm we recite several times a day, where David wrote ארוממך אלוקי המלך ואברכה שמך לעולם ועד, “I will extol You my G’d my King, and bless Your name forever and ever.” The reward for following this procedure perfectly is long or infinite life. David preceded the sages in Berachot 8 who directed that a person should make a point of not beginning to pray until he has walked a distance of the width of two entrances to the Synagogue. (He should take time to concentrate before commencing to say the words).
I suppose we must answer that the Torah hoped to achieve two objectives when not only spelling out this legislation here but illustrating it with a personal example so that we would remember this better. 1) The fact that this individual who was guilty of this sin is named is a compliment to the Jewish people, seeing that only one single person had been guilty of that sin during the forty years in the desert and even that person had been the son of an Egyptian father. 2) the story teaches the important principle that the only way to become guilty of this ultimate crime is to first pronounce the holy Name and then utter a curse upon it. This we derive from the wording of the Torah: ויקב בן האשה הישראלית את ה' ויקלל, “the son of the Israelite woman pronounced the name of the Lord and cursed it” (verse 11). The sequence in which the blasphemer acted made him liable to the death penalty. When someone means to bless the name of the Lord he has to do so in the reverse manner, i.e. first to concentrate on the individual letters of the tetragram and on their meaning and subsequently to pronounce the name (in the permissible formula). When done in such a manner one qualifies for the reward due to people who bless the Lord. There is an allusion to this sequence in Psalms 145,1, a psalm we recite several times a day, where David wrote ארוממך אלוקי המלך ואברכה שמך לעולם ועד, “I will extol You my G’d my King, and bless Your name forever and ever.” The reward for following this procedure perfectly is long or infinite life. David preceded the sages in Berachot 8 who directed that a person should make a point of not beginning to pray until he has walked a distance of the width of two entrances to the Synagogue. (He should take time to concentrate before commencing to say the words).