Commento su Numeri 24:9

כרע שכב כארי HE CROUCHED, HE LAY DOWN AS A LION — Understand this as the Targum does (“He will have rest, he will dwell in strength like a lion”), meaning, they will be settled in their land in strength and might.

מברכיך ברוך. We know that this was the case already in Avraham’s time. Even in exile, Avraham;s descendants will be of benefit to the nations who host these exiles. (compare Deuteronomy 30,9)

כרע שכב כארי, "He couched, he lay down like a lion, etc." Bileam extols the prowess of the Jewish people as being evident even when the nation is in repose, unarmed, etc. The nation relies on its reputation and does not fear attack even when lying down. The reason Bileam uses two different names for lions in this verse is once again in accordance with the way he divided the Jewish people into Jacob and Israel, i.e. into the average Israelite and the elite, respectively.

מברכיך ברוך “the ones who bless you, may they be blessed.” Although Bileam combines plural and singular in this verse, we encounter something similar in both Genesis 49,22 and Proverbs 28,1.

V. 9. כרע שכב וגו׳, und wenn es die Völker besiegt hat und seine friedliche Stellung in ihrer Mitte genommen hat, dann ruht es so Achtung gebietend, dass keiner es anzugreifen wagt.

מברכיך ברוך ואורריך ארור, “those who bless you will be blessed and those who curse you will be cursed.” Bileam ridicules people who wish to curse the Jewish people, as in so doing they only bring a curse upon themselves. The Torah had made this point already in Genesis 12,3, when G-d said so to Avraham when he set out to migrate to the land of Canaan. In addition, Yitzchok had passed on this blessing to his son Yaakov, when he said to him in Genesis 27,29: “those who curse you will themselves be cursed, whereas those who bless you will be blessed.”

מברכיך ברוך וארריך ארור, "the ones who bless you is blessed, those who curse you is cursed." Why are the respective subjects in this verse described in the plural whereas their respective victims or beneficiaries are described in the singular? The reason is simple. Bileam did not want to bless more than a single Jew. He used himself as a model; his well known avarice would not allow him to proliferate blessings. When he appears to have used the same approach in describing the people who curse the Israelites, he limited the negative fallout for people who curse the Israelites to a single one. In other words, although many may attempt to curse Israel only one of them will wind up cursed himself. Bileam used this stratagem so that he himself would not necessarily be included if he succeeded to curse the Israelites. Possibly, he had another evil intent here. When he said "those who bless you is blessed," he meant that the blessing should be fulfilled on the person doing the blessing who would remain blessed as a result of pronouncing it. He mentioned the second alternative, i.e. that those who curse Israel will be cursed only afterwards so as to ensure that he had already secured an enduring blessing for himself by having blessed Israel first. G'd made certain that Bileam's curse, i.e. his evil intent, boomeranged, so that he himself wound up accursed both in this world and in the hereafter (compare Sanhedrin 90 where we are told that Bileam forfeited his share in the hereafter).

מברכיך ברוך וגו׳. Er blickt noch einmal auf Israel hin und spricht das große Wort: מברכיך וגו׳, das größte, das einst Gott über Abraham bei seiner ersten Erwählung (Bereschit 12, 3) ausgesprochen und Jizchak in seinem Segen (daselbst 27, 29) wiederholt hatte. Hier wie in der zuletzt zitierten Stelle steht מברכיך und אורריך im Plural, das Prädikat ברוך und ארור im Singular. Es dürfte daher so zu fassen sein: alle diejenigen, die dich segnen, d. h. die dein Prinzip achten und durch Anschluss fördern, die sind das Gesegnete, d. h. sie sind dasjenige, das von Gott Segen und Gedeihen zu erwarten hat, sie sind dasjenige, dem überhaupt unter Gottes Waltung eine Zukunft winkt. Diejenigen aber, die dir fluchen, d. h. die dem durch dich im Menschenkreise zum Bewusstsein kommenden Prinzipe feind sind und ihm in dir den Untergang wünschen, ארור, die sind eben dasjenige, das selber den Fluch in sich trägt, dem überhaupt Gott den Untergang bestimmt hat, das keine Zukunft hat auf Gottes Erden.