민수기 23:5의 인용 해설

וירא בלעם כי טוב, Bileam realised that it was good in the eyes of G'd, etc. In view of the Midrash we quoted on 22,12 that G'd had told Bileam that he should neither curse the Israelites nor bless them seeing they were blessed already and had no need for his blessing, how could Bileam assume that it pleased G'd if he continued blessing this people? We must therefore understand Bileam differently. Up until now he had been forced to bless this people although initially G'd had told him not to bless them seeing they were blessed already. In view of his experience so far Bileam had found out that G'd had turned his intended curses into blessings. Seeing this was possible, Bileam now reasoned that G'd could also do the reverse, i.e. turn his voluntary blessings into curses. On the other hand, if we add what we explained on 23,5 that it had not really been Bileam who had pronounced the blessings but an angel using his mouth as the vehicle, Bileam now concluded that there was really no point in consulting all kinds of charms, etc. but that he might as well bow to the inevitable. ולא הלן כפעם, and he did not go as on previous occasions, etc. He concluded a) that there was no point in it, b) that the charms had proved ineffective anyway. He therefore decided to change his strategy and turned his face towards the desert, i.e. to examine how the Israelites had angered their G'd while they had travelled through the desert. He hoped to find something which would enable G'd to let him curse these people.

הנה ברו לקחתי, "Behold, I am bidden to bless, etc." According to our explanation of 23,5 that the word דבר there meant "a thing," i.e. that G'd inserted something inside Bileam's mouth which would insulate the Holy Spirit from Bileam's unworthy mouth, he referred to this when he said לקחתי. This "thing" must have been spiritual in the sense that it was abstract. This may be what the Yalkut Shimoni had in mind when the author called it a מלאך, an agent of G'd. The author of the Yalkut however, does not give the same reason that we gave but says that this מלאך was inserted in Bileam's mouth to prevent him from uttering a curse. Basically, what the Yalkut says and what we have said amounts to the same idea. When Bileam referred to this alien presence in his mouth as הנה, "a presence of some kind," he described this presence as the source of the blessings he was forced to utter. The repeat of the word ברך means that not only did G'd put the potential blessing in his mouth but He made him utter it. The whole verse is Bileam's attempt to show Balak that he acts under compulsion. He adds: ולא אשיבנו, "I cannot even retract it."