Essay do Liczb 22:44

Faced with overwhelming evidence of Israelite superiority, especially as evinced in the previous chapter, the Moabite king Balak tries to vanquish the invaders via a means more powerful than force of arms: a sorcerer’s curse. The first part of the story is memorable in its vivid characterization, use of theme words, and comic thrust. The central personalities have suggestive names: Balak sounds like a verb that means “to destroy,” Bil’am suggests “swallower” (hence destroyer), and Be’or, present only as the name of the sorcerer’s father, also connotes “destroying.” The text uses two different words for “curse,” soon to be joined by a third. The chapter introduces key themes of the story: “honor,” which Bil’am will refuse in the overwhelming face of God’s truth; “once again,” through which it becomes clear that, for God, “once [refusal of permission for Bil’am to go] is once-and-for-all,” and God’s blessing, once given, will not be rescinded (Rosenzweig 1994); and the emphatic refrain that, as noted above, in one form or another will echo throughout the story, “whatever God tells me, that (alone) must I speak/do.” Most memorable, of course, is the sequence about the talking donkey, which must have been more than a little amusing to ancient audiences. For here we have a dumb animal who sees divine messengers and possesses the divine gift of speech, contrasting with a prophet—who in Israelite thinking was supposed to be distinguished by his abilities as “seer” and mouthpiece of God—who sees nothing and raises his voice only to complain.