Комментарий к Бамидбар 23:11

לקב אויבי לקחתיך, "I have taken (engaged) you in order to curse my enemies, etc." Balak was furious at the blessing; whereas it was true that Bileam had warned him that he was not free to say anything, he had understood this to mean that Bileam was not free to curse, and that in the event G'd would not agree to his curse he would keep his mouth shut. It had certainly not occurred to Balak that instead Bileam would bless the Israelites. Even though Bileam had added that he would have to say the words G'd would put in his mouth (22,38), Balak had understood this to mean that in the event G'd would allow Bileam to curse he would do so with abandon. It had never crossed Balak's mind that someone whom he had hired to do him some good by cursing his enemies could actually turn around and cause him damage by blessing them. The very least he would have expected Bileam to do in such a situation was to refrain from saying anything damaging to his employer. This is what Balak meant by the additional word לי, "to me."

והנה ברכת ברך. "and here you have blessed them altogether." We have to understand why the verb ברך is repeated here. We must also wonder why Balak gave Bileam a chance to complete his blessing of Israel and did not interrupt him as soon as he realised what was going on. He could have already clapped his hands at this stage, why did he wait until 24,10? The answer is that Balak was aware that Bileam wanted to trick G'd in order to ultimately curse the Israelites. He did this by lavishing extraordinary compliments on the Jewish people first in order to humiliate them later. When you examine the kind of blessing Bileam bestowed on the Israelites you will find that it actually contained elements of a curse as our sages in Yalkut Shimoni item 771 explain. This was the reason that Balak waited patiently expecting Bileam to get around to the curse. When he found out that Bileam had concluded his speech, he suddenly became aware that the blessings had not been a prelude to curses but were meant as blessings pure and simple. This is why he repeated the word ברך, i.e. the blessing was absolute, without ulterior motive.

It is also possible that what "floored" Balak was that he heard Bileam wishing for himself a future similar to that of an Israelite. As soon as he heard this he realised that Bileam's blessing did not originate from his lips but from the depth of his heart. This is why he used the verb ברך in the infinitive, i.e. with a full mouth. If one wants to be oneself like the people one addresses, one naturally blesses those people without restraint.