Literatura ng Ikalawang Templo sa Mga Bilang 23:19: On the Unchangeableness, On the Migration, On the Confusion & The Midrash

[53] Thus, in the laws which deal with commands and prohibitions (laws, that is, in the proper sense of the word), there stand forth above others two leading statements about the Cause, one that “God is not as a man” (Num. 23:19); the other that He is as a man.

Ibid. Leading statements. Or perhaps “principles.” Cf. 62. Philo can hardly have regarded Balaam’s words in Num. 23:19 as being part of the actual legislation. He thinks of them rather as summing up the ideas upon which the law is based. Thus, in a parallel use of the two texts in De Som. i. 237, they are called “the sole two ways of all the legislation.” Every command or prohibition appeals either to love or fear.

[113] Accordingly, that empty one, Balaam, though he sang loftiest hymns to God, among which is that most Divine of canticles “God is not as man” (Num. 23:19), and poured out a thousand eulogies on him whose eyes were open, even Israel, has been adjudged impious and accursed even by the wise lawgiver, and held to be an utterer not of blessings but of curses.