פּירוש אויף במדבר 24:4

נפל וגלוי עינים FALLING BUT HAVING HIS EYES OPEN — Its plain sense is as the Targum has it (“lying down when it was revealed to him”), meaning, that God revealed Himself to him only at night when he was lying on his bed. — And a Midrashic explanation of it is: When He revealed Himself to him he had no strength to stand on his feet, and he, therefore, fell on his face — because he was uncircumcised and it was therefore a loathsome thing that He should reveal Himself to him whilst he stood in an erect posture before Him (cf. Tar. Jon. and Rashi on Genesis 17:3).

The utterance of one who hears the words of God and beholds a vision of the Almighty. Since every blind person is called in the language of our Sages “sagi nahor” [full of light], because the vision of the heart and ordinary eyesight diminish each other, and when one strengthens, the other weakens. Therefore, inner intellectual vision is greater among the blind because they are not distracted by physical sight. Similarly, some have the custom to close their eyes while reciting “Hear O Israel,” etc., in order to strengthen their heartfelt intention, so that their eyes are on a lower level while their heart is elevated to a higher level. Therefore, after his eye was blinded, he called himself one who beholds a vision of the Almighty, and said falling down because he is blind — with his eyes uncovered — which causes him to fall, yet his intellectual eyes are uncovered. And he called himself one who hears the words of God because the sense of sight also diminishes the sense of hearing, as a person cannot use these two senses as one, as we explained on the verse Behold, I am coming to you in a thick cloud (Exodus 19:9), meaning that you will not be able to see the Divine Presence, and He gave the reason: so that the people may hear — because through this the sense of hearing is strengthened, as explained in my work Ollelot Ephraim, discourse 215, see there.

אשר מחזה שדי יחזה, sometimes, when he was asleep in bed, and sometimes with his eyes open, i.e. גלוי עיניפ in daytime. At the time he was speaking these lines he was granted prophetic vision in full daylight. The word נופל means that the subject had no control over his body, compare Samuel I 31,8.