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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Numbers 24:25 - 24:25
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At the close of this announcement Balaam and Balak departed from one another. “Balaam rose up, and went and turned towards his place” (i.e., set out on the way to his house); “and king Balak also went his way.” לִמְקֹמֹו יָשָׁב does not mean, “he returned to his place,” into his home beyond the Euphrates (equivalent to אֶל־מְקֹמֹו יָשָׁב), but merely “he turned towards his place” (both here and in Gen 18:33). That he really returned home, is not implied in the words themselves; and the question, whether he did so, must be determined from other circumstances. In the further course of the history, we learn that Balaam went to the Midianites, and advised them to seduce the Israelites to unfaithfulness to Jehovah, by tempting them to join in the worship of Peor (Num 31:16). He was still with them at the time when the Israelites engaged in the war of vengeance against that people, and was slain by the Israelites along with the five princes of Midian (Num 31:8; Jos 13:22). At the time when he fell into the hands of the Israelites, he no doubt made a full communication to the Israelitish general, or to Phinehas, who accompanied the army as priest, concerning his blessings and prophecies, probably in the hope of saving his life; though he failed to accomplish his end.
(Note: It is possible, however, as Hengstenberg imagines, that after Balaam's departure from Balak, he took his way into the camp of the Israelites, and there made known his prophecies to Moses or to the elders of Israel, in the hope of obtaining from them the reward which Balak had withheld, and that it was not till after his failure to obtain full satisfaction to his ambition and covetousness here, that he went to the Midianites, to avenge himself upon the Israelites, by the proposals that he made to them. The objections made by Kurtz to this conjecture are not strong enough to prove that it is inadmissible, though the possibility of the thing does not involve either its probability or its certainty.)