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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Numbers 24:8 - 24:8
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In Num 24:8 and Num 24:9, Balaam proclaims still further: “God leads him out of Egypt; his strength is as that of a buffalo: he will devour nations his enemies, and crush their bones, and dash them in pieces with his arrows. He has encamped, he lies down like a lion, and like a lioness: who can drive him up? Blessed be they who bless thee, and cursed they who curse thee!” The fulness of power that dwelt in the people of Israel was apparent in the force and prowess with which their God brought them out of Egypt. This fact Balaam repeats from the previous saying (Num 23:22), for the purpose of linking on to it the still further announcement of the manner in which the power of the nation would show itself upon its foes in time to come. The words, “he will devour nations,” call up the image of a lion, which is employed in Num 24:9 to depict the indomitable heroic power of Israel, in words taken from Jacob's blessing in Gen 49:9. The Piel גֵּרֵם is a denom. verb from גֶּרֶם, with the meaning to destroy, crush the bones, like שֵׁרֵשׁ, to root out (cf. Ges. §52, 2; Ewald, §120, e.). הִצָּיו is not the object to יִמְחַץ; for מָחַץ, to dash to pieces, does not apply to arrows, which may be broken in pieces, but not dashed to pieces; and the singular suffix in חִצָּיו can only apply to the singular idea in the verse, i.e., to Israel, and not to its enemies, who are spoken of in the plural. Arrows are singled out as representing weapons in general.
(Note: The difficulty which many feel in connection with the word חִצָּיו cannot be removed by alterations of the text. The only possible conjecture חֲלָצָיו (his loins) is wrecked upon the singular suffix, for the dashing to pieces of the loins of Israel is not for a moment to be thought of. Knobel's proposal, viz., to read קָמָיו, has no support in Deu 33:11, and is much too violent to reckon upon any approval.)
Balaam closes this utterance, as he had done the previous one, with a quotation from Jacob's blessing, which he introduces to show to Balak, that, according to words addressed by Jehovah to the Israelites through their own tribe-father, they were to overcome their foes so thoroughly, that none of them should venture to rise up against them again. To this he also links on the words with which Isaac had transferred to Jacob in Gen 27:29 the blessing of Abraham in Gen 12:3, for the purpose of warning Balak to desist from his enmity against the chosen people of God.