Numbers24:1–9

Where the English smooths the original

• וַיַּ֣רְא The verb is וַיַּרְא way·yar, the plain “and he saw” (root rā’āh) — but the object is a fact, not a sight: he perceived, K&D notes, that blessing pleased the LORD. The same verb opens v. 2 of literal seeing; the narrator deliberately reuses it.
• הָלַ֥ךְ Hebrew literally has וְלֹא־הָלַךְ “he did not walk / go” (root hālak); the BSB’s “did not seek” supplies a verb the Hebrew leaves as a bare motion — he did not go off as before.
• נְחָשִׁ֑ים נְחָשִׁים nəḥāšîm is “omens / auguries / enchantments,” from a root that also yields the word for serpent. “Omens” is good; the older versions’ “enchantments” over-loads it with sorcery the text does not require (so Benson, Pulpit).
• כְּפַֽעַם־ The doubled idiom כְּפַעַם בְּפַעַם “as time in time” — literally stroke after stroke (pa‘am = a beat, a footfall) — is smoothed to “as on previous occasions.” The Hebrew is a drumbeat: time after time after time.

Where the English smooths the original

• וַיִּשָּׂ֨א וַיִּשָּׂא עֵינָיו “and he lifted up his eyes” (root nāsā’, “to lift”) is a fixed Hebrew gesture-idiom; the BSB’s “looked up” drops the body. The very same verb nāsā’ opens v. 3 — “he lifted up an oracle” — binding the lifted eyes to the lifted speech.
• שֹׁכֵ֖ן שֹׁכֵן šōkēn is the participle “dwelling / abiding” (root šākan, the root behind miškān, “tabernacle,” and the later Shekinah). “Encamped” is fine but loses the resonance: Israel settled, at rest by tribes, as if already home.
• לִשְׁבָטָ֑יו לִשְׁבָטָיו “by his tribes / according to his tribes” — the camp in the ordered array of Numbers 2. The singular suffix (“his tribes”) treats Israel as one body with many members; “tribe by tribe” renders the orderliness but not the unity.
• וַתְּהִ֥י וַתְּהִי עָלָיו רוּחַ אֱלֹהִים — literally “and there came-to-be upon him the Spirit of God.” The verb is the plain hāyāh, “to be / come to be”; “came upon” is interpretive. The Hebrew simply says the Spirit was on him.

Where the English smooths the original

• מְשָׁל֖וֹ מָשָׁל māšāl is not just “oracle”: it is a pithy, weighty, figured saying — proverb, parable, taunt-song. The BSB’s “oracle” catches the solemnity but not the artistry; this is poetry meant to be remembered.
• נְאֻ֤ם נְאֻם nə’um, twice over, is the prophets’ technical word for a divine utterance — “thus saith,” normally nə’um YHWH. To put it in Balaam’s mouth (“utterance of Balaam”) is to claim, audaciously, the prophetic register. “Prophecy of” is right but flattens its formula-weight (Ellicott, K&D).
• הַגֶּ֖בֶר הַגֶּבֶר hag·geber is not the generic “man” (’ādām / ’îš) but geber — properly a strong man, a warrior. The seer styles himself a man of might. “Of a man” loses the boast.
• שְׁתֻ֥ם שְׁתֻם הָעָיִן šəṯum hā‘āyin is a celebrated crux — the word for the eye’s state occurs nowhere else. The BSB renders “open,” but the Vulgate, Geneva, and K&D read shut / closed (linking it to sāṯam). Strikingly, the meaning lands the same either way: the outer eye shut, the inner eye opened (so Pulpit).

Where the English smooths the original

• שֹׁמֵ֖עַ שֹׁמֵעַ אִמְרֵי־אֵל “hearer of the sayings of God” — the participle šōmēa‘ (root šāmaʻ, “to hear with attention/obedience”). The BSB’s “one who hears the words of God” is faithful; note that ’ēl here is God as strength / the Strong One, not the generic deity.
• יֶֽחֱזֶ֔ה The verb is יֶחֱזֶה yeḥĕzeh (root ḥāzāh), “to gaze, to see in vision” — the seer’s technical verb, not ordinary rā’āh. With its cognate noun מַחֲזֵה maḥăzēh, “a vision,” the line is doubly the language of the visionary trance (cf. Genesis 15:1).
• שַׁדַּי֙ שַׁדַּי Šadday is a divine title, conventionally “the Almighty,” but its true sense is disputed (Cambridge: “in no sense a rendering of the word”). Rendering it “the Almighty” imports a certainty the Hebrew does not give; it is an ancient, mostly poetic name of God, frequent in Job.
• נֹפֵ֖ל נֹפֵל וּגְלוּי עֵינָיִם — literally “falling, and uncovered of eyes.” nōp̄ēl is the bare participle “falling”; the AV/BSB “falling into a trance” supplies “trance” (so Benson, Pulpit: “falling down”). And גְּלוּי gəlui, “uncovered / unveiled,” is a different word for “open” than v. 3’s šəṯum — here the plain word for revelation (Ellicott).

Where the English smooths the original

• טֹּ֥בוּ מַה־טֹּבוּ mah-ṭōbū is literally “how good they are!” — the verb is ṭōb, the very root pronounced “good in the eyes of YHWH” back in v. 1. The BSB’s “lovely” is warm but specializes it; the Hebrew word is plain, total good. What God called good, the hired curser must call good.
• אֹהָלֶ֖יךָ אֹהָלֶיךָ ’ōhāleḵā, “your tents” — the ordinary nomad dwelling, but paired in parallel with מִשְׁכְּנֹתֶיךָ miškənōṯeḵā, whose root šākan is the tabernacle-word. The couplet hovers between camp and sanctuary; English “tents / dwellings” cannot carry the holy overtone of the second.
• יַעֲקֹ֑ב The parallel יַעֲקֹב // יִשְׂרָאֵל, Jacob // Israel, is the standard poetic pairing of the supplanter’s name with the God-given name. The translation keeps both, rightly; the artistry is in the synonymous parallelism the prose-reader may miss.

Where the English smooths the original

• נִטָּ֔יוּ נִטָּיוּ niṭṭāyū (Niphal of nāṭāh) means “they are stretched / spread out,” not “spread out like palm groves.” The BSB has supplied “palm groves” where the Hebrew names no tree in this clause — the simile is to the wadis themselves.
• כִּנְחָלִ֣ים נְחָלִים nəḥālîm are “wadis / torrent-valleys,” not “palm groves.” The image (so K&D, Cambridge, Pulpit) is of well-watered glens stretching into the distance — the BSB’s “palm groves” is an interpretive guess that drops the water the whole verse is built on.
• כַּאֲהָלִים֙ אֲהָלִים ’ăhālîm are aloe / lign-aloe trees, an eastern fragrance-wood Balaam may have known from home — the same rare word as in Psalm 45:8; Proverbs 7:17; Song 4:14 (four verses total). “Aloes” is right; note the Cambridge caution that the tree was not native to Palestine.
• נָטַ֣ע יְהוָה נָטַע “YHWH has planted” (root nāṭaʻ) — these are not man’s nursery-stock but the LORD’s own planting (Poole, Pulpit, comparing Psalm 104:16). The BSB keeps it; the theological weight is that Israel’s flourishing is divine horticulture, not human cultivation.

Where the English smooths the original

• מִדָּ֣לְיָ֔ו דָּלְיָו dāləyāw is a dual — “his two buckets.” The image (Barnes, Pulpit) is a man carrying a yoke of two water-pails so full they overflow as he walks. “Buckets” loses the dual; this is one of only two verses in the canon to use the word (cf. Isaiah 40:15).
• וְיָרֹ֤ם וְיָרֹם wəyārōm is jussive — “and let his king be high / higher,” a wish, not a flat prediction (K&D: “his king be high”). The BSB’s indicative “will be greater” reads a desire as a forecast.
• מֵֽאֲגַג֙ אֲגַג ’Agag is read by most as the dynastic title of Amalek’s kings (like Pharaoh, Abimelech), not a single man — though some (Jarchi, Aben Ezra) hear the Agag whom Saul fought (1 Samuel 15). The name appears in only six verses; the link is real but its referent is debated. The Septuagint and Samaritan read Gog instead (Cambridge), a genuine textual uncertainty.
• מַלְכּ֔וֹ מַלְכּוֹ malkō, “his king,” paired with מַלְכֻתוֹ malḵuṯō, “his kingdom” — a deliberate sound-pair (king // kingdom). The commentators split sharply on whom the king is: God Himself as Israel’s ruler (Pulpit), the Davidic monarchy (K&D), or the Messiah (the Targum). The Hebrew leaves it open.

Where the English smooths the original

• מוֹצִיא֣וֹ אֵל מוֹצִיאוֹ מִמִּצְרַיִם — ’ēl is God-as-strength, and mōṣî’ō is a participle, “is bringing him out,” ongoing. The whole clause is repeated verbatim from Numbers 23:22 (the second oracle): the deliverance is not past-and-done but the standing fact of Israel’s power.
• כְּתוֹעֲפֹ֥ת כְּתוֹעֲפֹת רְאֵם is hard: tô‘ăp̄ōṯ (a rare plural, four verses total) means something like “eminences / pre-eminent strength,” taken by the AV/Geneva as the horns of the רְאֵם rə’ēm — the wild ox, not the mythical “unicorn” of older versions. The BSB’s “strength like a wild ox” is a fair compression of an obscure phrase.
• יְגָרֵ֖ם יְגָרֵם yəgārēm is a denominative Piel from gerem, “bone” — literally “he will bone them,” i.e. crush/gnaw the bones (Poole: “unbone… eat the flesh to the very bones, and then break them”). “Crush their bones” captures it; the verb is graphic and rare (three verses).
• וְחִצָּ֥יו וְחִצָּיו יִמְחָץ is famously ambiguous. The BSB takes it “pierce them with arrows,” but the singular suffix on חִצָּיו (“his arrows”) leads K&D and Pulpit to read instead “he shall dash to pieces” the foes — arrows standing for weapons in general. The exact construal is unsettled.

Where the English smooths the original

• כָּרַ֨ע כָּרַע שָׁכַב kāraʻ šāḵaḇ — two bare perfects, “he crouched, he lay down,” with no “and” between them: the staccato of an animal settling. This couplet is lifted almost verbatim from Jacob’s blessing of Judah (Genesis 49:9), the rarest verbal thread in the unit.
• וּכְלָבִ֖יא כַּאֲרִי וּכְלָבִיא pairs ’ărî (“lion”) with lābî’ — properly a lioness (so Ellicott, against the BSB’s em-dash “like a lioness” which is in fact correct here; older AV had “great lion”). The rare lābî’ (fourteen verses) is the lexeme that locks this verse to Genesis 49:9.
• יְקִימֶ֑נּוּ מִי יְקִימֶנּוּ “who shall rouse / raise him up?” — a rhetorical question expecting the answer no one. The verb is from qûm, “to rise”; to stir the resting lion is to dare death. “Who dares to rouse him?” renders the force well.
• מְבָרֲכֶ֣יךָ The closing couplet בָרוּךְ מְבָרֲכֶיךָ … אָרוּר וְאֹרְרֶיךָ is the patriarchal blessing-formula — bārak (“bless”) and ’ārar (“curse”) — spoken word-for-word over Jacob in Genesis 27:29 and rooted in Genesis 12:3. Balaam, hired to curse, ends by pronouncing the Abrahamic blessing on Israel and the curse on himself.