The donkey saw Yahweh’s angel, and she lay down under Balaam. Balaam’s anger burned, and he struck the donkey with his staff.
Yahweh opened the mouth of the donkey, and she said to Balaam, “What have I done to you, that you have struck me these three times?”
Balaam said to the donkey, “Because you have mocked me, I wish there were a sword in my hand, for now I would have killed you.”
The donkey said to Balaam, “Am I not your donkey, on which you have ridden all your life long until today? Was I ever in the habit of doing so to you?” He said, “No.”
Then Yahweh opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw Yahweh’s angel standing in the way, with his sword drawn in his hand; and he bowed his head, and fell on his face. Yahweh’s angel said to him, “Why have you struck your donkey these three times? Behold, I have come out as an adversary, because your way is perverse before me.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv27, 28, 30, 31, 32 Or, fell.
Or, fell.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv27, 28, 29, 32 Num 22:27 And when the ass saw the angel…
Num 22:27 And when the ass saw the angel of the LORD, she fell down under Balaam: and Balaam’s anger was kindled, and he smote the ass with a staff.
Ver. 27. She fell down under Balaam.] And so "condemned" her master’s "madness." {2Pe 2:16} Polybius in his history saith, Whereas man is held the wisest of all sublunary creatures, to me he seemeth the most foolish of all. For whereas other creatures, when they have once smarted, will come no more there, - as the fox returns not rashly to the snare, the wolf to the pitfall, the dog to the club, the horse to the hole where he hath been stalked, &c., - solus homo ab aevo ad aevum peccat fere in iisdem; man only falls into the same offence and mischief from day to day, and will not be warned till he be utterly ruined, as it befell Balaam.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv28, 29, 31, 32 The Lord conferred upon the ass the power of…
i.e.
The Lord conferred upon the ass the power of speech and reasoning for that time. Impudent are those heathens that disbelieve and scoff at the Scripture for this and some such relations contained in it, when there are examples of the same kind of prodigies, to wit, of oxen and other brute creatures speaking some few words, in the greatest and most approved writers of the Roman history as Plutarch, Polybius, Livy, an others. See the particulars in my Latin Synopsis on this place. Not included
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv27–32 And the ass said unto Balaam,.... Made a reply…
And the ass said unto Balaam,.... Made a reply to him, as if it understood what he said, and had the faculty of reasoning and discoursing, as well as of speaking, which is very amazing:
am not I thine ass, upon which thou hast ridden ever since I was thine unto this day? or rather, "ever since thou wast"; not ever since he was in being, but ever since he could ride, so Aben Ezra; according to which, it seems that this was the first he rode upon, and which he had always been used to; hence the Targums of Jonathan and Jerusalem paraphrase it,"upon which thou hast rode from thy youth unto this day;''and be it that Balaam was a man pretty well advanced in years, an ass is a creature that lives a long time: Pliny says (r) it lives thirty years; and an Arabic writer (s) makes mention of an ass that the owner of it rode on forty years:
Read full note →
was I ever wont to do so unto thee? to start out of the way, or lie down with him, could anyone instance be given of it? suggesting that she was a sure footed creature, and had always carefully and safely carried him, for which it appeals to him:
and he said, nay; she had never been used to serve him in such a manner as she had now, and therefore he might have concluded that something more than ordinary was the matter; and it is much his conscience had not accused him that he was wrong in coming with the princes, taking the alarm from these circumstances, had he not been an hardened creature, or, at least, had he not been so eagerly bent on riches and honour.
(r) Nat. Hist. l. 8. c. 43. (s) Algiahid in Damir. apud Bochart, ut supra, (Hierozoic. par. 1. l. 2. c. 14.) col. 195.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv28, 29, 31, 32 Opened the mouth - Conferred upon her the power…
Opened the mouth - Conferred upon her the power of speech and reasoning for that time.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On v28 Verse 28. The Lord opened the mouth of the…
Verse 28. The Lord opened the mouth of the ass] And where is the wonder of all this? If the ass had opened her own mouth, and reproved the rash prophet, we might well be astonished; but when God opens the mouth, an ass can speak as well as a man. It is worthy of remark here, that Balaam testifies no surprise at this miracle, because he saw it was the Lord's doing. Of animate and inanimate things receiving for a short time the gift of speech, the heathen mythology furnishes many fictitious examples, with which I do not deem it proper to occupy the reader's time.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv28, 31 Num 22:28-29. Opened the mouth — Conferred upon her…
Num 22:28-29. Opened the mouth — Conferred upon her the power of speech and reasoning for that time. Balaam said — Balaam was not much terrified with the ass’s speaking, because perhaps he was accustomed to converse with evil spirits, who appeared to him and discoursed with him in the shape of different creatures. Or, perhaps, he was so blinded by passion that he did not consider the strangeness of the thing.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv28, 32 And the Lord opened the mouth of the ass…
And the Lord opened the mouth of the ass - The account was perhaps given by Balaam to the Israelites after his capture in the war against Midian. Compare Num 31:8. That which is here recorded was apparently perceived by him alone among human witnesses. God may have brought it about that sounds uttered by the creature after its kind became to the prophet’s intelligence as though it addressed him in rational speech. Indeed to an augur, priding himself on his skill in interpreting the cries and movements of animals, no more startling warning could be given than one so real as this, yet conveyed through the medium of his own art.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv28, 31 Opened the mouth, &c. The angel moved the tongue…
Opened the mouth, &c. The angel moved the tongue of the ass, to utter these speeches, to rebuke, by the mouth of a brute beast, the brutal fury and folly of Balaam. (Challoner) --- St. Thomas Aquinas ([Summa Theologiae] ii. 2. q. 105) says, an angel spoke by the mouth of the ass, in like manner as the devil did by that of the serpent, Genesis iii. Infidels deride this miracle, and some have thought that it was only in the imagination of Balaam, that this dialogue was formed. (Maimonides) --- St. Gregory of Nyssa, seems to think that the ass only brayed as usual, and that the soothsayer, being accustomed to augur from the voice of animals, understood its meaning. But St. Peter says, the dumb beast....speaking with man’s voice, forbade the folly of the prophet, 2 Peter ii. 16. God did not endue it with understanding on this occasion, but only formed, by its mouth, such sounds as might serve to repress the cruel folly of Balaam. But he was more stupid than the ass. "Being accustomed, it seems, to such prodigies," (monstris) and intent upon lucre, he paid no further regard to such a wonderful transaction, but held conversation with his ass, without any emotion. (St. Augustine, q. 48, 50.) (Calmet) --- The pagan historians relate many instances of beasts and trees speaking; (Grotius) so that they object to this history, and to that of the serpent, with a very bad grace, as St. Cyril remarks, in his third book against Julian. (Haydock) --- They relate that the ass of Bacchus spoke to him, and the horse and elephant of Achilles and Porus addressed their respective masters, while the oaks of Dodona were famous for their oracles. (Calmet) --- The river Causus said, "Hail, Pythagoras." (Porphyrius, cited by St. Cyril, &c.) (Haydock)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On v28 the Lord opened the mouth of the ass--to utter,…
the Lord opened the mouth of the ass--to utter, like a parrot, articulate sounds, without understanding them. That this was a visionary scene is a notion which seems inadmissible, because of the improbability of a vision being described as an actual occurrence in the middle of a plain history. Besides, the opening of the ass's mouth must have been an external act, and that, with the manifest tenor of Peter's language, strongly favors the literal view [Pe2 2:15-16]. The absence of any surprise at such a phenomenon on the part of Balaam may be accounted for by his mind being wholly engrossed with the prospect of gain, which produced "the madness of the prophet" [Pe2 2:16]. "It was a miracle, wrought to humble his proud heart, which had to be first subjected in the school of an ass before he was brought to attend to the voice of God speaking by the angel" [CALVIN].
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv27–32 27. Balaam’s anger was kindled — Although he was…
27. Balaam’s anger was kindled — Although he was saved from instant death by the falling down of the ass, (Num_22:33,) like all unbelievers restrained from the pit of woe by divine chastisements, he is enraged at the means of his own deliverance.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv28, 29, 30, 32 28. The miracle here recorded finds no parallel in…
28. The miracle here recorded finds no parallel in the O.T. except that of the serpent who spoke to Eve (Gen_3:1; Gen_3:4 f.). But similar instances are to be found in the folklore of many nations (see Gray, p. 334). The speaking ass is to be considered not as a fable—in the sense in which the word is applied, for example, to Aesop’s Fables—but as a detail of a fabulous nature which attached itself, during the course of Israel’s early traditions, to a narrative which may have had a historical basis. With the modern knowledge, to which God has led us, of the gradual nature of His self-revelation to Israel, and of the many different stages of literary development which are represented in the O.T., we are not under the necessity either of believing that the ass actually spoke, or of explaining away the miracle in some rationalising manner, e.g. by supposing that Balaam had a vision. The permanent spiritual value of the story lies in its representation of the strivings of conscience.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv28, 30, 32 (28) And the Lord opened the mouth of the…
(28) And the Lord opened the mouth of the ass.—Many critics, who admit the miraculous character of the events recorded in this and the following verses, maintain the subjective character of some of the incidents, and they adduce arguments to show that, whilst the same results might have been brought about in either manner, it is more in accordance with the general analogy of Scripture to assign a subjective than an objective interpretation to the language which is here employed. The following remarks may be made in regard to this interpretation:—(1) Consistency requires that the whole of the narrative should be interpreted either objectively or subjectively; and hence, that if the voice of the ass be interpreted as a subjective impression made upon the mind of Balaam, the appearance of the angel must be understood in the same manner. In this case, however, a difficulty arises which is as great, or greater, than that which the subjective theory is thought to remove. If the appearance of the angel to Balaam was subjective, the appearance must have been subjective also to the ass. In this case, moreover, it may be fairly alleged that if the line which divides the intelligent from the brute creation is transgressed by ascribing articulate speech to the ass, much more is that line transgressed by the supposition that an impression was produced in a subjective manner upon the mind of the ass. But (2) the real question at issue is not whether the recorded results might have been accomplished on the supposition that the incidents are to be explained subjectively, but what is the interpretation which the narrative itself suggests, and which the words of St. Peter (2Pe_2:16) require? In regard to the narrative itself, there is no intimation given that its respective portions are to be differently interpreted; nor is it possible, without doing violence to its obvious meaning, to interpret some parts of it objectively and other parts subjectively; whilst in regard to the testimony of St. Peter, it would be impossible to conceive of a statement couched in terms more directly suggestive of a literal fact than the following—“The dumb ass, speaking with man’s voice, forbad the madness of the prophet.” In regard to the objections which have been raised to the literal interpretation, grounded on the absence of any expression of surprise on the part of Balaam, and of any allusion to the effect produced upon the Moabitish princes and Balaam’s servants, it will suffice to observe (1) that here, as elsewhere, no just inference can be drawn from the silence of Scripture; and (2) that, as in the case of those who were with St. Paul as he went to Damascus, we have no means of determining, on the assumption of the presence of witnesses throughout the miraculous occurrences described, what amount of those occurrences they may have seen and heard. The angel was visible, in the first instance, only to the ass. In like manner the angel may have been visible only to Balaam, not to those who were with him. So also in regard to the voice: it may have been audible only to him to whom it was addressed.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv28, 29, 31, 32 And the Lord opened the mouth of the ass.…
And the Lord opened the mouth of the ass. On the face of it this expression would seem decisive that an audible human voice proceeded from the ass"s mouth, as St. Peter beyond doubt believed: upozugion afwnon en anyrwtou fwnh fyegxamenon . It is truly said, however, that a passing illusion of this kind, while it testifies that the Apostle understood the words, like all his contemporaries, in their most natural and simple sense, does not oblige us to hold the same view; if he was mistaken in this matter, it does not at all affect the inspired truth of his teaching. Two theories, therefore, have been proposed in order to avoid the difficulties of the ordinary belief, while vindicating the reality of the occurrence. It has been held by some that the whole affair took place in a trance, and resembled St. Peter"s vision of the sheet let down from heaven, (Act_10:10) which we rightly conceive to have been purely subjective. This is open to the obvious and apparently fatal objection that no hint is given of any state of trance or ecstasy, and that, on the contrary, the wording of the narrative as given to us is inconsistent with such a thing. In verse 31 Balaam"s eyes are said to have been opened so that he saw the angel; but to have the eyes open so that the (ordinarily) invisible became visible, and the (otherwise) inaudible became audible, was precisely the condition of which Balaam speaks (Num_24:3, Num_24:4) as that of trance. According to the narrative, therefore, Balaam was in an ecstasy, if at all, after the speaking of the ass, and not before. By others it has been put forward, somewhat confusedly, that although Balaam was in his ordinary senses, he did not really hear a human voice, but that the "cries" of the ass became intelligible to his mind; and it is noted that as an augur he had been accustomed to assign meanings to the cries of animals. If instead of "cries" we read "brayings," for the ass is endowed by nature with no other capacity of voice, being indeed one of the dumbest of "dumb" animals, we have the matter more fairly before us. To most people it would appear more incredible that the brayings of an ass should convey these rational questions to the mind of its rider than that the beast should have spoken outright with a man"s voice. It would indeed seem much more satisfactory to regard the story, if we cannot accept it as literally true, as a parable which Balaam wrote against himself, and which Moses simply incorporated in the narrative; we should at least preserve in this way the immense moral and spiritual value of the story, without the necessity of placing non-natural constructions upon its simple statements. Supposing the miracle to have really occurred, it must always be observed that the words put into the ass"s mouth do nothing more than express such feeling"s as a docile and intelligent animal of her kind would have actually felt. That domestic animals, and especially such as have been long in the service of man, feel surprise, indignation, and grief in the presence of injustice and ill-treatment is abundantly certain. In many well-authenticated eases they have done things in order to express these feelings which seemed as much beyond their "irrational" nature as if they had spoken. We constantly say of a dog or a horse that he can do everything but speak, and why should it seem incredible that God, who has given the dumb beast so close an approximation to human feeling and reason, should for once have given it human voice? With respect to Balaam"s companions, their presence need not cause any difficulty. The princes of Midian and Moab had probably gone on to announce the coming of Beldam; his servants would naturally follow him at some little distance, unless he summoned them to his side. It is very likely too that Balaam was wont to carry on conversations with himself, or with imaginary beings, as he rode along, and this circumstance would account for any sound of voices which reached the ears of others.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv28, 31 Then Yahweh opened the donkey's mouth so she could…
Then Yahweh opened the donkey's mouth so she could talk
Opening the mouth is associated with the ability to speak. AT: "Then Yahweh gave the donkey the ability to speak like a human would speak" (See: Metonymy)
Read full note →
She said to Balaam
"The donkey said to Balaam"
Am not I your donkey on which you have ridden all your life long to this present day?
This rhetorical question was used to convict Balaam that his judgment of the donkey was unfair. This can be translated as a statement. AT: "I am your donkey on which you have ridden all your life, right up to the present moment." (See: Rhetorical Question)
Have I ever been in the habit of doing such things to you before?
This rhetorical question was used to further convict Balaam that his judgment of the donkey was unfair. This can be translated as a statement. AT: "I have never been in the habit of doing such things to you!" (See: Rhetorical Question)
translationWords
life
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On v28 22:28-31 The only scriptural parallel to this phenomenon of…
22:28-31 The only scriptural parallel to this phenomenon of a talking animal is the serpent who spoke with Eve (Gen 3:1-5). God used the donkey to rebuke the foolish diviner (2 Pet 2:15-16).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.