The Pulpit Commentary — Numbers — Section 329

of the righteous. '.{'he word "righteous" Ver. 16 -While I meet the Lord yonder. ill in the plural (i:l 171?;, 8,raiwv): it may refer Rather, "11.';1d I will go and meet thus." either to the Israelites as a holy nation, n~ MJR~ 1:;,)~l· Balaam does noteay whom living and dying in the favour of God ; or or what he is going to meet, but from the to the patriarchs, such as Abraham, the use of the same term in eh. xxiv. 1 it is promises made to "'hom, in faith of which evident that he employed the language of the? died, were already so gloriously fulfilled. soothsayers looking for auguries. He may If the former reference was intended, Balaam have spoken vaguely on purpose, because he must have had a much fuller and happier was in truth acting a part with Balak. b.,10wledge of "life and immortality" than Ver, 20.-I have received commandment the lsrn.elites themselves, to whom death to bless. The word "commandment" is not was dreadful, all the more that it ended a wanted here. Balaam had received, not in- life P':~tec_t_~d and ~l.ess~d by G_~~ (cf. e. g. strnctions, but an inward revelation of the Ps. lxxxnn. 10-12, Isa.. xxxviu. 18, 19). Divine will which he could not contravene. It is hnrdly credible that so singular en Ver. 21.-He hath not beheld iniquity in anticipation of purely Christian feeling should J'acob. The subject of this and the parallel really be found in the month of a prophet of clause is left indefinite. If it is God, accord- that day, for it is clear that the words, how- ing to the .A. V., then it means that God in ever much inspired, did express the actual hiB mercy shut his eyes to the evil which did emotion of Balaam at the moment. It is exist in individuals, and for his own sake therefore more consistent with the facts and would not impute it to the chosen nation. probabilities of the case to suppose that If it be impersonal, according to the Sep• Bale.am referred to righteous Abraham (cf. tuagint and the Targums, "one does not Isa. x.li. 2) and his immediate descendants, behold iniquity," &c., then it means that the and wished that when he came to die he iniquity was not flagrant, was not left to might have as sure a hope as they had en- gather head and volume until it brought joyed that God would bless and multiply down destrnction. Perverseness. Rather, their seed, and make their name to be glorious in the earth. Let my last end be like his. "suffering" ('It~· Septnagint, wovo,), the 1'1 1")0~ (last end) is the same word trans- natural consequence of sin. Compare the use of the two words in Pa. x:. 'l ; xc. 1O. lated "latter days" and "latter end" in The shout of a king is among them. The eh. xxiv. 14, 20. It means the last state of "shout" (MV.~11:l) is the jubilation of the a people or of a man as represented in his offspring ; the sense is not incorrectly ex- nation with which it acclaims its victor king pressed by the Septuagint, -,,vo,ro ro a,ripµa (cf. 1 Sam. iv. 6, 6). In Levit. xxiii. 24; JlOV Wf: rO cnripµa -roVrwv. Pa. xlvii. 5 it is used of the sounding of the Ver. 13.-Come . . unto another place. sacred tmmpets. Balak attributed the miscarriage of his enter- Ver. 22.-God. ',~, and also at the end prise thus far to something inanspicious in of the next verse, and four times in the uext the locality. Thou shalt see but the utmost chapter (vers. 4, 8, 16, 23). The use seems part of them. iilf\l'.l ~i1¥~ O~~- Both to be poetic, and no particular signification the meaning of the nouns and the tense of can be attached to it. :Brought them, or, the verb are disputed. By some "epMII perhaps, "is leading them." So the Sep• katsehu" (the end of the last of them) is held tnagint: 010, o1/;aya-,wv aurov. Unicom. equivalent to "the whole of them," which Hebrew, l:l~7- It is uniformly rendered see1m to contradict the next clause even if µovoripw, by the Septnagiut, under the mis- defensible in itself. The ordinary rendering taken notion that the rhinoceros was in- is favoured by the Septnagint (a>..X' i/ µipot tended. It is evident, however, from Deut. ,.. auroii o,/,Ei) and by the Targums. On the xxxiii. 17 and other passages that the reem other hand, some would read the verb in the had two horns, and that its horns were its present tense, and understand Bala.k's words most prominent feature. It would also to refer to the place they were leaving. This appear from Job xxxix:. 9-12 and Isa. n:xiv. is in accordance with the statement in eh. 7 that, while itself untameable, it was allied xxii. 41, and it would certainly seem as if to species employed in husbandry. The Balak and Balaam moved each time nearer rcem may therefore have been the anrochs to that encampment which was for different or urus, now extinct, but which formerly reasons the centre of attraction to them had so large a range in the forests of the old both. world. There is some doubt, however, Yer. 14..-The field of Zophim, i. e. of the whether the urus existed in those days in watchers. Probably a well-known outlook. Syria, and it may have been e. wild buffalo, To the top of Pisgah. They followed ap- or some kindred animal of the bovine genus, pare~tly ~n the track of their enemies (see whose size, fierceness, and length of ho111 on eh. x.xi. 20). mode it a wonder and a fear. ell'. nn. 41-xuv.J THE llOOlt OF NUMBERS. 816