Do you believe in the power of a sorcerer to affect a nation through curses?

Absolutely (at least in the past). Just as I believe in a prophet who foretells the future, or in miracles performed by the Holy One, blessed be He, or by various prophets, or in the wonders of Moses and the astrologers of Pharaoh.

In my opinion there is a difference between miracles that the Holy One, blessed be He, does on His own or in response to prayer, and a spiritual power possessed by a “sorcerer,” who can act without God’s will and to some degree even threaten Him.
That is already a belief in multiple powers, and even connects to polytheism.

Aharon,
A side note about the language.
From the little that has survived of the Moabite language, you can see that it is very close to Biblical Hebrew.
You can almost see it as a dialect of the same language.
If you try reading the Mesha Stele, you’ll understand almost everything. For example:
…For he saved me from all the kings and made me triumph over all my enemies.
Omri king of Israel oppressed Moab many days, because Chemosh was angry with his land.
And his son succeeded him, and he too said, “I will oppress Moab.” In my days he said so.
And I looked down on him and on his house. And Israel has utterly perished forever.
And Omri took possession of the land of Medeba…
And Chemosh said to me: “Go, seize Nebo from Israel.”
And I went by night and fought against it from the break of dawn until noon,
and I took it and killed all of it: seven thousand men and boys, and women and girls and pregnant women,
for I had devoted it to Ashtar-Chemosh…
(and so on. The vocalization and punctuation are of course not in the original, and the script is not Assyrian script either).

In biblical scholarship, Balaam’s blessings are indeed considered a document that was originally Moabite, on linguistic grounds. In that context, it is indeed possible that this is some processed quotation of an original source of Balaam’s words.

Thank you, M.

I was very glad you joined in; your expertise is well known.

What do you think about the other questions I raised?

I don’t have much to say on the subject that isn’t on the trivial level (and I don’t know Midianite. Though Balaam’s blessings certainly preserve an ancient formulation that was current as a prayer in the vernacular—and therefore also in wording). I have a friend who is writing a dissertation precisely on this passage and has proposed some novel ideas on the subject; I can check with him if needed.

As for magic—the biblical conception of “magic” is actually interesting and was very different from that of the ancient Near East, and many have already dealt with this.

Is it possible to get the dissertation?

With God’s help, 14 Tammuz 5780

Turning to Balaam to bless or curse assumes that his speech has an effect. But the portion teaches, contrary to Balak’s idolatrous conception, that a person’s speech is not a “decree” that the Holy One, blessed be He, is obligated to carry out, but rather a request to which God responds insofar as it is worthy in the Creator’s eyes. A human being has no ability to “reshape” his Creator’s will.

Balaam’s blessings were not said of his own will, nor were they in the category of prayer, but in the category of prophecy—a message delivered from the Creator to man. And when the Creator puts words in a person’s mouth—even an Aramean can speak in the holy tongue.

With blessings,
Shatz

See Rabbeinu Bahya, and especially Meshekh Hokhmah (for whom it was obvious that this could not be), who discuss how Balaam’s curse could possibly compel God to do anything.

And this is what the author of Sefer HaChinukh writes, in the roots of the commandment of the priestly blessing (commandment 378):

“Do not wonder and say: If God desires their blessing, let Him command the blessing with them, and there is no need for the priests’ blessing. For I have already told you many times that by the power and fitness of our deeds, blessing comes upon us, for His hand, blessed be He, is open to every petitioner when he is fit and prepared to receive the good. Therefore, since He chose us from all the nations and desired that we merit this goodness, He warned us and commanded us to prepare our deeds and ready our bodies through His commandments so that we should be worthy of the good. He also commanded us in His great goodness to ask Him for the blessing, and to request it through the pure ministers, for all this will be a merit for our souls, and through this we will merit His goodness.”

That is to say: blessing is a request for help and blessing from the Creator, the opposite of Balak’s idolatrous idea that blessing or curse are magical techniques by which man can control the higher realms.

With blessings,
Shatz:

I asked my aforementioned friend (whose work is still being written) to respond here.

Hi Aharon, I’m writing the dissertation in question. The issues are broad; please leave an email address here and I’ll send you a phone number so we can talk orally. If I start writing an answer here, it’ll never end.

Hello Oren

Attached:

orielcaspi@gmail.com

Thank you very much!

Hi Aharon, look at Abarbanel’s twenty-five difficulties on the portion and you’ll be delighted. But for now I’ll say:

About the effect of the curse:

There is no need to assume that Balaam really would have had an effect by means of his curse against Israel. But it could have spurred Moab to fight hard and served as psychological warfare against Israel. Balaam and Balak performed rituals on the hilltops right above Israel and offered sacrifices while the whole area knew that the great magician had arrived. This wasn’t a one- or two-day event. So in practice his curse could have come true. On the contrary, perhaps it actually did come true, since 24,000 died close to his appearance (from a plague—apparently caused by population mixing, as happened in similar cases: the ten spies when they returned from contact with the inhabitants of Canaan, and likewise David’s servants when they toured Israel for several months and got as far as the port city of Sidon, which was full of peoples and tourists—but that would take us too far afield). It seems that placing the story of the plague next to Balaam’s blessings is meant to say to Israel: while God seeks to bless you, you sin and bring death upon yourselves. It is not the external enemy that kills you, not sorcerers and diviners and not great armies—you are responsible for your own death, because of your fear of the enemy and your attempts at appeasement and conciliation with their daughters. Therefore the balance to this is the war of annihilation against Midian. That’s just a suggestion, and it requires further study (see the parallels: the word “Israel” appears 10 times in this short passage corresponding to 10 such appearances in Balaam’s blessings. The root q-b-h: “to curse my enemies”… “How can I curse whom God has not cursed”… etc., opposite “the tent-chamber”… “the man into his tent-chamber and the woman into her tent-chamber.” And of course the letters of romach, “spear,” are the same as rechem, “womb,” symbolizing the penetrating phallus—but I won’t elaborate).

For dessert, see the interesting words of the kabbalist Rabbeinu Bahya: “And here one may ask whether there was power in Balaam’s speech to harm or benefit or not. If you say there was, how is it possible that flesh and blood should have power to alter the decree of the Creator? And if the Creator had decreed concerning Israel, as it says, ‘for he is blessed,’ how could Balaam’s curse have power to alter what had already been decreed? And if you say that the curse had no substance, then why did the Holy One, blessed be He, prevent him and say to him, ‘You shall not curse the people’? Let Balaam curse all day long, so long as the Holy One, blessed be He, blesses, as in the verse: ‘Let them curse, but You will bless’ (Psalms 109:28). The answer is that Balaam had no power at all in his speech for his blessing or his curse to take effect. A proof that there is no power in his speech to curse is that we find explicitly that there was no power in his speech to bless. For if there had been power in his speech regarding blessing, once it had become clear to him that it was not the will of the Holy One, blessed be He, to curse Israel, as Balak had commanded him, why did he not bless Balak and his people, thereby fulfilling Balak’s intent that Israel should not rule over him? Or why should he press himself for Balak’s hired silver and gold? Let him bless himself to become a great king over all kings, and he would not need Balak’s silver and gold. We already find explicitly that he blessed himself when he said, ‘Let my soul die the death of the upright,’ and his blessing was not fulfilled; rather, his end was evil and his hope was disappointed, for he died an unusual death, as it is written: ‘And Balaam son of Beor they killed with the sword’ (Joshua 13). Thus you learn that there was no power in his speech to curse them. That is from the perspective of his speech. But from the perspective of his wisdom, in that he knew how to time the moment when the Holy One, blessed be He, is angry, there certainly was power in his speech to curse. Nevertheless, the question still stands. For since the Holy One, blessed be He, was not angry in those days, all his words and wisdom were nullified, and his power failed both in speech and in wisdom, for his curse has power only at the hour of wrath; and since there was no hour of wrath, the hands of his wisdom were weakened. If so, why not let him curse and say to him, ‘Do not curse the people’? The answer is that the future plague was revealed and known before Him, and so that people should not say that the plague came because of Balaam’s curse, He prevented him from cursing. But certainly Balaam had no power whatsoever in his speech, neither in blessing nor in cursing, only in his wisdom in timing the hour when the Holy One, blessed be He, is angry.”

Regarding Balaam’s blessings and their parallels to Abraham’s blessings and to the language of the Hebrew Bible:

Clearly there is here either some kind of translation, or use of expressions current in the Canaanite-Ugaritic-Moabite sphere and the like; such things are very common. Or it is divine inspiration actually using parallel language written before God.

How did Moses know?

The Sages too struggled with this and wrote: “Moses wrote his book” (see the expansions of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Kasher in Torah Sheleimah, in the early volumes). So either by prophetic means one can know minute details occurring far away, or Moses wrote in the style of aggadic literature with lots of additions and imagery in order to convey the central message, which indeed was historical. Or ahistorical: namely, that God is not a man that He should lie, etc., and cannot be manipulated. See the sea of articles on Balaam, who supposedly changed from an idolatrous magician into an Israelite prophet.

The speaking donkey:

Well, that question comes from the perspective of an orderly, rational world. According to that approach one can ask whether a donkey’s throat is even technically capable of speech, as Rav Hai Gaon said: “As for complete speech in her, she would speak only if knowledge were created in her regarding the movements and pressures of the tongue, lips, palate, and jaws, and the manner of using them, even though she possesses what would fit and prepare her for this, so that speech could emerge from her. In this matter the donkey and the serpent are the same…” [From the responsa of Rav Hai Gaon to the people of Kairouan. From the literature of the Geonim, ed. S. Assaf, 1933, no. 15, p. 155ff.]
But if you speak with people who have had spiritual experiences through psychedelic drugs like iboga / ayahuasca / mescaline / LSD, all the more so if you speak with people who reached such experiences without drugs (which were very common in the ancient world, especially in the East, from more than 3,500 years ago and earlier), you discover that the world is far more flexible than we think. You need to put on the glasses of a shaman or sorcerer, “fallen yet with eyes uncovered,” in order to understand this chapter in the Torah. Note that what I’m suggesting is that the donkey did not speak Hebrew, and the opening of its mouth—to an outside observer—was nothing more than a donkey’s braying. But Balaam heard in it the voice of God. For a moment reality became transparent, as it were, and he saw the divinity present in everything. He saw life pulsating in his donkey no less than in himself or in any other living thing. For a moment the hierarchy of beast-human-angel broke down and everything became divine. Understand: this conception, common in all spiritual movements, is a mystical conception, and when a person attains it, he also hears trees talking and worms and clouds. That is what happened to Balaam. But the young men walking beside him did not feel any of this. Balaam himself did not fall off the donkey when it opened its mouth, nor is it said that he was amazed or “did not take the miracle to heart.” Because from the outside this miracle was nature. It was the understanding that changed. (He understood that he had been wrong about the donkey when he wanted to beat it, and that it was the one trying to do good. Thus he must understand that Israel is not something evil to be cursed and struck—“perhaps we can strike them”… “why have you struck me?” Therefore he will have to continue going, but do only what God—the truth—tells him. Then it will become clear that even if he tries to curse, a blessing will come out of his mouth, and this is an exact parallel to the miracle of the speaking donkey. A speaking donkey is just like Balaam blessing.)

Now, this interpretation of mine combines several medieval positions that understood that neither the serpent nor the donkey actually spoke. Ibn Kaspi says it was a hallucination while he was dozing during the ride. Maimonides goes further and claims that everything happened in Balaam’s night dream, before he even set out with the men (“Lodge here tonight”). Rav Saadia Gaon’s opinion is that an angel spoke through the donkey (see Ibn Ezra on Genesis 3:1 and Numbers 22:28), and Shadal, following Ibn Ezra, says something closest to what I suggested: Balaam understood the language of animals. But what I’m claiming is more than all of these—they tried to explain the donkey’s speech within a framework they understood: dream / hallucination / understanding animal language. But I argue—based on familiarity they lacked with states of consciousness opened by drugs—that Balaam was fully awake and did not need to “understand” the language of animals through some sort of translation. Balaam literally heard the donkey speaking in human language, and this was both unusual and at the same time the most obvious thing in the world. He saw melting clocks and cacti scattering melodies with colors, and everything made sense to him at that moment. Therefore we must understand this event, described on the one hand as a huge miracle and on the other as something not perceived as exceptional, not frightening Balaam and narrated with troubling nonchalance—only in a way familiar to anyone who has taken the pill.
Ibn Kaspi and Maimonides (with apologies, and the words are only meant illustratively) thought that you would only not be frightened if a donkey talked to you in dream states while asleep. Therefore they had to press the interpretation that Balaam was asleep in bed or dozing like some clown and saw what he saw. But the truth is that when you are a serious shaman, you can see this magic while awake—in fact there is no greater wakefulness than that. At that moment you become Buddha, which in Hebrew means not “enlightened” but “awakened”—or if you like: alert. (From the mouth of שי אידו טל.)
That is how you should understand the Torah: it has no road signs. It doesn’t guide you with: the sun is blazing, put on sunscreen. And here you need to put on 3D glasses. It says its words calmly, and if you wear the right glasses you simply understand everything.

Sources for further expansion:

Hallucinations, Oliver Sacks
The Doors of Perception, Aldous Huxley
White Doctor, Black Gods, Uri Schwartzman

Now, after this burst of spirituality, I’ll bring you sources that write along these lines. First and foremost among them is of course Rabbi Tzadok HaKohen of Lublin. A giant:

1. Pri Tzadik, Balak, section 2:

“And this is the matter of what was created, the mouth of the donkey, on the eve of the Sabbath at twilight: namely that this power was then created, that there could be an aspect of the mouth of God even when issuing from the mouth of Balaam, for Balaam’s power was essentially in the aspect of a donkey, as was said in the holy Zohar (this portion 208a). And this is the mouth of the donkey—that the words can be from the aspect of the mouth of God even when they emerge through the mouth of Balaam, which is the mouth of the donkey.
And the mouth of the donkey indicates that even in a place where the speaker feels nothing at all in what he is saying, like a donkey, nevertheless one can still learn from it. As in what is said: ‘And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying: This is the way, walk in it’; and ‘behind you’ means that even if one hears a non-Jew speaking, one can learn from it some guidance in the service of God, for it is not for nothing that these words were heard by his ears.
And as is told of Rabbi Zusha of blessed memory, who once was walking on the road and a non-Jew was driving a wagon of hay and it overturned on the ground. The non-Jew asked him to help lift it. Rabbi Zusha answered that he could not. The non-Jew said to him: You can, you can, but you don’t want to. Zusha said to himself: Hear what he is saying—the lower hey has fallen to the ground, and I am able to lift it, but I do not want to. […] And this is ‘your ears shall hear a word behind you’—meaning, even from a non-Jew, and even though he has no intention at all to teach you, you should hear from it and understand: ‘This is the way, walk in it.’ And this is the mouth of the donkey—that in the mouth of the donkey too there can be the word of God, the aspect of the Oral Torah. And this is what was created before the day was sanctified, for the mouth arose, which rules over all—the mouth of God, namely kingship as mouth, and as we said that on the Sabbath a mouth was created in the soul, namely that the mouth of God should be a thing.”

And here are references for broadening the discussion on the donkey:

2. Ibn Kaspi on the dozing:

“And an angel of the Lord stood in the way as an adversary against him. This happened in a doze, for Balaam dozed somewhat while riding, as is the custom of many people, all the more so because he had risen early in the morning, and his heart struck him concerning his journey, because he had already seen a sign of opposition in the first prevention and also in the second vision, for he was uncertain about God’s statement to him, ‘Rise, go with them,’ in what form it was said, until he sank into sleep or drowsiness in this matter, and all the imagination mentioned occurred to him. Had God wished to prevent him absolutely, He had already done so. But God wished to show him and the nations that He has the power to prevent him entirely, and also to permit his going while preventing him from evil speech. Therefore the angel concluded and said to him, ‘Go with the men,’ as language of appeasement and reconciliation.”

3. Rav Saadia Gaon on the prophetic vision:

Ibn Ezra on Genesis 3: “And Rav Saadia Gaon said: after it has become clear to us that speech and knowledge exist only in man alone, we are forced to say that neither the serpent nor the donkey spoke; rather an angel spoke on their behalf.” And there on the portion of Balak: “And the Gaon said that the donkey did not speak. And Rav Samuel ben Hofni attacked him. And Rabbi Solomon the Spaniard, the master of songs, thought to rescue the one attacked.”

4. Ralbag on the prophetic vision:

Genesis 3: “And you should know regarding the serpent that we are compelled to admit that it is a parable. For it is highly unseemly to say that this living creature spoke from the beginning of creation, and afterward a second nature was placed in it by which it returned to the lower level in which it now is. This is very clear, to the point that lengthening the explanation is unnecessary. But regarding Eve, there is no reason here compelling us to say that it is according to parable… However the Rabbi of the Guide [Maimonides in Guide of the Perplexed II:30] seems to have understood that the matter of Eve is also a parable for one of the faculties of the human soul.”

And on the portion of Balak: “And what seems right to us, according to the true principles apparent from the words of the prophets and from reflection, is that this story was something that happened to Balaam in a prophetic vision. As with the matter of the story of Hosea taking Gomer daughter of Diblaim and the rest of what follows there, which must necessarily be something seen in prophetic vision, not something that happened.”

5. Maimonides on the prophetic vision:

“We have already explained that every place in which the seeing of an ‘angel’ or his speech is mentioned, this is only in a ‘prophetic vision’ or in a ‘dream’—whether this is made explicit or not, it is all the same, as stated previously. Know this and understand it very, very well! There is no difference whether it is first written that he saw the ‘angel,’ or whether it appears at first from the statement that he thought him to be a man, and afterward, at the end of the matter, it became clear to him that he was an ‘angel.’ Once you find at the end of the matter that what was seen and what spoke was an angel, know and verify that from the beginning of the matter it was a ‘prophetic vision’ or a ‘dream of prophecy.’ For in a ‘prophetic vision’ or a ‘dream of prophecy,’ sometimes the prophet sees God speaking to him, as we shall explain, and sometimes he sees an angel speaking to him, and sometimes he hears one speaking to him without seeing the speaker, and sometimes he sees a human being speaking to him, and afterward it becomes clear to him that the speaker was an ‘angel’; and in this kind of prophecy he mentions that he saw a man doing or saying something, and after this he knows that he was an ‘angel.’
Toward this great principle one of the Sages of blessed memory inclined, one of their greatest, namely Rabbi Hiyya the Great, concerning the language of the Torah, ‘And the Lord appeared to him in the terebinths of Mamre,’ etc. For after he introduced a generality—that God appeared to him—he began to explain what the form of that appearance was and said that first he saw ‘three men,’ and he ran, and he said, and it said to them. And the one who explained this interpretation said that Abraham’s statement, ‘My Lord, if I have now found favor in Your eyes, do not pass from Your servant,’ was also a report of what he said in the prophetic vision to one of them—and he said, ‘he said it to the greatest among them.’ Understand this matter further, for it is one of the secrets.
And so I say as well regarding Jacob in the verse ‘And a man wrestled with him’—that it was in the form of prophecy, since it became clear at the end that he was an ‘angel.’ It is exactly like the matter of Abraham, where a general statement was first introduced: ‘And the Lord appeared to him,’ etc., and afterward it began to explain how this was. So too with Jacob it says, ‘And angels of God encountered him,’ and afterward it begins to explain how it happened that they ‘encountered him’—namely that he sent messengers and acted and did, ‘And Jacob was left alone,’ etc.—and this is the ‘angels of God’ mentioned beforehand, ‘and angels of God encountered him’; and this wrestling and all the speech were ‘in prophetic vision.’ Likewise the whole matter of Balaam on the way, and the words of the donkey—all was ‘in prophetic vision,’ since at the end of the matter the speech of the ‘angel of the Lord’ to him became clear. And similarly regarding Joshua’s statement, ‘And he lifted up his eyes and saw, and behold, a man stood opposite him’—that this was ‘in prophetic vision,’ since at the end of the matter it became clear that he was the ‘captain of the host of the Lord.’” (Guide of the Perplexed, Part II, ch. 42).

6. Rabbi Abraham Abulafia on the meaning of the term “speech”:

“Since speech is a means for understanding the intention of what is in the speaker’s heart, and a sign is likewise a means to that, and writing is like them, it would also suffice for all of them to understand the intention of his donkey, whether by her saying or by her mouth actually speaking in the holy tongue, ‘What have I done to you,’ etc., or whether he heard these words in his ears from some spirit among spirits, or in whatever way you wish to ascribe to it the conveying of her intention to him, and likewise his response to her… This is what I think on this matter, and the matter of the serpent and the fish is exactly the same in my view. There is no need to depart from the plain meaning for one who can bear it. But one who cannot bear it should indeed distance it until he finds for himself what his understanding can bear.” [Rabbi Abraham Abulafia—Spain, 13th century—Mafte’ach HaSefirot, Balak]

7. Shadal on the language of animals:

…(Question) 6:
Did the donkey speak or not? God certainly could make it speak, but Balaam and his two lads would necessarily have been struck with great terror, to the point of death, and he could not have had the strength to answer it. Therefore it is possible that it did not speak with human speech, for it does not say here “and she spoke,” but rather it made a cry with its mouth, a wailing sound from which one could understand: “Why have you abused me?” etc. And it cried again as though to say: “Am I not your donkey?” etc. Then his compassion was stirred for her and he said, “No,” meaning: it is not the way of this animal to abuse me, and so it is true that the Lord opened the donkey’s mouth, for it brayed in a manner somewhat unusual to its habit. But the miracle was not so great that Balaam should be terrified… It is also likely that Balaam boasted of understanding the sounds of birds and animals, and therefore when he heard its sound he interpreted its words and answered them. Thus his lads were not frightened, because this was his usual way. Only that this time there was a real miracle, but it was a hidden miracle and neither they nor Balaam sensed it or were terrified. Moreover, if it had spoken, why did it not justify itself and tell him that there was something there frightening it from going?

External sources:

1. In the Sumerian epic Enmerkar and Ensuhkeshdanna, a sorcerer in the ancient Near East causes a cow to speak (translation):
The sorcerer, farmer of the best seeds, directed his steps towards Ereš, the city of Nisaba, and reached the animal pen, the house where the cows live. The cow trembled with fear at him in the animal pen. He made the cow speak so that it conversed with him as if it were a human being: “Cow, who will eat your butter? Who will drink your milk?” “My butter will be eaten by Nisaba, my milk will be drunk by Nisaba. My cheese, skilfully produced bright crown, was made fitting for the great dining hall, the dining hall of Nisaba. Until my butter is delivered from the holy animal pen, until my milk is delivered from the holy byre, the steadfast wild cow Nisaba, the first-born of Enlil, will not impose any levy on the people.” “Cow, your butter to your shining horn; your milk to your back.” So the cow’s butter was …… to its shining horn; its milk was …… to its back …….
170-184. The sorcerer, farmer of the best seeds, directed his steps toward Eresh, the city of Nisaba, and reached the animal enclosure, the house where the cows dwell. The cow trembled before him in the pen. He caused the cow to speak, so that it conversed with him as if it were a human being: “Cow, who will eat your butter? Who will drink your milk?” “My butter will be eaten by Nisaba, my milk will be drunk by Nisaba. My cheese, skillfully made, bright crown, was made fitting for the great dining hall, the dining hall of Nisaba. Until my butter is brought from the holy animal enclosure, until my milk is brought from the holy stall, the steadfast wild cow Nisaba, firstborn of Enlil, will impose no levy on the people.” “Cow, your butter to your shining horn; your milk to your back.” Then the cow’s butter was … to its shining horn; its milk was … to its back …

2. The goddess opens the horse’s mouth in the Iliad (similar to Rav Saadia Gaon’s interpretation that the angel spoke through the donkey):
First I should note that the conception of reality in the Iliad is semi-mystical, and as Elgoum elaborated in the introduction to Psychology, Open University—see there at length, fascinatingly. And regarding the horse’s speech there, Avram the Hebrew wrote: in this song a dramatic reversal takes place—Achilles had until now refused to participate in the Greek siege of Troy because of his anger at Agamemnon king of the Greeks, who took his concubine; but after Hector of Troy kills Patroclus, his close companion, Achilles finally decides to enter the fray and go fight. At that point he jumps into his chariot and turns to his two horses, Xanthus and Balius, in an excited cry (lines 400-403):
“Xanthus and Balius, offspring of Podarge, famed among horses! (a mythological nymph)
Now take good thought to save your rider’s life
back to the Danaan ranks, when we return sated with war, (one of the Greek tribes)
Do not abandon me, as you abandoned my comrade Patroclus there slain!”
It turns out that addressing horses with a cry of encouragement is common in the Iliad (8.184; 23.402)—but the surprising innovation here is the response of the horse Xanthus to Achilles’ call (lines 404-418):
“Then Xanthus, strong and swift-footed, answered him…
Hera of the white arms planted a voice within him: (a goddess, wife of Zeus)
‘This time too we will save your life, mighty Achilles;
But your day is already near, and it is not through our fault,
But through that great god and all-powerful fate.
It was not because we delayed or our feet were sluggish
that the Trojans stripped Patroclus the warrior of his armor.
No, but because the mightiest of gods, son of fair-haired Leto, (Apollo)
struck him among the front ranks and granted glory to Hector.
We shall race, we shall fly with the wind of Zephyrus, (the west wind, father of the horses)
of whom they say he is the swiftest of winds in the world. But for you too,
it is fate that you shall fall by the hand of god and man.’
He finished speaking, and the Erinyes shut up his voice.” (mythological avenging goddesses)
Or in plain English: the goddess Hera opened Xanthus’s mouth and he prophesied to Achilles that he was destined to die in battle—and that it would not be the horse’s fault, but because of the decree of the gods. It seems the horse would have gone on speaking a bit more, but then the mysterious Erinyes shut his mouth—and Achilles takes the opportunity and settles accounts with the horse (420-424):
“Then Achilles of the swift feet answered in anger:
‘Xanthus, why do you prophesy death to me? There is no need for this!
Indeed, I myself know well that it is my fate to die here,
far from my dear father and my mother who bore me; and yet
I will know no rest until I have worn out the Trojans in battle!’
He spoke and shouted loudly to drive on his horses with their flawless hooves.”
Avram noted parallels to our story:
If we return to our weekly Torah portion and recall the wondrous passage of Balaam and his donkey (22:22-35), we can see several interesting similarities between it and the Iliadic scene of Achilles and his horse:
Balaam and his donkey Achilles and his horse
The human makes a fateful decision, contrary to an earlier decision:
Balaam decides to go out and curse Israel Achilles decides to go out and fight the Trojans
The gods grant speech to the animal:
The Lord opens the donkey’s mouth Hera plants a voice within the horse
A “conflict of interests” between human and animal:
Balaam wants to go curse; the donkey tries to stop him Achilles wants to go to war; the horse agrees reluctantly but foretells the bitter end
The human is angry at the animal:
Balaam seeks to kill his donkey with a sword Achilles is full of rage at the horse
Supernatural intervention after the animal speaks:
The angel of the Lord is revealed to Balaam The Erinyes shut the horse’s mouth
The human is in danger of death—and is eventually indeed killed by the sword:
The angel threatens to kill Balaam; in the portion of Mattot it becomes clear that Balaam was killed by the sword in the war with Midian Achilles is told that he is destined to die; in the Odyssey it becomes clear that Achilles indeed died in the Trojan war

Here the reed stood in its place and the author departed to his occupation.

Well said, Gil. A reed in its place fills the whole world with sheep and oxen.
1. Regarding the psychological-warfare hypothesis: you need the further hypothesis that Israel also knew about it. You could also tweak it slightly into psychological encouragement for the Moabites, to simplify.
2. The matter of the plague from population exchange is a bit difficult. We’re not talking about faraway lands. Presumably caravans of ten merchants passed from Egypt to Israel more than once.
3. As for the idea that Balaam experienced some supreme spiritual illumination and heard syllables in the donkey’s bray—what then is the angel that stood in the way as an adversary and was seen only by the donkey and not by Balaam? And I didn’t understand the question of how Moses knew. How is that any different from the story of what God said to Cain or on what day the luminaries were created?

7/7/2020

To Gil—greetings,

What’s the problem with a donkey talking? If the ape called Homo sapiens underwent mutations and began to speak—what’s the problem with a donkey beginning to speak?

The fact that female donkeys generally do not speak is because of their high intelligence, which teaches them that “a fence for wisdom is silence”; but when their owner resorts to violence, even the donkey is forced to “break the silence.”

With blessings,
Akhenaten

Rabbi Slippery-Bar, many thanks for your pleasant words; may your fin devastate oxen and crush the prefaces of serpents:
And this is the beginning of my reply:
1. I assume Israel knew, because they saw the events on the hilltops; likewise it is reasonable that they knew what was going on among the neighboring peoples through all kinds of gossip and spies. Just imagine thousands, maybe millions, of people arriving at the edge of inhabited land and lingering there. There’s talk, there’s buzz. It’s not clear to me how much separation there really was—take into account that at that very time they were consorting with the daughters of Moab, who surely knew how to tell them while drunk about this Balaam who had come to the land. They probably talked about him the way people talk about Trump, Obama, or Bibi—take your pick. In short: they knew. (“My people, remember now what Balak counseled…” and also in the book of Deuteronomy Moses speaks as though everyone knew he had come to curse them and God turned it into a blessing.)
2. True, we’re not talking about distant lands, but the new generation born in the wilderness was effectively in isolation. It had not encountered a foreign population for 40 years. This needs further study. I don’t know enough epidemiology, but it seems possible to me that diseases new to Canaan reached Egypt only after some years, and that this was a process that took time. Not really important; it was just a nice thought. (By the way, someone explained that the “plague” is merely a code name for a mass murder carried out by the priests: “impale each man… before the sun,” look there at the wording. That would also explain the plague that God made through His faithful devotees after the sin of the Golden Calf.)
3. The donkey moving away from the angel can be explained in two ways: a. This is Balaam’s retrospective understanding of why it moved. It moved as part of the process intended to stop him from cursing Israel. That is also what the angel told him. True, the story itself doesn’t sound that way, but I don’t expect that sort of precision from a story trying not only to convey mystical experiences but also to burn in a message in the style of aggadic tales. The message got across. b. A second possibility is that animals are in fact more sensitive than the average human to encounters with higher entities, and just as they sense tsunamis or earthquakes before they happen, this angel too was some expression of divine intervention that created a rupture in space-time. That is, it had some physical expression. I don’t know—radiation, energy, ions, etc. This already belongs to the field of the supernatural, which is certainly still investigated today and should not be dismissed. That same energetic fluctuation that was there and that the donkey experienced was later identified by Balaam as the angel of the Lord. Of course all the words and the “translation” of it are according to the language his mind could process. In the past people translated such energies as a winged angel, and today, when consciousness is saturated with technological imagery, as flying saucers. See the super-duper important article by Persico that I’ll quote below.

Regarding how Moses knew—you’re right. The questioner assumed there is a difference between prehistoric traditions and a precise present-time description by the writer—but that isn’t necessary.

And know this, then!
3.

Thanks, Akhenaten, for your response. But Homo sapiens took a million years to develop speech organs, so what happened that the Creator accelerated the evolution of the donkey’s throat in a fraction of a second? And if He could do so for her, why didn’t He do so also for this Homo sapiens fellow?

And regarding the supernatural I mentioned above (what exactly the donkey experienced), see these must-read articles:

https://tomerpersico.com/tag/%D7%A2%D7%91%D7%9E%D7%99%D7%9D/

הבלתי אפשרי קיים – ראיון עם ג'פרי קרייפל

The doors of perception have opened! Let a righteous philosopher, keeper of the faith, come in!

1. True enough. Though in Deuteronomy that’s already after the conquest, and by then they certainly investigated, spied, and heard everything.
3. If we’re already getting to divine intervention that created a rupture in space-time, then we’d do much better to stay with angels in their plain sense. If you quote it, maybe I’ll encounter for the first time a “super-duper important” article by Persico.

And Akhenaten—does it really seem ugly to you to write the Hebrew date, as is your custom from days of old? Wasn’t that your way all your life until this very day? Have you ever done such a thing to us? To rub our eyes in astonishment and see Shatz engraving with a diamond-point nail this display: 7/7/2020—this is a greater miracle than a speaking donkey.

I am astonished — ee-aw

https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%90%D7%99%D7%94_(%D7%A4%D7%95_%D7%94%D7%93%D7%91)

And regarding the question “How did Moses know?”—after all, Moses is the father of the prophets.

If Amos testifies, “For the Lord God does nothing unless He reveals His secret to His servants the prophets,” from which the Sages learned that what was said to one prophet was said to all the prophets, and therefore one can warn a prophet who changes his prophecy—then all the more so Moses “receives reports” about the prophecies that God gives Balaam.

And if Balaam could prophesy about what would happen in the end of days, then all the more so Moses could prophesy about what was happening nearby. When the donkey begins seeing angels and speaking, Balaam learns that his prophecy is not a “natural talent,” but a gift from his Creator, given to him not because he deserved it but by God’s grace, and therefore he must use God’s gift only in subordination to God’s will.

Even Moses’ power of speech does not stem from his own “natural talent.” On the contrary, he is “slow of speech and slow of tongue,” and it is God—who “places a mouth in the mute”—who gives the prophet the ability to know and to speak.

With blessings,
Shatz