#Numbers 23:6-12
Balaam’s first speech
Short but sweet, and deeply interwoven with its narrative framework. One may well wonder whether some of the poetry in the Balaam story is of independent origin, but not this one.
Balaam’s first speech
Short but sweet, and deeply interwoven with its narrative framework. One may well wonder whether some of the poetry in the Balaam story is of independent origin, but not this one.
Not only are there all the references to the story - I mean “Balak has called me…curse Jacob for me…I see them from the mountains…” All pretty much narrative. But there’s also a lovely J theme in here that might not be immediately apparent.
“A people who dwells apart,” Balaam calls Israel. Obviously Israel’s distinctiveness from other nations is assumed by all the biblical authors. But J makes a real thing out of it.
In J, we get the so-called Table of Nations in Gen 10, then the selection of Abraham as a new nation, to be a model for all the others (Gen 12:1-3), and distinctive because Israel alone has received YHWH’s blessing.
It is in J also that Israel, when in Egypt, dwells separately, in Goshen - and thus when the plagues strike Egypt Israel is notably spared. We’ve already had occasion to comment on the pairing of Egypt and Moab in J - here we have it again.
In other words, in J it is consistently the case that Israel does indeed dwell apart, unique among - even when physically amid - the nations.
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