Numbers 23:3

3 Then Balaam said to Balak, "Stay here beside your offering. I'll go and try to find out what the LORD wants me to do. Maybe he'll come and meet with me. Then I'll tell you what he says to me." So Balaam went off to a bare hilltop.

Numbers 23:3 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 23:3

And Balaam said unto Balak,
stand by thy burnt offering By which it appears that the sacrifices offered were of this sort, and there might be one, which was more peculiarly the burnt offering of Balak; though he might be more or less with Balaam concerned in them all; at which he was directed to stand while it was burning, presenting that and himself to the Lord, that he would have respect to both:

and I will go;
depart from thence, at some little distance, unto some private place:

peradventure the Lord will come to meet me;
upon the offering of these sacrifices to him, though he could not be certain of it, he having lately shown some displeasure and resentment unto him; and this was also in the daytime, when it was in the night he usually came unto him:

and whatsoever he showeth me I will tell thee;
the whole of it, truly as it is, whether agreeable or not:

and he went to an high place;
but he was in one already, and therefore if this is the sense of the word, he must go to another, into a grove in one of the high places, where he might be retired, and so fit for a divine converse; and the Targum of Onkelos renders it alone: but rather the sense is, that he went into a plain, as De Dieu has shown from the use of the word in the Syriac language; he was upon a high place, and he went down from thence into the plain, perhaps into a cave at the bottom of the hill, a retired place, where he hoped the Lord would meet him, as he did.

Numbers 23:3 In-Context

1 Balaam said to Balak, "Build me seven altars here. Prepare seven bulls and seven rams for me to sacrifice."
2 Balak did just as Balaam said. The two of them offered a bull and a ram on each altar.
3 Then Balaam said to Balak, "Stay here beside your offering. I'll go and try to find out what the LORD wants me to do. Maybe he'll come and meet with me. Then I'll tell you what he says to me." So Balaam went off to a bare hilltop.
4 God met with him there. Balaam said, "I've prepared seven altars. On each altar I've offered a bull and a ram.
5 The LORD put a message in Balaam's mouth. The LORD said, "Go back to Balak. Give him my message."
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