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the command of Jehovah, even if the king should give him his house full of silver and gold (Num 24:13).[1]
- ↑ The significant interchange in the use of the names of God, which is seen in the fact, that from the very outset Balaam always speaks of Jehovah (Num 22:8, Num 22:13, Num 22:18-19), - whereas, according to the historian, it is only Elohim who reveals Himself to him (Num 22:9-10, Num 22:12), - has been pointed out by Hengstenberg in his Dissertations; and even Baur, in his Geschichte der alttestl. Weissagung (i. p. 334), describes it as a “fine distinction;” but neither of them satisfactorily explains this diversity. For the assumption that Balaam is thereby tacitly accused of hypocrisy (Hengstenberg), or that the intention of the writer is to intimate that “the heathen seer did not stand at first in any connection whatever with the true God of Israel” (Baur), sets up a chasm between Elohim and Jehovah, with which the fact that, according to Num 22:22, the wrath of Elohim on account of Balaam's journey was manifested in the appearance of the angel of Jehovah, is irreconcilable. The manifestation of God in the form of the angel ofJehovah, was only a higher stage of the previous manifestations ofElohim. And all that follows from this is, that Balaam's original attitude towards Jehovah was a very imperfect one, and not yet in harmony with the true nature of the God of Israel. In his Jehovah Balaam worshipped only Elohim, i.e., only a divine being, but not the God of Israel, who was first of all revealed to him according to His true essence, in the appearance of the angel of Jehovah, and still more clearly in the words which He put into his mouth. This is indicated by the use of Elohim, in Num 22:9-10, Num 22:12. In the other passages, where this name of God still occurs, it is required by the thought, viz., in Num 22:22, to express the essential identity of Elohim and theMaleach Jehovah; and in Num 22:38; Num 23:27, and Num 24:2, to show that Balaam did not speak out of his own mind, but from the inspiration of the Spirit of God.
