he could only wish that the end of his own life might resemble the end of these righteous men. Death is introduced here as the end and completion of life. “Balaam desires for himself the entire, full, indestructible, and inalienable blessedness of the Israelite, of which death is both the close and completion, and also the seal and attestation” (Kurtz). This desire did not involve the certain hope of a blessed life beyond the grave, which the Israelites themselves did not then possess; it simply expressed the thought that the death of a pious Israelite was a desirable good. And this it was, whether viewed in the light of the past, the present, or the future. In the hour of death the pious Israelite could look back with blessed satisfaction to a long life, rich “in traces of the beneficent, forgiving, delivering, and saving grace of God;” he could comfort himself with the delightful hope of living on in his children and his children's children, and in them of participating in the future fulfilment of the divine promises of grace; and lastly, when dying in possession of the love and grace of God, he could depart hence with the joyful confidence of being gathered to his fathers in Sheol (Gen 25:8).
verses 11-17
Balak reproached Balaam for this utterance, which announced blessings to the Israelites instead of curses. But he met his reproaches with the remark, that he was bound by the command of Jehovah. The infinitive absolute, בּרך, after the finite verb, expresses the fact that Balaam had continued to give utterance to nothing but blessings. לדבּר שׁמר, to observe to speak; שׁמר, to notice carefully, as in Deu 5:1, Deu 5:29, etc. But Balak thought that the reason might be found in the unfavourable locality; he therefore led the seer to “the field of the watchers, upon the top of Pisgah,” whence he could see the whole of the people of Israel. The words וגו תּראנּוּ אשׁר (Num 23:13) are to be rendered, “whence thou wilt see it (Israel); thou seest only the end of it, but not the whole of it” (sc., here upon Bamoth-baal). This is required by a comparison of the verse before us with Num 22:41, where it is most unquestionably stated, that upon the top of Bamoth-baal Balaam only saw “the end of the people.” For this reason Balak regarded that place as unfavourable, and wished to lead the seer to a place from which he could see the people, without any limitation whatever. Consequently, notwithstanding the omission of כּי (for), the words קצהוּ אפס can only be intended to assign the reason why Balak supposed the first utterances of Balaam to have been unfavourable. קצהוּ = העם קצה, the end of the people (Num 22:41), cannot possibly signify the whole nation,
