Verse 33<\/span>. Surely now also I had slain thee<\/B><\/I>] How often are the meanest animals, and the most trivial occurrences, instruments of the preservation of our lives, and of the salvation of our souls! The messenger of justice would have killed Balaam, had not the mercy of God prevented the ass from proceeding.<\/P> <\/p>\n I had slain thee alone, and left her; and therefore her turning aside and falling down was wholly for thy sake and benefit, not for her own, and thy anger against her was unjust and unreasonable. <\/P> <\/p>\n And the ass saw me, and turned from me these three times<\/strong>,…. The ass saw the angel when Balaam did not, and that was the reason of its turning aside; and it was well for him it did, and therefore he should not have smote it:<\/p>\n unless she had turned from me<\/strong>; if she had pushed on, endeavouring to make her way:<\/p>\n surely now also I had slain thee, and saved her alive<\/strong>; had certainly and only slain him, and not the ass; and from hence the Jewish writers t gather, that the ass was now slain, lest it should be said, this is the ass that spoke, and so be made an idol of.<\/p>\n t Bemidbar Rabba, sect. 20. fol. 227. 4. Aben Ezra in loc.<\/p>\n The angel of the Lord sought to preserve Balaam from the destruction which threatened him, by standing in his way; but he did not see him, though his ass did. , “perhaps it turned out before me; for otherwise I should surely have killed thee, and let her live.” The first clause is to be regarded, as Hengstenberg supposes, as an aposiopesis. The angel does not state positively what was the reason why perhaps the ass had turned out of the way: he merely hints at it lightly, and leaves it to Balaam to gather from the hint, that the faithful animal had turned away from affection to its master, with a dim foreboding of the danger which threatened him, and yet for that very reason, as it were as a reward for its service of love, had been ill-treated by him. The traditional rendering, “if the ass had not turned aside, surely,” etc., cannot be defended according to the rules of the language; and there is not sufficient ground for any such alteration of the text as Knobel<\/em> suggests, viz., into . These words made an impression, and Balaam made this acknowledgment (Num 22:34<\/span>): “ I have sinned, for I knew not that thou stoodest in the way against me; and now, if it displease thee, I will get me back again<\/em>.” The angel of the Lord replied, however (Num 22:35<\/span>): “ Go with the men; but only the word that I shall speak unto thee, that shalt you speak<\/em>.” This was sufficient to show him, that it was not the journey in itself that was displeasing to God, but the feelings and intentions with which he had entered upon it. The whole procedure was intended to sharpen his conscience and sober his mind, that he might pay attention to the word which the Lord would speak to him. At the same time the impression which the appearance and words of the angel of the Lord made upon his heart, enveloped in mist as it was by the thirst for gold and honour, was not a deep one, nor one that led him to a thorough knowledge of his own heart; otherwise, after such a warning, he would never have continued his journey.<\/p>\n (33) Unless she had turned from me.<\/strong>There may be an aposiopesis in this verse. Perhaps she turned aside from <\/em>(or, before<\/em>) me <\/em>. . . for <\/em>(otherwise) now I had killed thee, &c. <\/em>According to this view the angel does not assign a reason why the ass turned aside, but leaves this to be inferred by Balaam. (Comp. Keil, in loc.<\/em>)<\/p>\n 33<\/strong>. <\/strong> Unless she had turned <\/strong> “This rendering,” says Keil, “cannot be defended according to the rules of the language.” He translates it thus: “Perhaps it turned out before me; for otherwise I should have killed thee and let her live,” <\/em> leaving it uncertain why the ass had turned out of the way. Knobel suggests a slight alteration of the text, so that it will read unless <\/em> instead of perhaps. <\/em> Furst sustains the amendment. <\/p>\n And saved her alive <\/strong> An instance of killing a prophet and sparing his ass occurs in 1Ki 13:23-28<\/span>. The cabalists infer that this ass did die immediately after speaking, lest the heathen should worship her as a god.<\/p>\n Num 22:33<\/span><\/em><\/strong>. <\/strong>Unless she had turned from me, surely now also I had slain thee,<\/em><\/strong> &c.<\/strong> The words of the angel respecting the ass, candidly interpreted according to the Hebrew idiom, and duly compared with the context, may be thus paraphrased: “How couldst thou thus unjustly and repeatedly abuse thine innocent beast, and not rather conclude, from her unusual starting aside, and crouching under thee, that something extraordinary must have stood in her way, and obliged her to do so? For, behold! I was, indeed, sent on purpose to oppose thee, because thy views were perverse before God, and opposite to his design in permitting thee to go with all this people, The sight of me hath made thine ass decline me these three times: and well it is for thee that some divine impulse enabled her both to perceive and avoid me, which was a sure signal to me that I should spare and let thee go on; and that the Divine Providence designed to cross thy malicious purpose against Israel, and oblige thee, in spite of thy sanguine hopes, to declare those signally blessed whom thou wert hired to curse; for, had it not been for that, I had certainly put an end at once both to thy life, and to thy ambitious attempts, and saved thine innocent beast.”For it is plain, that the sparing of the prophet was not owing to the accidental declining of the ass, but to her being able to see and avoid the threatening angel by turning aside from him, and where the narrowness of the way did not permit her to do so, by stopping short and crouching upon her belly; both which, being owing to a miraculous impulse, gave timely notice to the angel to stay his hand: the severer the threatening was, therefore, the more kindly must we judge it to have been meant, as it was indeed the most effectual way to deter the infatuated Balaam from turning further into his utter ruin. See Psalmanazar’s Essays. <\/p>\n Num 22:33 And the ass saw me, and turned from me these three times: unless she had turned from me, surely now also I had slain thee, and saved her alive.<\/p>\n Ver. 33. I had slain thee.<\/strong> ] As thou wouldst have slain thine ass, for a less fault.<\/p>\n thee . . . her. Note the emphasis on these pronouns. <\/p>\n surely: Num 14:37, Num 16:33-35, 1Ki 13:24-28<\/p>\n Num 22:33. I had slain thee Thee alone, and not the ass; therefore her turning aside and falling down was wholly for thy benefit, not for her own, and thy anger against her was unjust and unreasonable.<\/p>\n And the ass saw me, and turned from me these three times: unless she had turned from me, surely now also I had slain thee, and saved her alive. Verse 33. Surely now also I had slain thee] How often are the meanest animals, and the most trivial occurrences, instruments of the preservation of our … Continue reading “Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Numbers 22:33”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4417\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"