Balak

Balak son of Zippor, king of Moab, sees what Israel has done to the Amorites and dreads the multitude camped by his border. He sends the elders of Moab and Midian, fees for divination in hand, to Balaam son of Beor at Pethor on the Euphrates: "Come, curse this people for me... for I know that whom you bless is blessed, and whom you curse is cursed." God tells Balaam not to go — "you shall not curse the people, for they are blessed" — and a second, weightier embassy is answered the same way, until God permits him to go, "but only the word I speak to you shall you do."

On the road the angel of the LORD stands in the way with drawn sword, seen by the donkey and not the prophet. Three times the donkey balks and is beaten; then the LORD opens her mouth — "what have I done to you, that you have struck me these three times?" — and opens Balaam's eyes. He offers to turn back and is sent on with the same condition. Balak brings him up to high places overlooking the camp; seven altars are built, bull and ram on each.

Three times Balak seeks a curse, and three times blessing comes instead: "Who can count the dust of Jacob?"; "He has not beheld iniquity in Jacob... the LORD his God is with him"; and from a hilltop, seeing Israel encamped tribe by tribe, "How goodly are your tents, O Jacob, your dwellings, O Israel." Balak strikes his hands together in fury and sends the prophet home unpaid — but Balaam gives a final oracle first: "a star shall come out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel," with words for Moab, Edom, Amalek, and the Kenites. The portion ends at Shittim, where Israel goes astray with the daughters of Moab and yokes itself to Baal Peor. A plague breaks out; and when Zimri brings a Midianite woman into the camp in the sight of all, Pinchas son of Eleazar takes a spear and kills them both, and the plague — with 24,000 dead — is stopped.