Numbers 23:23

Enchantment ... divination -More strictly “augury” and “soothsayer’s token,” or the omen that was superstitiously observed. “Soothsayer” is the term applied to Balaam inJoshua 13:22. The verse intimates that the seer was at last, through the overruling of his own auguries, compelled to own what, had he not been blinded by avarice and ambition, he would have discerned before - that there Was an indisputable interference of God on Israel’s behalf, against which all arts and efforts of man must prove vain. The sense suggested by margin (i. e., that the soothsayer’s art was not practiced in Israel) would be strictly true (compare theNumbers 23:4note). According ...