The Account of Balaam’s Donkey: A Late Polemical Burlesque

This article is based upon sections 8, 9, 11, and 13 of, Alexander Rofé, “ספר בלעם”- (במדבר כ”ב, ב – כ”ד, כה) – עיון בשיטות הביקורת ובתולדות הספרות והאמונה [The Book of Balaam (Numbers 22.2-24.25): A Study in Methods of Criticism and the History of Biblical Literature and Religion], Jerusalem Biblical Studies 1 (Jerusalem: Simor, 1979). The piece was translated by Zev Farber and adapted for TheTorah.com in consultation with the author.

See Joseph Bekhor Shor and Daat Zeqeinim ad loc.

See, Julius Wellhausen, Die Composition des Hexateuchs und der Historischen Bücher des Alten Testaments (Berlin: G. Reimer, 1899), 110–111. See also, August Dillmann, Die Bücher Numeri, Deuteronomium, Joshua, KEHAT 2; (Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1886), 136; Benjamin W. Bacon, The Triple Tradition of the Exodus (Hartford: The Student Publishing Company, 1894), 218–232; and among more contemporary scholars, Walter Groß, Bileam: Literatur- un formkritische Untersuchung der Prosa in Num 22-24 (Munich: Kösel-Verlag, 1974). Otto Eißfeldt even made the “Book of Balaam” into the parade example which proves the correctness of this division. See, Otto Eißfeldt, “Die Komposition der Bileam-Erzählung: Eine Nachprüfung von Rudolphs Beitrag zur Hexateuchkritik,” ZAW 57 (1939): 212–241.

For a detailed look at the various options for reconstruction E and J, see section 1–4 of my The Book of Balaam.

Marcus M. Kalisch, Bible Studies Part 1: The Prophecies of Balaam (Numbers xxii-xxiv), or the Hebrew and the Heathen (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1877).

See, Harold M. Wiener, The Composition of Judges II, 11 to 1 Kings II, 46 (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1929), 2; Curt Kuhl, “Die ‘Wiederaufnahme’ – ein literarkritisches Prinzip?” ZAW64 (1952): 1-11; Isaac L. Seeligmann, “Hebräische Erzählung und biblische Geschichtsschreibung,” ThZ (Basel) 18 (1962): 305–325 [314–324]. Wiener was the first critical scholar to note this phenomenon; Kuhl offered many examples of it in prophetic literature and Seeligmann did so in biblical narrative. Seeligmann further argued for differentiating between Wiederaufnahmen utilized by authors and those used by redactors, in contrast to the position of Yehezkel Kaufmann, The Book of Joshua with Commentary [in Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Kiryat Sepher, 1959), 76–77. Shemaryahu Talmon has also given much attention to the phenomenon; see Shemaryahu Talmon and Michael Fishbane, “Aspects of the Literary Structure of the Book of Ezekiel” [in Hebrew], Tarbiz 42 (5733): 27–41 [35ff]. See also Burke O. Long, “Framing Repetitions in Biblical Historiography,” Journal of Biblical Literature 106.3 (1987): 385–399; Ray Person, “A Reassessment of Wiederaufnahme from the Perspective of Conversation Analysis,” Biblische Zeitschrift 43 (1999): 241–248. Editor’s note: For a basic introduction to this technique, Zev Farber, “The Resumptive Repetition (Wiederaufnahme),” TheTorah.com (2014).

He still accepted the documentary division however, and divided the passage between three authors.

• J – Balaam does not follow the messengers but answers a direct call from Balak (as per Wellhausen’s interpretation of 22:37).
• E – God allows Balaam to go with the first messenger that arrives (22:20).
• Other – God does not allow Balaam to go, but Balaam flouts God’s will and goes anyway (22:22-35, the donkey story).

Paul Volz, “Rezension von A. Freiherr von Gall, Zusammensetzung und Herkunft der Bileam-Perikope,” Theologische Literaturzeitung 26 (1901): cols. 383–385. This obscure article went unnoticed even by Volz’s student, Wilhelm Rudolph, who wrote extensively about the Balaam account and never mentioned it. A third early scholar who argued for the donkey story as a supplement was Max Löhr, who harshly criticized the documentary approach. See Max Löhr, “Bileam, Num 22, 2-24, 25,” Archiv für Orientforschung 4 (1927): 85–89. This article also went mostly unnoticed by his fellow scholars.

Heinrich Holzinger, Numeri erklärt, KHAT (Tübingen und Leipzig: Mohr, 1903), 113–114.

Rashbam attempts to distinguish between “from my presence” (מפני) and “before my presence” (לפני) to make אולי work in this context.

See Kalisch, Prophecies of Balaam, 34–35.

See Kalisch, Prophecies of Balaam, 139–140.

Bruno Baentsch, Exodus, Leviticus, Numeri, Handkommentar zum Alten Testemant (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1903), 598; Julius A. Bewer, “Literary Problems of the Balaam Story,” American Journal of Theology 9 (1905): 238–262 [258]; Löhr, “Bileam,” 88; Wilhelm Rudolph, Der Elohist von Exodus bis Joshua, BZAW 68 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1938), 110.

Baentsch has a nice discussion of this point: see Exodus, Leviticus, Numeri, 598. See also Hugo Gressmann, Mose und seine Zeit: Ein Kommentar zu den Mose-Sagen (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1913), 323.

Arnold Ehrlich, in his Miqra Kepheshutto (Gen 21:19) tries to distinguish between “revealing [to someone’s] eyes” (לגלות עינים), which appears here and in Psalms 119:18, and “to open [one’s] eyes.“ I do not believe this distinction holds water, and the opening of Adam and Eve’s eyes (פקח) is enough to disprove it. In truth, the phrase פקח עיניים in the Bible is also used to describe seeing something that the average person does not see (Gen 21:19, 2 Kgs 6:17, 20). It is just that in this case, the author chose the phrase “revealed to the eyes of…” (ויגל… את עיני) as an intertextual play: until YHWH revealed (גל) the angel to Balaam’s eyes (את עיני), Balaam was not really someone “with his eyes unveiled” (גילוי עינים), but rather, he could see even less than his donkey. Thus, it would seem to me that Mauchline got the order of intertextual play backwards when he argued that the use of the term in the poem was a play on its use in the donkey story. See, John Mauchline, “The Balaam-Balak Songs and Saga,” in Presentation Volume to W. B Stevenson, ed. C. J. Mullo Weir, Studie Semetica and Orientalia 2  (Glasgow: Glasgow University Oriental Society, 1945), 43–94.

Compare Job 12:7, 35:11.

This style of burlesque is utilized often in Aesop’s Fables, which will portray astrologers, diviners, and sorcerers failing in such ways. See discussion in, Yair Zakovitch, על שלושה ועל ארבעה: הדגם הספרותי שלושה-ארבעה במקרא [The Literary Device of 3-4 in the Bible] (PhD diss., Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1978), 123–129 [108n41].

I say this in contrast to Groß (Bileam, 367) who recognized no literary dependence of the donkey story on any part of the Balaam account, including the poems.

For more on how Balaam turned from heroic character to villain over time, see my “How Balaam the Prophet of YHWH Became a Villain,” TheTorah.com (2019).

Editor’s note: For an argument that the Midianites are redactional insertions into the story, see Itamar Kislev, “How Ancient Scribes Tried to Make Sense of the Composite Story of Baal Peor,” TheTorah.com (2014).

For instance, rabbinic midrash makes use of divine anthropomorphism. Similarly, the motif of animals that turn out to be better than humans is characteristic of post-destruction (i.e., post-Second Temple) prophetic parables.