Numbers 24:17

I shall see him, but not now: I shall behold him, but not nigh: there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Sheth.

I shall see him ... - "Him," used collectively for "Israel." This passage exhibits a striking view of the subjective visions of the prophets. While they are frequently represented as receiving verbal communications and favoured with signs, here Balaam seems to have had the actual scene brought before his mental eye. The form of the tense indicates a present sight rather than a prediction of the future.

A Star - not a literal material star. Some, indeed, think that Balaam here predicts the appearance of the meteor which was seen by the magi at the birth of Christ; but that did not come out of Jacob; and the human actions predicated of this star are totally inapplicable to what guided the wise men. A "star" is a symbol of splendid dignity and power, and hence, is used in the prophetic writings to denote a prince or illustrious ruler (Ezekiel 32:7; Daniel 8:10; Joel 2:10); and it appears very appropriate in the mouth of Balaam, who came from Mesopotamia, the land of astrology.

A Sceptre (Genesis 49:10). The Jews universally interpreted this prophecy as pointing to a victorious king of their nation-typically, and in a secondary sense, fulfilled in David (2 Samuel 8:2; 2 Samuel 8:14; 1 Chronicles 18:13), but chiefly, and in the highest degree, realized in the Messiah (Zechariah 9:10; Obadiah 1:21).

Dr. Warburton thinks that while the two metaphors employed by Balaam are, from common and popular use, readily understood to signify a prince or ruler, the latter, "a star," had further a secret and mystical import. 'A star in the Egyptian hieroglyphics denoted God; and that hieroglyphic writings very much influenced the Eastern languages is well known. Thus, God, in reproving the Israelites for their idolatry at the time of the exodus, says (Amos 5:26), "Ye have borne the star of your god which ye made to yourselves." "The star of your god is a sublime figure to signify the image of your god. Hence, we conclude, that the metaphor here used by Balaam of "a star" was of that abstruse, mysterious kind, and so to be understood; consequently it related only to Christ, the Son of God.'

But whether the "Star out of Jacob" symbolized the Israelite kingdom in general, or an individual king, David, or Christ, the spiritual king of Israel, a vast interval existed between the date of this prediction and the earliest accomplishment of it. How surprising to hear of the star and sceptre of the Messiah from the lips of one who came from Aram and the mountains of the East; and what a striking evidence does this afford of a fact which the cases of Abimelech, Pharaoh, etc., prove, that in early times, before the dispensation of Moses, God was pleased to reveal His purposes of mercy, as well as of judgment, through the instrumentality of persons in various nations!

And shall smite the corners of Moab, х pa'ateey (H6285), dual, the two sides, pª'at (H6285) Mow'aab (H4124)] (Jeremiah 48:45) - a corner; i:e., a region; hence, here the "corners," or two sides, denote the whole region of Moab. [The Septuagint has: thrausei tous archeegous Mooab, 'shall break or shatter the rulers of Moab.']

And destroy all the children of Sheth. Some consider "Sheth" as the third son of Adam; and in that case 'all the children of Sheth' are equivalent to 'all mankind.' But as it would have been as little pertinent to the occasion as true in point of fact, that a king of Israel would destroy all mankind, the Syriac and Chaldee versions attempt to soften the harshness of the original term by translating the one, 'shall subdue all the sons of Sheth;' and the other, 'shall rule over all the sons of men.' [But mªqarqar (H6979) is a strong term, and occurs only in Isaiah 22:5, where it can bear no other sense than that of breaking down, or destroying; and, assuming that such is also the meaning of the word in this passage, it is evident that the objects which the predicted king of Israel shall "destroy" must be, not the human race at large, who are never spoken of in Scripture as descended from Seth as their progenitor, but some particular class of people.]

Accordingly, various interpretations of the phrase have been suggested; such as, 'all the sons of the East'-from Moab's geographical position relative to Judea ('Jerusalem Targum'): 'all the sons of Sheth = the combined forces of Gog against Israel ('Targum of Jonathan'). Others have concluded, that a distich in the prophecy being appropriated to Edom (Numbers 24:18), a similar prominence would be given to Moab; and that as the second line in the parallelism is, according to the style of Hebrew poetry, usually exegetical of the former, "Sheth" must be synonymous with Moab, and denote either the bragging Moabites (Isaiah 16:6; Jeremiah 48:2; Jeremiah 48:4: Lengerke, quoted by Kurtz) or the name of some unknown prince or place of Moab (Grotius, Poole, Newton), or be a designation of the original inhabitants of the Transjordanic region, the Shetta, Shethites-namely, the Emim, a remnant of whom still survived after the Amorite conquest, and who, from their ancient influence, continued to give name to the promiscuous occupiers of the country; so that the whole population-not only the Kenite, who was a branch of the Emim, but Amalek, and the tribe of Esau, which was a late settler in that quarter-were designated Shethites, and reckoned among "the people" of the Shethite king, Balak (Corbaux).

Modern critics, however, for the most part consider "Sheth" to be, not a proper name, but an appellative. Ewald suggests as the proper reading [seet, for sª'eet (H7613)] 'the sons of pride;' but this is an unsupported conjecture. Gesenius, followed by Hengstenberg and Kurtz, prefers to translate the words, 'all the sons of (warlike) tumult' - i:e., all the tumultuous enemies of Israel, considering it synonymous with the tumultuous ones,' a phrase apparently borrowed from this passage (Jeremiah 48:45: cf. Lamentations 3:47).