Numbers 23:25-30

Numbers 23:25 to Numbers 24:2. Balak's Sacrifices preliminary to Balaam's third Oracle. The scene of these was Peor, some mountain overlooking the desert bordering the Dead Sea on the W. The inconsistency between Balak's indignant dismissal of Balaam in Numbers 23:25 and his renewed attempt in Numbers 23:27 f. to gain what he wanted has suggested that with Numbers 23:25 one account of the episode ends, and that what follows comes from another, with editorial links. The allusion in Numbers 24:1 to the use of enchantments (better, divinations or omens) on previous occasions certainly does not correspond to the accounts in Numbers 23:3 f., or Numbers 23:15 f., so that the conclusion that here the editor has used another source of which a portion has been omitted, seems justified. Probably E has been mainly employed in Numbers 23, and J in Numbers 24.