Numbers 23:22

He hath as it were the horns of the wild-ox -He" means Israel, not God. The word for -horns" is rare; but Deuteronomy 33:17 helps to decide the meaning. In Psalms 95:4 it denotes mountain peaks. The wild-ox (re"çm) -is the rîmuof the Assyrian inscriptions. It is represented on the Assyrian sculptures as a huge species (now extinct) of the bovine kind." See art. -Unicorn" in Hastings" DB.iv.

23a. For divination is not in Jacob, and soothsaying is not in Israel] This appears to explain Israel's victorious strength by the fact that they were free from these heathen practices. But the words are strange in the midst of a passage describing the fierce and irresistible advance of an army with a divine King and Captain at their head. In Numbers 23:21 the words for -calamity" and -trouble" can also be rendered, as in R.V., -iniquity" and -perverseness." And it is very probable that a scribe, who understood the two words in the latter sense, inserted the present clause as a marginal comment on Numbers 23:21, thus endorsing the principle contained in 1 Samuel 15:23, that soothsaying and divination by means of teraphim are sins no less than rebellion against God's commands. It is further noteworthy that in the same chapter (1 Samuel 15:29) are quoted Balaam's words in Numbers 23:19 a.

23b. Now shall it be said&c. If the former half of the verse was not originally part of the poem, these words refer suitably to God's action in bringing Israel out of Egypt (Numbers 23:22 a).