Numbers 23:1

Build me here seven altars, &c.— That is, say some, in honour of that God who had consecrated the number seven by ceasing from his works of creation on the seventh day. That Balaam sacrificed to Jehovah, the true God, there can be no question; but Psalmanazar's reasons why he erected seven altars seem the most probable. He observes, that the kind and number of victims here mentioned is not only enjoined by the Mosaic law upon various occasions, but also to Job's three friends, by way of atonement for their trespass. Job 42:8. But as to this number of altars, we no where read of any such, nor indeed of any more than one at a time, either under the patriarchal or Mosaic dispensation. A greater number was not compatible with the notion of one Supreme Being, whom Balaam professed to worship; but if he reared them to seven planets, which were esteemed the greatest and most powerful of all the subordinate deities, as we have great reason to suppose he did, because that kind of theology had been some time in vogue in Egypt, and spread itself in all those parts;—then it is plain, that he applied to them in that manner only as to the most powerful mediators, to render a Supreme Deity propitious to his wishes. See on the foregoing chapter, Second Principle, page 576. What makes this interpretation the more probable, is, that upon his meeting with God at the conclusion of the first of those grand ceremonies, he addresses him in these terms, I have prepared seven altars, and offered upon each of them a bullock and a ram, Numbers 23:4 but does not in either part mention the word to thee, as He would of course have done, had these altars been designedly reared, or the victims been offered to him; so that he means no more, according to the theology then reigning, than this: "I have invoked, by the usual rites, the seven planets, or inferior deities, to whom thou hast committed the government of the world, to interpose their mediation with thee, on the behalf of Moab and Midian." What confirms this interpretation the more, is, that after Balaam has declared the tenor of the divine answer, in terms the most opposite to Balak's wishes, that monarch does not desire him to apply himself to some other inferior deities, there being little reason to hope that these should prove more successful than the former; but only desires him to repeat the same sacrifices to them from some other eminence, (Numbers 23:13.) which might prove more favourable than this: to which we may add, that the last two trials are performed at the desire of, and in compliance with, the superstitious king, and not by the prophet's advice or choice, who could not but certainly conclude, from the express tenor of the first divine answer, the impossibility of obtaining a reversion of it. However, as this worship and invocation of the planets was one of the main branches of heathen idolatry, against which God had so solemnly declared his displeasure, and done so many wonders both in Egypt and other places to extirpate it out of the minds of those infatuated nations, we may reasonably rank it among the unlawful means which Balaam made use of upon this occasion, and which Moses mentions under the name of divinations, or enchantments. See chap. Numbers 24:1. Others he might, and probably did use, which Moses has given us no further account of, than where he tells us, that when Balaam found, at the third trial, that God was determined to bless Israel, he went not as at other times to seek for them; but set his face towards the wilderness: i.e. towards the Israelitish host; and, having received the divine impulse, delivered his third blessing on them, in more emphatical and magnificent terms than he had done at the two former; till Balak, quite out of patience at his expressing himself in so high and extraordinary a manner, at once silenced and dismissed him with contempt and disgrace; ch. Numbers 24:10.

Numbers 23:2. Balak and Balaam offered on every altar— Kings in ancient times were priests also, whereof we have a striking example in Melchisedeck; see Genesis 14:18. So that Balak might be priest of the Moabites as well as king, and thus officiate with Balaam in the sacerdotal functions; though some have thought that he did no more than barely present the sacrifices to be offered by Balaam for him and his people.