Shabbat Parashat Balak - 5784

Shabbat Parashat Balak - 5784

Rabbi Hal Miller

  Moav said to the elders of Midian, "Now the congregation will chew up our entire

  surroundings, as an ox chews up the greenery of the field." [Bamidbar 22:4]

Throughout this chapter the Torah uses different words to describe the people

involved other than Balak and Bilaam. In our verse, the people of Moav were speaking

to "the elders of Midian". In the next verse, Balak sent "messengers", which we could

easily understand as being a separate set of people. But in 22:7, the "elders of Moav

and the elders of Midian" are the ones who Balak sent to Bilaam. In verse 13, Bilaam

spoke to those who came to him, who the Torah describes as the "officers of Balak".

In verses 14 and 15 we see the word "officers" again, and in 18, Bilaam responded to

those that Balak had sent, but here they are called "servants of Balak". Why all the

changes? Are they in fact the same people all throughout?

Onkelos and the Zohar answer the last question in the negative. In verse 5, the word is

malachim, which means either messengers or angels. Onkelos says that Balak had the

ability to call upon certain angels and send them to Bilaam. These angels did not take

any further part in the story, so the word malachim is only used once.

In verse 4 we could read that the elders of Moav were the same ones as the elders

of Midian, but in verse 7 we clearly see that those are two sets of elders. In verse 13,

Bilaam tells the officers of Balak to go back. What happened to the elders of Midian?

The Gemora Sanhedrin [105a] explains that when Bilaam told everyone he needed to

consult with God, the elders of Midian knew Bilaam was a fake, so they just got up and

left, and we do not hear of them again. Those from Moav remained behind. Ibn Ezra

thinks the Midianite elders remained as well, but the Torah just doesn't mention them

since Balak was (at this point) representing Moav. Ramban disagrees, and says that

the Midianites were in fact on their return home after discussions with Balak, and just

happened to be going the same direction as those Balak sent to Bilaam in verse 7,

but they did not stop as did the Moavite elders.

In verses 13, 14 and 15 the Torah refers to them as officers of Balak or officers of Moav.

Or HaChayim points out that when Balak sent more officers, they were in addition to

the ones he had sent previous to verse 15. In any case, we might understand that these

officers were in addition to the original elders, more representative of Balak himself than

had been the elders. But then we reach verse 18, where the Torah tells us that Bilaam

spoke to the servants of Balak. Rav Hirsch and Rav Soloveitchik both explain that the

higher up the command chain officers get, the more they are treated as servants of the

boss. Rav Hirsch uses the term "princes of the highest rank" and Rav Soloveitchik calls

them nobles. He also notes that the earlier messengers, elders, officers or whatever all

gave Bilaam the message in their own words, but these final ones used the phrase, "so

said Balak", thus keeping strictly to the charge of their master.

Initially, Balak sent the elders of the people of Moav to Bilaam. When they reported back

with failure, Balak sent them again but with governmental representatives. Each time he

sent higher ranking representatives. The elders of Midian had journeyed to visit Balak,

but after their initial conversations, they went back home, apparently stopping along the

way for a quick visit to Bilaam, but they did not participate in those discussions.