[18][19][20][21] Some authors claim that Bezer was the Aramaic pronunciation of Beor,[20] while others hold that the author was attempting to play off the Hebrew word basar or "flesh" to insult Balaam. Regarding the Islamic view of Balaam, no clear reference is made to Balaam in the Qur'an. 106b). Still other authors hold that Bezer and Beor are distinct, while still identifying the Balaams of the Old and New Testaments, claiming that Beor is Balaam's father and Bezer is Balaam's home town.[21]. xxxi. Meaning of balaam. The name Bileam is the same as Balaam, and the etymology of this name isn't certain, although most probably it consists of two parts. Al-Tha'labi[25] adds that Balaam was descended from Lot. The village dates back to the Domesday Bookof 1086 when it was first listed as Beleham and probably meant "homestead or enclosure at a river-bend" from the Old English words "begel" + "ham" or "hamm." The surname Balaam was first found in Suffolk, in the village and civil parish of Baylham. ", "A Pronouncing and Phonetic Dictionary of Biblical Names", "2 Peter 2:15 They have left the straight way and wandered off to follow the way of Balaam son of Beor, who loved the wages of wickedness", http://torahofyeshuah.blogspot.com/2015/07/book-of-meqabyan-i-iii.html, http://jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=993&letter=A&search=Ahitophel, Who's Who of the Bible: Everything you need to know about everyone named in the Bible, The Proper Names of the Bible; Their Orthography, Pronunciation, and Signification, Etc, A Dictionary of the Bible, Comprising Its Antiquities, Biography, Geography, and Natural History, Jude and 2 Peter (Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament), https://www.sacred-texts.com/isl/pro/grp00.htm, "Problems of Genre and Historicity with Palestine's Descriptions", “The Coherence of the Biblical Story of Balaam.”, Biblical Hebrew Poetry – Reconstructing the Original Oral, Aural and Visual Experience, The Oracles of Balaam (poetic portions of Numbers 23:7–24:24) Reconstructed, International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, ibn Abdullah ibn Abdul-Muttalib ibn Hashim, Current Ummah of Islam (Ummah of Muhammad), https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Balaam&oldid=987375349, Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia, Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia without a Wikisource reference, Wikipedia articles incorporating text from the 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia, Wikipedia articles with Trove identifiers, Wikipedia articles with WORLDCATID identifiers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. I. Jude speaks of the "error of Balaam" into which men of nothing but beastly instinct rush headlong (Jude 1:11). The Muslim commentators explain that Balaam was a Canaanite who had been given knowledge of some of the books of God. Divination degenerates nature to a manipulable device with a few buttons, and separates the diviner and his audience from their rightful place in nature and ultimately from God. "[5], The story of Balaam and Balak is also made reference to in chapter 10 of 2 Meqabyan, a book considered canonical in the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church.[6]. to get this name's meaning and other information. According to Jewish legend, Balaam was made this powerful in order to prevent the non-Jewish tribes from saying: "If we had only had our own Moses, we would be as pious as the Jews." The second, Numbers 23:18–24, celebrates the moral virtue of Israel, its monarchy, and military conquests. All the prophecies which Balaam makes take the form of (Hebrew) poems: The poems fall into three groups. The fourth, Numbers 24:14–19, prophesies the coming of a king who will conquer Edom and Moab. Jones also adds Swallowing Up The People. The story as told by Tabari[23] is somewhat more Biblical. Though some sources may only describe the positive blessings he delivers upon the Israelites, he is reviled as a "wicked man" in both the Torah and the New Testament (2 Peter 2:15, Jude 1:11, Revelation 2:14). The seventh is also ambiguous, and may either be a reference to the Sea Peoples, or, again in the view of some religious commentators, to the conquest of Persia by Alexander the Great. 10 Baby Names We Hope We’ll Never See Again After 2020, This Couple Named Their Baby After Their Internet Provider, Emily Maynard Johnson Just Revealed Her Baby Girl’s Name & It’s Full of Southern Charm, These Angelic Baby Names Are Perfect for Your (Let’s Hope) Little Angel, Quintessential Baby Names Beginning With ‘Q’ for Your New Cutie. He gives, too, the story of Balaam's dream, his being forbidden by God to curse Israel. The first group consists of two poems which characteristically start immediately. At this point, Balaam is allowed to see the angel, who informs him that the donkey's turning away from the messenger is the only reason the angel did not kill Balaam. ; Taanit 20a; Midrash Numbers Rabbah 20:14). [10][11][12][13] Balaam's father Beor was a son of Laban[14] The Book of Jasher reports Balaam's sons were Jannes and Jambres[15]. Balak meets with Balaam at Kirjat Huzoth, and they go to the "high places of Baal", and offer sacrifices on seven altars, leading to Balaam being given a prophecy by Yahweh, which He speaks to Balak. She is to cover the sky and reduce the world to complete darkness. After Balaam starts punishing the donkey for refusing to move, it is miraculously given the power to speak to Balaam (Numbers 22:28), and it complains about Balaam's treatment. x. The first part seems to have been derived from the verb בלע (bala'), meaning to swallow: The final three poems do not refer either to Israel or to Moab, and are thus considered unusual, since they seem to have little relevance to the narrative. Balaam has attracted much interest, alike from Jews, Christians, and Muslims. In Biblical Names the meaning of the name Balaam is: The ancient of the people, the destruction of the people. Some have theorized that Balaam became used as a pseudonym for Jesus in Jewish literature. Another possibility is a combination of the words בל, the name Bel, or בעל, the name Baal, and any of the words עם listed above, which may be the name of a god Am (says BDB Theological Dictionary), or a Baal-specification (such as Baal-peor), or simply the word עם ('am), kinsman (on the father's side), or עם ('am), people, as used in names like Amram and Rehoboam, or עם ('im), the preposition 'with,' such as found in the name Immanuel (With Us Is God). [27], The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Studies describes it as "the oldest example of a book in a West Semitic language written with the alphabet, and the oldest piece of Aramaic literature. This interpretation is now no longer considered founded on possible etymology (says HAW Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament ) but there is no law against being reminded of these words. At first, the angel is seen only by the donkey Balaam is riding, which tries to avoid the angel. (, Mother Abiona or Amtelai the daughter of Karnebo, Slayers of Saleh's she-camel (Qaddar ibn Salif and Musda' ibn Dahr). Savelle, Charles. Then his tongue came out and hung down on his breast. [26], In 1967, at Deir Alla, Jordan, archaeologists found an inscription with a story relating visions of the seer of the gods Bala'am, son of Be'or, who may be the same Bala'am mentioned in Numbers 22–24 and in other passages of the Bible. One suggestion is a combination of the Hebrew particle of negation בל (), not, plus the noun עם ('im), people: ix. The book devotes a special section to the history of the prophet discussing why God has taken away the power of prophecy from the Gentiles (Tan., Balak, 1). A man also named Balaam also figures as an example of a false prophet motivated by greed or avarice in both 2 Peter 2:15 and in Jude 1:11. Balaam initially finds the endeavor not a good idea (Numbers 22:18) but he goes anyway and ends up starring in one of the most curious scenes in the Bible: that of the talking donkey (Numbers 22:21-35). According to a negative view of Balaam in the Talmud, Balaam possessed the gift of being able to ascertain the exact moment during which God is wroth — a gift bestowed upon no other creature. The third, Numbers 24:3–9, celebrates the glory and conquests of Israel's monarchy. belongs to the composite document JE, Bileam and Jesus, in "Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift für Jüdische Theologie," Volume 6, pp. The Rabbis, playing on the name Balaam, call him "Belo 'Am" (without people; that is, without a share with the people in the world to come), or "Billa' 'Am" (one that ruined a people); and this hostility against his memory finds its climax in the dictum that whenever one discovers a feature of wickedness or disgrace in his life, one should preach about it (Sanh. The Israelites have already defeated two kings in Transjordan: Sihon, king of the Amorites, and Og, king of Bashan. Balaam's intention was to curse the Israelites at this moment of wrath, and thus cause God himself to destroy them; but God purposely restrained His anger in order to baffle the wicked prophet and to save the nation from extermination (Talmud, Berachot 7a). xxii.). The wicked Balaam is included in the list of persons born circumcised along with Moses in the book Abbot De-Rabbi Natan.[8]. To them the prophetic word finds application: 'Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom,' Jer. Numbers 31:16 blames this on Balaam's advice and because of his culpability in the incident, which resulted in deadly divine judgements against the Israelites who participated, he was eventually killed in a retaliatory battle against Midian in Numbers 31:8. 206 et seq., Cairo ed., 1298. ); and it is stated that he had no portion in the world to come (Sanh. Agag, mentioned in the third poem, is described as a great king, which does not correspond to the king of the Amalekites who was named Agag, and described in I Samuel 15, since that description considers Amalek to be small and obscure. The God of the Hebrews, adds Balaam, according to the Rabbis, hates lewdness; and severe chastisement must follow (San. The seventh, Numbers 24:23–24, concerns "ships of Kittim" coming from the west to attack Assyria and Eber. He met his death at the age of thirty-three (ib. 'i'a' al-Anbiyya, pp. Thus the name Balaam means Destroyer Of People (NOBSE Study Bible Name List), Destruction Of The People (Jones' Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names), or Confuser Of The People (Jones). According to Revelation (Revelation 2:14), Balaam told King Balak how to get the Israelites to commit sin by enticing them with sexual immorality and food sacrificed to idols. Balak and Balaam then go to their respective homes. According to another story which al-Tabari gives, Balaam was a renegade Israelite who knew the Most Sacred Name, and to gain the things of this world, went over to the Canaanites. For a closer look at the art of divination, please review our article on the roots נחש (nahash). B. 7). 840–760 BCE; it was painted in red and black inks, apparently to emphasize the text, on fragments of a plastered wall: 119 pieces of inked plaster were recovered. It is thought that they may have been added to bring the number of poems either up to five, if inserted into the Elohist source, or up to seven, if only inserted once JE was constructed. Balaam then looks upon the Kenites, and Amalekites and offers two more predictions of their fates. The Spirit of God comes upon Balaam and he delivers a third positive prophecy concerning Israel. 23" (Num. Balaam then sets out in the morning with the princes of Moab. Most commentators nowadays prefer a combination of the word עם ('am), people, and the verb בלע (bala'), meaning to swallow: The verb בלע (bala') means to swallow with the implication of destruction of what was swallowed. Noun עם ('am) means a people, ranging from all of mankind to the in-crowd of a small village.