Bilaam's True Nature
There’s a little known fact about Bilaam, that we can only deduce once we assemble a bunch of other little factoids. So let’s get to it!
(a) Bilaam was blind, in that he could only see through one eye. Thus, Bemidbar 24:3:
וַיִּשָּׂ֥א מְשָׁל֖וֹ וַיֹּאמַ֑ר נְאֻ֤ם בִּלְעָם֙ בְּנ֣וֹ בְעֹ֔ר וּנְאֻ֥ם הַגֶּ֖בֶר שְׁתֻ֥ם הָעָֽיִן׃
Taking up his theme, he said:
Word of Balaam son of Beor,
Word of the man whose eye is true,
Rashi points us to Niddah 31a, which takes shetum to mean blind, and explains why he was punished with one blind eye:
דרש רבי אבהו מאי דכתיב (במדבר כג, י) מי מנה עפר יעקב ומספר את רובע ישראל מלמד שהקב"ה יושב וסופר את רביעיותיהם של ישראל מתי תבא טיפה שהצדיק נוצר הימנה
Rabbi Abbahu taught: What is the meaning of that which is written in Balaam’s blessing: “Who has counted the dust of Jacob, or numbered the stock [rova] of Israel” (Numbers 23:10)? The verse teaches that the Holy One, Blessed be He, sits and counts the times that the Jewish people engage in intercourse [revi’iyyoteihem], anticipating the time when the drop from which the righteous person will be created will arrive.
ועל דבר זה נסמית עינו של בלעם הרשע אמר מי שהוא טהור וקדוש ומשרתיו טהורים וקדושים יציץ בדבר זה מיד נסמית עינו דכתיב (במדבר כד, ג) נאם הגבר שתום העין
And it was due to this matter that the eye of wicked Balaam went blind. He said: Should God, who is pure and holy, and whose ministers are pure and holy, peek at this matter? Immediately his eye was blinded as a divine punishment, as it is written: “The saying of the man whose eye is shut” (Numbers 24:3).
Alternatively, Rashi points to the singular combined with the eye seeing well, open-eyed, which means that the other eye did not see well. See Sanhedrin 105a.
(b) Also, he had a single horn. Thus, he says in prophecy,
אֵ֖ל מוֹצִיאָ֣ם מִמִּצְרָ֑יִם כְּתוֹעֲפֹ֥ת רְאֵ֖ם לֽוֹ׃
God who freed them from Egypt
Is for them like the horns of the wild ox.
What is a re’eim? The Targum Hashiv’im (Septuagint) renders this as:
θεὸς ὁ ἐξαγαγὼν αὐτοὺς ἐξ Αἰγύπτου ὡς δόξα μονοκέρωτος αὐτῷ
Mono-kerotos means one-horned, a unicorn. We might think that this refers to the Bnei Yisrael, but for the sake of this devar Torah, let us take it as referring to Bilaam himself.
(c) Bilaam was capable of flight. Thus, we see in Midrash Rabba on parashat Balak:
וכלי הקדש, זה הציץ, שכתוב בו: קדש לה'.
וחצוצרות התרועה בידו
אמר להם משה לישראל: בלעם הרשע עשה להם כשפים ופורח ומפריח לחמשת המלכים, הראו לו את הציץ, ששמו של הקדוש ברוך הוא גלוף עליו, והן נופלין תדע, שכן כתיב (במדבר לא): ואת מלכי מדין הרגו על חלליהם את אוי ואת רקם ואת בלעם בן בעור.
Moshe said to Israel: The wicked Bilaam performed sorcery for them and caused the five kings to levitate and fly. He showed him the tzitz upon which Hashem’s name was inscribed, and thy fell. For so is written (Bemidbar 31) “And the kings of Midian they killed upon their corpses, Oy and Rekem and Bilaam ben Beor…
A similar midrash appears for parshat Matot — or perhaps I should say parshas Matos :) — and I discuss the midrash on parshablog here. Meanwhile, in Targum Pseudo-Yonatan, a related midrash appears, in which the Divine Name was used to give Pinchas matching flight. To cite from my parshablog translation:
And the kings of the Midianites they killed on their camps - Evi, Rekem, Tzur - he is Balak, Chur, and Reva, the five kings of Midian. And Bilaam son of Beor they slew with a sword.
And it was, when Bilaam the guilty saw Pinchas the priest running after him, he performed a magical feat and flew in the air in the sky.
Immediately, Pinchas pronounced the Great and Holy Name and flew after him, and grabbed him by the head and brought him down and was about to slay him.
He {=Bilaam} opened his mouth with words of supplication and said to Pinchas: If you let me live, I swear to you that as long as I live I will not curse your nation.
He {Pinchas} responded and said to him: Are you not Lavan the Aramean who wished to destroy our forefather Yaakov? And you descended to Egypt to destroy the descendants. And after they left Egypt you incited {to war} against them the wicked Amalek. And then you hired yourself out so curse them. And when you saw that your actions did not help and Hashem did not accept your words, you counseled an evil counsel to Balak to place his daughter at the crossroads to lead them astray, and because of this 24,000 of them died. Because of this, it is not possible anymore to spare your life.
And immediately, he drew his sword from its sheath and slew him.
Thus, Bilaam could fly.
(d) He wore the royal purple. That is, in Bereishit 36:32:
וַיִּמְלֹ֣ךְ בֶּאֱד֔וֹם בֶּ֖לַע בֶּן־בְּע֑וֹר וְשֵׁ֥ם עִיר֖וֹ דִּנְהָֽבָה׃
Bela son of Beor reigned in Edom, and the name of his city was Dinhabah.
Was Bela the same as Bilaam, the son of Beor? Ibn Ezra reject the idea:
בלע בן בעור. איננו בלעם. גם בלעם איננו בן לבן הארמי. ויתכן שדרך הדרש בעבור היותו מנחש כמוהו. כי לא יפול מדברי רבותינו ז"ל ארצה. גם בלע ארמי היה וזה בלעם אדומי. גם יובב בן זרח איננו איוב כאשר אמר היצחקי המהביל:
AND BELA THE SON OF BEOR. Bela is not to be identified with Balaam the son of Beor, and neither is Baalam the son of Laban the Aramean. The Midrash which states that Baalam is the son of Laban is probably based on the fact that both were sorcerers because “none of the words of our sages of blessed memory ever fall to the ground.” We cannot identify Baalam with Bela because Bela was an Edomite and Baalam an Aramean. We are also not to identify Jobab the son of Zerah (v. 33) with Job, as Yitzchaki the windbag does.
Yet (some versions of) Targum Pseudo-Yonatan have Bilaam ben Beor as this king:
ומלך באדום בלעם בר בעור ושום קרתא דבית מלכותיה דנהבא.
If he was a king of Edom, then presumably he wore the royal purple.
e) His name is a contraction of בלע + עם, bala' 'am, which means “swallower of a people”.
Put this all together, and it turns out that:
♫ He was a (a) one eyed, (b) one horned, (c) flying (d) purple (e) people eater. ♪