Numbers 24:3

Balaam … hath said. Rather, "the utterance of Balaam." נְאֻם is constantly used, as in Numbers 14:28 , for a Divine utterance, effatum Dei, but it does not by itself, apart from the context, claim a superhuman origin. The man whose eyes are open. הַגֶּבֶר שְׁתֻם הָעָיִן . The authorities are divided between the rendering in the text and the opposite rendering given in the margin. סָתַם is used in Daniel 8:26 , and שָׂתָם in Lamentations 3:8 , in the sense of "shut;" but, on the other hand, a passage in the Mishnah distinctly uses שׁתם and סתם in opposite senses. The Vulgate, on the one hand, has obturatus; the Septuagint, on the other, has ὁ ἀληθινῶς ὁρῶν , and this is the sense given by the Targums. Strange to say, it makes no real difference whether we read "open" or "shut," because in any case it was the inward vision that was quickened, while the outward senses were closed.