Numbers 22:5

5. He sent messengers Balak was the originator of the scheme; Midian was an accessary. See Numbers 22:7.

Balaam Hebrew, Destroyer, Devourer. It is unknown whether he received this name at his birth, as a member of a family in which soothsaying was hereditary, or after he had acquired the reputation of a dreaded wizard and conjurer. From the fact that Beor signifies burning, eating off, destroying, we infer with Keil “that Balaam belonged to a family in which the mantic character, or magical art, was hereditary.” To Balaam the title of prophet, or seer, is never applied, but in Joshua 13:22, he is called the soothsayer, a term never predicated of any true prophet. But it is evident that he was not a mere heathen soothsayer; his acquaintance with Jehovah and his obedience to his commands, as well as his widespread reputation, indicate that he did not belong to the common herd of his profession. “It is one of the striking proofs of the divine universality of the Old Testament that the veil is from time to time drawn aside, and other characters than those which belonged to the chosen people appear in the distance, fraught with an instruction which even transcends the limits of the Jewish Church, and not only in place, but in time, far outruns the teaching of any peculiar age or nation. Such is the discussion of the profoundest questions of religious philosophy in the book of the Gentile Job. Such is the appearance of the Gentile prophet Balaam. He is one of those characters of whom, while so little is told that we seem to know nothing of him, yet whatever that little is, raises him at once to the highest pitch of interest.” Stanley. For a portraiture of his character and a discussion of its apparently contradictory elements, see chapter xxiv, concluding note. Pethor is a place in Aram, (chap. xxiii, 7,) Mesopotamia, which modern research has failed to identify. It was doubtless a seat of Babylonian magi, who were accustomed to congregate in separate towns, as were the Levites in the Levitical cities among the Israelites. It is evident that Pethor was situated among the highlands in Mesopotamia, upon the Euphrates, eighteen or twenty days’ journey from the plains of Moab. From this very region that extraordinary genius, Manes, the early Christian heresiarch, arose from a Magian family, A.D. 240 .

The river The Hebrew Nahar, with the article, here, as elsewhere in the Old Testament, designates the Euphrates.

Of the children of his people This describes Balaam as a native of Aram, which distant residence renders his blessing of Israel more unexpected and wonderful.