Parashat Balak (Numbers 22:2-25:9)

click here to read the JPS parallel translation of the Parasha

by Rabbi Alexandra Wright

At first sight, this week’s parashah appears to give us two completely different tales.  The first is the fable of Balaam and his donkey.  The king of Moab summons his local soothsayer and prophet, Balaam, to pronounce a curse on the Israelites who are trespassing on his land.  “Now this horde will lick clean all that is about us as an ox licks up the grass of the field,” says Balak, frightened that the multitude will overrun his country.   As Balaam makes his way towards the encampment of the Israelites, the angel of God appears suddenly, blocking the pathway and causing Balaam’s donkey to swerve.  Balaam, unable to see the vision, beats his donkey again and again, until the animal opens its mouth and exposing her master’s blind ignorance, begins to speak.  The parashah continues with a series of oracles delivered by Balaam – words that emerge through him from God, both about Israel and about God.

In the second story, the Israelite men are caught whoring with Moabite women and are publicly executed.  A coda to this brief narrative focuses on one particular couple, an Israelite man and a Midianite woman (there are clearly different traditions at work here) who are killed by Pinchas, the grandson of Aaron, at the very moment they move into what seems like a marriage chamber.  This act checks the plague that has broken out among the Israelite community.    Later on, we are to learn that Pinchas is to be rewarded by God for this act of so-called justice.

Is there a connection between these two very different stories?

The parashah begins with the words Va-yar Balak ben Tzippor et kol-asher asah yisrael la-emori – “Balak son of Zippor saw all that Israel had done to the Amorites” (Numbers 22:2).  Note the opening verb, from the root ‘to see’.  That verb is going to be important throughout the portion.  God’s message only emerges for Balaam when he is able to see the angel of God – he must learn that lesson through his more perceptive and intelligent donkey.  Note too how Balak’s lineage is given – who is this Zippor, the father of Balak, mentioned only in relation to his son?  In addition, Balak instructs his messengers to tell Balaam to ‘curse’ the people and later on Balak himself offers a huge reward to Balaam provided that he “damns this people for me” – kova li et ha-am ha-zeh (22.17).  In this verse, Balak uses another verb which means ‘to curse’, different from the verb used earlier on in the chapter and translated ‘damn’ in some translations.

If we move to the very end of the sedra, at the moment when the Israelite man brings his Midianite partner to his ‘kinsmen’ or ‘companions’ or ‘brother’, depending on which translation you wish to use, we are told: Va-yar Pinchas ben-Elazar ben-Aharon ha-cohen… - “When Pinchas, son of Eleazar son of Aaron the priest, saw [this]… (25.7)  Here too, Pinchas’s genealogy is important.  The actions of both Pinchas and Balak are prompted by what they see – in the one case, a marauding horde, whose presence covers the face of the earth and who have crossed the border into Moabite country, in the other a couple who have crossed the boundaries of acceptable conduct within the camp.  Both accounts, then, begin in a similar way – va-yar – “and he saw”.

But there is another resonance and play on words which is lost in translation.  Pinchas follows the couple into ha-kubbah – this perhaps is a tent that is part of the cultic area.  Or it may be a marital chamber, a spacious, vaulted canopy used by the Israelite man.  Some dictionaries suggest that it is a ‘lupanar’ – a brothel.  We should remember that this part of the story follows immediately after the brief account of the Israelite men “profaning themselves by whoring with the Moabite women, who invited the menfolk to the sacrifices for their god” (25:1-2).  Pinchas then stabs the couple with his spear, the woman el-kovatah – “through her belly”.  I wonder whether there is a suggestion that she may be pregnant – the use of this word suggests the full roundedness of her body.

Something is happening in the narrative through the use of this root k.v.v. – used by Balak, who tells Balaam to ‘damn’ (kova)  the Israelites, and used in Chapter 25 as a noun for the place where the couple unite (kubbah) and are together in some way, and then referring to the woman’s stomach (kovatah).

The word seems to suggest a puncturing in order to eliminate something.  Balak wants Balaam to use his powers of magic and cursing to bring death to the Israelites. He will puncture them with his words.  Pinchas uses his spear to stab and kill the Israelite and the Midianite woman and thus extirpate the evil from the midst of the people.

Balak’s order to damn the Israelites is going to fail: “I called you to damn (la-kov) my enemies and instead you have blessed them these three times!” cries Balak as he listens to the lyrical praise that Balaam intones over the Israelites.  And despite the action of Pinchas, and the reward that he is given, there is something subversive going on in this part of the sedra.  The very mention of the Moabite women brings to mind Ruth, the Moabitess who is to follow her mother-in-law, Naomi, back to Bethlehem, who marries Boaz and becomes the great-grandmother of King David.  Here a Moabitess is honoured for her place in Jewish history.  While the second source which speaks about the Midianite woman, reminds us of Zipporah, the wife of Moses.  And perhaps the mention of Balak’s father’s name, Zippor, is a gentle reminder at the beginning of the sedra, that Moses himself had taken a Midianite wife, neither from his tribe, nor even from his own people.

Not even the zeal of Judaism’s fiercest arbitrators hold back the tide of history, of human appetite and love.  If the Midianite woman had been pregnant, Pinchas would have been guilty of cutting off a new life and eliminating the possibility that this Jewish man and his non-Jewish bride may just have brought up their child in the Jewish community.

Rabbi Alexandra Wright

The Liberal Jewish Synagogue