Numbers 23:14

The Holy Bible, Berean Study Bible

Contextual Overview

¹³Then Balak said to him, "Please come with me to another place where you can see them. You will only see the outskirts of their camp-not all of them. And from there, curse them for me." ¹⁴So Balak took him to the field of Zophim, to the top of Pisgah, where he built seven altars and offered a bull and a ram on each altar.¹⁵Balaam said to Balak, "Stay here beside your burnt offering while I meet the LORD over there." ¹⁶And the LORD met with Balaam and put a message in his mouth, saying, "Return to Balak and speak what I tell you." ¹⁷So he returned to Balak, who was standing there by his burnt offering with the princes of Moab. "What did the LORD say?" Balak asked. ¹⁸Then Balaam lifted up an oracle, saying: "Arise, O Balak, and listen; give ear to me, O son of Zippor. ¹⁹God is not a man, that He should lie, or a son of man, that He should change His mind. Does He speak and not act? Does He promise and not fulfill? ²⁰I have indeed received a command to bless; He has blessed, and I cannot change it. ²¹He considers no disaster for Jacob; He sees no trouble for Israel. The LORD their God is with them, and the shout of the King is among them. ²²God brought them out of Egypt with strength like a wild ox.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Pisgah: or, the hill, Numbers 21:20, Deuteronomy 3:27, *marg. Deuteronomy 4:49, Deuteronomy 34:1, *marg.

built seven: Numbers 23:1, Numbers 23:2, Numbers 23:29, Isaiah 1:10, Isaiah 1:11, Isaiah 46:6, Hosea 12:11

Reciprocal: Numbers 22:40 - General Deuteronomy 3:17 - Ashdothpisgah 2 Samuel 15:12 - while he offered 2 Chronicles 29:21 - seven Job 42:8 - seven bullocks Isaiah 16:12 - when Micah 6:5 - Shittim Micah 6:6 - with

Gill's Notes on the Bible

And he brought him into the field of Zophim,.... Or Sede Tzophim, as Hillerus i reads it, so called from the watch tower, and watchmen in it: Jarchi says, it was a high place, where a watchman stood to observe if an army came against a city, and so a very proper place to take a view of the armies of Israel from:

to the top of Pisgah; a high hill in this place, where perhaps the watch tower was, or, however, the watchman stood: this looked towards Jeshimon or Bethjesimoth, in the plain of Moab, where Israel lay encamped, see Numbers 21:20: and built seven altars, and offered a bullock and a ram on every altar: as he had done before, Numbers 23:2.

i Onomastic Sacr. p. 935.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The field of Zophim - Or, “of watchers.” It lay upon the top of Pisgah, north of the former station, and nearer to the Israelite camp; the greater part of which was, however, probably concealed from it by an intervening spur of the hill. Beyond the camp Balaam’s eye would pass on to the bed of the Jordan. It was perhaps a lion coming up in his strength from the swelling of that stream (compare Jeremiah 49:19) that furnished him with the augury he awaited, and so dictated the final similitude of his next parable.