Numbers 23:24

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

as a great: Numbers 24:8, Numbers 24:9, Genesis 49:9, Deuteronomy 33:20, Psalms 17:12, Proverbs 30:30, Isaiah 31:4, Amos 3:8, Revelation 5:5

he shall: Numbers 24:17, Genesis 49:27, Daniel 2:44, Micah 5:8, Micah 5:9, Zechariah 10:4, Zechariah 10:5, Zechariah 12:6, Revelation 19:11-21

Reciprocal: Genesis 49:28 - the twelve Leviticus 1:3 - a burnt 1 Kings 10:20 - lions 2 Chronicles 9:18 - two lions Job 4:11 - old lion Job 38:40 - General Psalms 57:3 - from the reproach of him Psalms 58:6 - young Revelation 4:7 - the first beast

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Behold, the people shall rise up as a great lion,.... Or rather, "as the lioness" n, which, as Aelianus says o, is the strongest and most warlike beast, the most fierce and furious, as is believed both by Greeks and Barbarians; and he mentions the heroism of Perdiccas the Macedonian, and Semiramis the Assyrian, in engaging with and killing, not the lion or leopard, but lioness:

and shall lift up himself as a young lion; both phrases denoting the courage and strength of the people of Israel, in attacking their enemies and engaging them:

he shall not lie down; being once roused up and engaged in war:

until he eat of the prey, and drink the blood of the slain; as the lion does when it has seized on a creature, tears it to pieces, eats its flesh and drinks its blood: this may refer to the slaughter of the Midianites that would be quickly made, and among the slain of whom Balaam himself was, Numbers 31:7, and to the slaughter and conquest of the Canaanites under Joshua, and taking their spoils.

n כלביא "ut leaena", V. L. Tigurine version. o Var. Hist. l. 12. c. 39. Vid. Herodot. Thalia, sive, l. 3. c. 108.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Numbers 23:24. Behold, the people shall rise up as a great lion — לביא labi, the great, mighty, or old lion, the king of the forest, who is feared and respected by all the other beasts of the field; so shall Israel be the subduer and possessor of the whole land of Canaan. And as a young lion, ארי ari from ארה arah, to tear off, the predatory lion, or the lion in the act of seizing and tearing his prey; - the nations against whom the Israelites are now going shall be no more able to defend themselves against their attacks, than the feeblest beasts of the forest are against the attacks of the strong lion.