Literary Devices – Bemidbar 24/0

Literary Devices – Bemidbar 24

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Parallelism

Balak's blessings are phrased poetically and, like much Biblical poetry, are marked by parallelism.

Examples

• מַה טֹּבוּ אֹהָלֶיךָ יַעֲקֹב / מִשְׁכְּנֹתֶיךָ יִשְׂרָאֵל
• כָּרַע שָׁכַב כַּאֲרִי / וּכְלָבִיא מִי יְקִימֶנּוּ
• אֶרְאֶנּוּ וְלֹא עַתָּה  / אֲשׁוּרֶנּוּ וְלֹא קָרוֹב

Articles

For more information about the nature of Biblical parallelism, see Dr. Mayer I. Gruber’s article The Meaning of Biblical Parallelism: A Biblical Perspective and Dr. Adele Berlin’s Grammatical Aspects of Biblical Parallelism.¹

Key Words

Sight

The verbal root “ראה” appears five times in this chapter, and is a key word of chapters 22-24. Other words relating to sight appear multiple times in the unit as well. Thus, “עין” (eye) appears four times in Chapter 22 and six times here, and the roots שור, נבט and חזה (all meaning to look, view or gaze) each appear one or two times in the unit. These words highlight the theme of prophecy/vision, which is granted only to those whom God chooses (even a donkey) and cannot be manipulated as Balak imagines.

¹ Other resources ןמךבוגק:Dr. Robert Alter’s The Art of Biblical Poetry p. 3-61, Dr. Adele Berlin’s The Dynamics of Biblical Parallelism, and Dr. James Kugel’s The Idea of Biblical Poetry: Parallelism and Its History.