Balak: The Nature of Bilaam's Prophecy
By Ilana Stein
The Torah Portion of
Balak is dedicated by Carrol Cowan: “In memory of my father, who lived justly,
loved mercy, and walked humbly with his G-d.”
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In the portion of Balak, the prophet Bilaam, hired by King
Balak of Moab, sets out to curse the children of Israel, only to find himself
proclaiming four blessings instead. Each blessing builds on the one before it,
becoming more sophisticated and exalted. Bilaam begins with introducing his
theme and mission in the first, replies to Balak’s anger at not cursing the
people as he promised in the second, and by the third launches into a praise
song of Israel that is considered “neither vindication nor denunciation but
pure prophecy."[1]Here the language itself becomes declamatory and filled
with more symbolism; specifically more imagery taken from the natural world. In
the first prophecy, only hills and rocks are mentioned, in the second, an ox
and a lion, but in the third, both plants and animals are used to great effect.
Let us examine one of the verses here.
The third blessing begins with Bilaam’s most famous
statement: “How goodly are your tents O Jacob, and your tabernacles, O
Israel".[2] The verse following this is less well known: “Like the winding
brooks, like gardens by the river’s side, like aloes which the L-rd has
planted, and cedar trees beside the waters.” At first glance, this is a further
description of the physical camp of Israel, and we can see it in our
mind’s eye, stretching into the distance in long rows like streams or tents
standing on the flat ground like tall cedars jutting into the sky.
However, if we look closer at the imagery in the verse, it
does not seem to follow any of the patterns used in Biblical poetry – for
example A-B-A-C (staircase parallelism) or A-B-B-A (chiastic structure) – or
even the style of the previous verse, where the first part of the verse is
parallel in theme or figurative language to the second. Here we have one body
of water followed by a list of three types of flora, one a desert plant and two
of which ‘happen’ to be next to water. None of the usual structure patterns as
mentioned above seem to fit.
Various commentators offer different explanations. Ibn Ezra
sees trees implied in the first image of the river, as trees usually do grow
next to winding rivers or brooks [3]. The Da’at Mikra commentary [4] takes this
one stage further: the word ‘nahal’ most often refers to a riverbed – as
opposed to an actual flowing river – usually within an arid or desert
ecosystem. Such riverbeds are sandy and dry, there is no surface water for most
of the year, but they can be seen from afar, since greenery and even large
trees grow next to them, marking them clearly within the vast expanse of arid
land. In southern Africa it is these slivers
of green that elephants head for in the dry season, and here they dig down into
the desiccated sand with their front legs until brackish water oozes out from
the depths and they can drink. [5]
If we look then at the general ecosystems in which these
plants or rivers are found, rather than the plants themselves, we find the
verse in fact has an A-B-A-B structure:
A – ‘nahal’ – riverbed in a desert environment
B – ‘nahar’ – greenery next to a broad river
A – ‘ahalim’ – aloes (plants that usually live in semi-arid
or arid areas)
B – ‘arazim alei mayim’ – cedars that stand next to water
(tall trees that require great amounts of water to grow)
So this verse contains a repeated image of two kinds of
biome or ecozone: desert with aloes and a river that flows only rarely, and a
more temperate zone with a perennial river and cedar trees. This arrangement
follows a typical stylistic device in Biblical poetry which, in Bilaam’s time,
the people of Israel
would have picked up almost instinctively. They knew the desert environment
intimately, as well as the power of the Nile River
to create ‘gardens’ on its banks. Later generations lived in Israel where
both biomes were well-represented. But for us today, it’s not so easy.
In Bilaam’s prophecies, as with most others throughout the
Bible, nature is used constantly in metaphor and symbolism. Its audience would
understand it, needing no help to pick up the ideas the prophet was
proclaiming. The people lived a life which was so bound up in nature, with such
a strong connection to their natural environment, that the necessary
connections might even have been made subconsciously. Nature’s beauty and
teachings would have permeated their beings.
Today, we need to look beyond the specific meaning of the
verse to learn from the use of nature imagery in the Bible in general: to find
out the extent to which nature is part of our consciousness, of our beings. The
answer for many of us is: not much.
Before the Industrial Revolution, the majority of humans
lived an agrarian lifestyle, dependent upon, or close to the land. Even in 16th
century urban London,
Shakespeare’s nature imagery would have been understood by his audience. But,
in the 21st century, with half the world's population living in cities, it
seems that we need botanists or ecologists to help us understand our Bible! [6]
We need to consider our exposure to nature: When last did I actually see a
river or hear the rustle of trees on its banks? Walk on grass and smell a wild
growing flower? Our language and metaphors reflect the reality we experience,
consisting of the whirr of machinery and hum of computers, not the animals and
plants that live with us on Earth. “Little we see in nature that is ours” –
Wordsworth saw this separation already in the 19th century; how much more so
today.
But the Torah is relevant for all time and every place, and
thus the nature imagery in it becomes a cry to us to reconnect with the world
in which G-d placed us. On both a poetic and philosophical level, the Torah
teaches us to appreciate nature – and to react with praise of its Creator. G-d
did not create such a spectacular world merely to provide food and industry –
but also to bring us beauty. If one truly sees all Nature in its complexity,
beauty and harmony, one’s reaction should be the same spontaneous outburst of
the Psalmist: “How diverse are Your works, Oh L-rd! You make them all with
wisdom, the world is full of Your possessions."[7]
Suggested Action Items:
- Take a
walk in a park, or instead of taking time out of your routine, take the
scenic route home once a week – past a pretty garden or tall, venerable
tree.
- Visit
a National Park or Reserve – even today most towns have a nature reserve
within 2 or 3 hours drive.
- If you
have a small patch of land, plant vegetables or herbs; to eat something
that you have watched grow from a seed reconnects you to the land (this is
especially amazing to do with children).
- Enjoy
the rain, remembering that while you may not grow from it, the flowers and
grasses will.
- Learn
the blessings to say after thunder and lightning, and those to say on all
natural phenomena (p. 228 in Artscroll Siddur); by remembering to thank
God, you are forced to stop and appreciate nature and the One Who created
it.
Ilana Stein has a BA in English, a degree in Nature
Conservation and is a registered Field Guide and passionate birdwatcher. She
works as a writer for the ecotourism company and conservation organization
Wilderness Safaris and lectures in Tanach at the Emunah Women's Beit Midrash in
Johannesburg, South Africa. She explores the wild
places of southern Africa whenever she can.
Notes:
[1] Nechama
Leibowitz,(Israel,
20th cent.) Studies in Bamidbar, p.292
[2] Numbers/Bamidbar
24:5 Trans. The Jerusalem
Bible. Koren Publishers Jerusalem LTD, Israel 1992. I have replaced ‘thy’
and ‘thou’ with ‘you’ and ‘your’ for clarity.
[3] Ibn Ezra,
Abraham ben Meir ibn Ezra (1092 or 1093–1167), was one of the most
distinguished Jewish men of letters and writers of the Middle Ages.
[4] Ad loc.
Da’at Mikra, Y.Z. Moslowitz, Mossad Harav Kook
[5] Wild Ways,
Field Guide to the Behaviour of Southern African mammals by Apps, Peter,
Southern Book Publishers, 1992, South Africa
[6] According to
the United Nations, DESA, Population Division World Urbanization Prospects: The
2005 Revision, “In 2005, there were 3.2 billion urban residents in the world,
nearly four times as many as in 1950. They represented 49 per cent of the
global population…. With an annual urban growth rate of 1.8 per cent, nearly
double that projected for the total population (1 per cent), the world’s urban
population is expected to increase from 3.2 billion in 2005 to 4.9 billion in
2030, when 60 per cent of the global population is expected to live in urban
areas.”
[7] Psalms
104:24 (Trans. The Jerusalem
Bible. Koren Publishers Jerusalem LTD, Israel 1992.)