Numbers 24:25
New International Version
Then Balaam got up and returned home, and Balak went his own way.

New Living Translation
Then Balaam left and returned home, and Balak also went on his way.

English Standard Version
Then Balaam rose and went back to his place. And Balak also went his way.

Berean Standard Bible
Then Balaam arose and returned to his homeland, and Balak also went on his way.

King James Bible
And Balaam rose up, and went and returned to his place: and Balak also went his way.

New King James Version
So Balaam rose and departed and returned to his place; Balak also went his way.

New American Standard Bible
Then Balaam arose, and he departed and returned to his place, and Balak also went on his way.

NASB 1995
Then Balaam arose and departed and returned to his place, and Balak also went his way.

NASB 1977
Then Balaam arose and departed and returned to his place, and Balak also went his way.

Legacy Standard Bible
Then Balaam arose and went and returned to his place, and Balak also went his way.

Amplified Bible
Then Balaam arose and departed and returned to his place, and Balak also went on his way.

Christian Standard Bible
Balaam then arose and went back to his homeland, and Balak also went his way.

Holman Christian Standard Bible
Balaam then arose and went back to his homeland, and Balak also went his way.

American Standard Version
And Balaam rose up, and went and returned to his place; and Balak also went his way.

Aramaic Bible in Plain English
And Balaam stood and returning he went to his place also Balaq went his way.

Brenton Septuagint Translation
And Balaam rose up and departed and returned to his place, and Balac went to his own home.

Contemporary English Version
After Balaam finished, he started home, and Balak also left.

Douay-Rheims Bible
And Balaam rose, and returned to his place: Balac also returned the way that he came.

English Revised Version
And Balaam rose up, and went and returned to his place: and Balak also went his way.

GOD'S WORD® Translation
Then Balaam got up and went back home, and Balak also went on his way.

Good News Translation
Then Balaam got ready and went back home, and Balak went on his way.

International Standard Version
Then Balaam got up, returned to his country, and Balak went on his way.

JPS Tanakh 1917
And Balaam rose up, and went and returned to his place; and Balak also went his way.

Literal Standard Version
And Balaam rises, and goes, and turns back to his place, and Balak has also gone on his way.

Majority Standard Bible
Then Balaam arose and returned to his homeland, and Balak also went on his way.

New American Bible
Then Balaam set out on his journey home; and Balak also went his way.

NET Bible
Balaam got up and departed and returned to his home, and Balak also went his way.

New Revised Standard Version
Then Balaam got up and went back to his place, and Balak also went his way.

New Heart English Bible
Balaam rose up, and went and returned to his place; and Balak also went his way.

Webster's Bible Translation
And Balaam arose, and went and returned to his place: and Balak also went his way.

World English Bible
Balaam rose up, and went and returned to his place; and Balak also went his way.

Young's Literal Translation
And Balaam riseth, and goeth, and turneth back to his place, and Balak also hath gone on his way.

Additional Translations ...
Audio Bible



Context
Balaam's Final Three Oracles
24Ships will come from the coasts of Cyprus; they will subdue Asshur and Eber, but they too will perish forever.” 25Then Balaam arose and returned to his homeland, and Balak also went on his way.

Cross References
Numbers 24:14
Now I am going back to my people, but come, let me warn you what this people will do to your people in the days to come."

Numbers 25:1
While Israel was staying in Shittim, the men began to indulge in sexual immorality with the daughters of Moab,


Treasury of Scripture

And Balaam rose up, and went and returned to his place: and Balak also went his way.

Numbers 24:1
And when Balaam saw that it pleased the LORD to bless Israel, he went not, as at other times, to seek for enchantments, but he set his face toward the wilderness.

Numbers 24:6
As the valleys are they spread forth, as gardens by the river's side, as the trees of lign aloes which the LORD hath planted, and as cedar trees beside the waters.

Shittim

Numbers 33:49
And they pitched by Jordan, from Bethjesimoth even unto Abelshittim in the plains of Moab.

Joshua 2:1
And Joshua the son of Nun sent out of Shittim two men to spy secretly, saying, Go view the land, even Jericho. And they went, and came into an harlot's house, named Rahab, and lodged there.

Joshua 3:1
And Joshua rose early in the morning; and they removed from Shittim, and came to Jordan, he and all the children of Israel, and lodged there before they passed over.

the people

Numbers 31:15,16
And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive? …

Ecclesiastes 7:26
And I find more bitter than death the woman, whose heart is snares and nets, and her hands as bands: whoso pleaseth God shall escape from her; but the sinner shall be taken by her.

1 Corinthians 10:8
Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed, and fell in one day three and twenty thousand.

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Balak Departed Home Riseth Rose Turneth Way
Numbers 24
1. Balaam, leaving divinations, prophesies the happiness of Israel
10. Balak, in anger, dismisses him
15. He prophesies of the Star of Jacob, and the destruction of some nations














(25) And returned to his place.--Balaam probably set out with the intention of returning home. He. turned towards his place. The sequel shows that he remained amongst the Midianites, and perished with them.

Verse 25. - And returned to his place. יָשֹׁב לִמְקֹ ו. It is doubtful whether this expression, which is used in Genesis 18:33 and in other places, implies that Balaam returned to his home on the Euphrates. If he did he must have retraced his steps almost immediately, because he was slain among the Midianites shortly after (chapter 31:8). The phrase, however, may merely mean that he set off homewards, and is not inconsistent with the supposition that he went no further on his way than the headquarters of the Midianites. It is not difficult to understand the infatuation which would keep him within reach of a people so strange and terrible. NOTE ON THE PROPHECIES OF BALAAM. That the prophecies of Balaam have a Messianic character, and are only to be fully understood in a Christian sense, seems to lie upon the face of them. The Targums of Onkelos and Palestine make mention of King Meshiba here, and the great mass of Christian interpretation has uniformly followed in the track of Jewish tradition. It is of course possible to get rid of the prophetic element altogether by assuming that the utterances of Balaam were either composed or largely interpolated after the events to which they seem to refer. It would be necessary in this case to bring their real date down to the period of the Macedonian conquests, and much later still if the Greek empire also was to "perish for ever." The difficulty and arbitrary character of such an assumption becomes the more evident the more it is considered; nor does it seem consistent with the form into which the predictions are cast. A patriotic Jew looking back from the days of Alexander or his successors would not call the great Eastern power by the name of Asshur, because two subsequent empires had arisen in the place of Assyria proper. But that Balaam, looking forward down the dim vista of the future, should see Asshur, and only Asshur, is in perfect keeping with what we know of prophetic perspective, - the further off the events descried by inward vision, the more extreme the foreshortening, - according to which law it is well known that the first and second advents of Christ are inextricably blended in almost every case. If we accept the prophecies as genuine, it is, again, only possible to reject the Messianic element by assuming that no Jewish prophecy overleaps the narrow limits of Jewish history. The mysterious Being whom Balaam descries in the undated future, who is the King of Israel, and whom he identifies with the Shiloh of Jacob's dying prophecy, and who is to bring to nought all nations of the world, cannot be David, although David may anticipate him in many ways; still less, as the reference to Agag, Amalek, and the Kenites might for a moment incline us to believe, can it be Saul. At the same time, while the Messianic element in the prophecy cannot reasonably be ignored, it is obvious that it does not by any means exist by itself; it is so mixed up with what is purely local and temporal in the relations between Israel and the petty tribes which surrounded and envied him, that it is impossible to isolate it or to exhibit it in any clear and definite form. The Messiah indeed appears, as it were, upon the stage in a mysterious and remote grandeur; but he appears with a slaughter weapon in his hand, crushing such enemies of Israel as were then and there formidable, and exterminating the very fugitives from the overthrow. Even where the vision loses for once its local colouring in one way, so that the King of Israel deals with all the sons of men, yet it retains it in another, for he deals with them in wrath and destruction, not in love and blessing. There is here so little akin to the true ideal, that we are readily tempted to say that Christ is not here at all, but only Saul or David, or the Jewish monarchy personified in the ruthlessness of its consolidated power. But if we know anything of the genius of prophecy, it is exactly this, that the future and the grand and the heavenly is seen through a medium of the present and the paltry and the earthly. The Messianic element almost always occurs in connection with some crisis in the outward history of the chosen people; it is inextricably mixed up with what is purely local in interest, and often with what is distinctly imperfect in morality. To the Jew - and to Balaam also, however unwillingly, as the servant of Jehovah - the cause of Israel was the cause of God; he could not discern between them. "Our country, right or wrong," was an impossible sentiment to him, because he could not conceive of his country being wrong; he knew nothing of moral victories, or the triumphs of defeat or of suffering; he could not think of God's kingdom as asserting itself in any other way than in the overthrow, or (better still) the annihilation, of Moab, Edom, Assyria, Babylon, Rome, the whole world which was not Israel. The sufferings of the vanquished, the horrors of sacked cities, the agonies of desolated homes, were nothing to him; nothing, unless it were joy - joy that the kingdom of God should be exalted in the earth, joy that the reign of wickedness should be broken. All these feelings belonged to a most imperfect morality and we rightly look upon them with horror, because we have (albeit as yet very imperfectly) conformed our sentiments to a higher standard. But it was the very condition of the old dispensation that God adopted the then moral code, such as it was, and hallowed it with religious sanctions, and gave it a strong direction God-ward, and so educated his own for something higher. Hence it is wholly natural and consistent to find this early vision of the Messiah, the heaven-sent King of Israel, introduced in connection with the fall of the petty pastoral state of Moab. To Balaam, standing where he did in time and place, and all the more because his personal desires went with Moab as against Israel, Moab stood forth as the representative kingdom of darkness, Israel as the kingdom of light, Through that strong, definite, narrow, and essentially imperfect, but not untrue, conviction of his he saw the Messiah, and he saw him crushing Moab first, and then trampling down all the rest of a hostile world. That no one would have been more utterly astonished if he had beheld the Messiah as he was, is certain; but that is not at all inconsistent with the belief that he really prophesied concerning him. That he should put all enemies under his feet was what Balaam truly saw; but he saw it and gave utterance to it according to the ideas and imagery of which his mind was full. God ever reveals the supernatural through the natural, the heavenly through the earthly, the future through the present. It remains to consider briefly the temporal fulfillments of Balaam's prophecies. Moab was not apparently seriously attacked until the time of David, when it was vanquished, and a great part of the inhabitants slaughtered (2 Samuel 8:2). In the division of the kingdom it fell to the share of Israel, with the other lands beyond Jordan, but the vicissitudes of the northern monarchy gave it opportunities to rebel, of which it successfully availed itself after the death of Ahab (2 Kings 1:1). Only in the time of John Hyrcanus ( B.C. 129) was it finally subdued, and ceased to have an independent existence. Edom was also conquered for the first time by David, and the people as far as possible exterminated (1 Kings 11:15, 16). Nevertheless, it was able to shake off the yoke under Joram (2 Kings 8:20), and, although defeated, was never again subdued (see on Genesis 27:40). The prophecies against Edom were indeed taken up again and again by the prophets (e.g., Obadiah), but we must hold that they were never adequately fulfilled, unless we look for a spiritual realization not in wrath, but in mercy. The later Jews themselves came to regard "Edom" as a Scriptural synonym for all who hated and oppressed them. Amalek was very thoroughly overthrown by Saul, acting under the directions of Samuel (1 Samuel 15:7, 8), and never appears to have regained any national existence. Certain bands of Amalekites were smitten by David, and others at a later period in the reign of Hezekiah by the men of Simeon (1 Chronicles 4:39-43). The prophecy concerning the Kenites presents, as noted above, great difficulty, because it is impossible to know certainly whether the older Kenites of Genesis or the later Kenites of 1 Samuel are intended. In either case, however, it must be acknowledged that sacred history throws no light whatever on the fulfillment of the prophecy; we know nothing at all as to the fate of this small clan. No doubt it ultimately shared the lot of all the inhabitants of Palestine, with the exception of Judah and Jerusalem, and was transplanted by one of the Assyrian generals to some far-off spot, where its very existence as a separate people was lost. The "ships from the side of Cyprus" clearly enough represent in the vision of Balaam invaders from over the western seas, as opposed to previous conquerors from over the eastern deserts and mountains. That the invasion of Alexander the Great was not actually made by the way of Cyprus is nothing to the point. It was never any part of spiritual illumination to extend geographical knowledge. To Balaam's mind the only open way from the remote and unknown western lands was the waterway by the sides of Cyprus, and accordingly he saw the hostile fleets gliding down beneath the lee of those sheltering coasts towards the harbours of Phoenicia. Doubtless the ships which Balaam saw were rigged as ships were rigged in Balaam's time, and not as in the time of Alexander. But the rigging, like the route, belonged to the local and personal medium through which the prophecy came, not to the prophecy itself. As a fact it remains true that a maritime power from the West, whose home was beyond Cyprus, did overwhelm the older power which stood in the place and inherited the empire of Assyria. Whether the subsequent ruin of this maritime power also is part of the prophecy must remain doubtful.



Parallel Commentaries ...


Hebrew
Then Balaam
בִּלְעָ֔ם (bil·‘ām)
Noun - proper - masculine singular
Strong's 1109: Balaam -- a prophet

arose
וַיָּ֣קָם (way·yā·qām)
Conjunctive waw | Verb - Qal - Consecutive imperfect - third person masculine singular
Strong's 6965: To arise, stand up, stand

and returned
וַיָּ֣שָׁב (way·yā·šāḇ)
Conjunctive waw | Verb - Qal - Consecutive imperfect - third person masculine singular
Strong's 7725: To turn back, in, to retreat, again

to his homeland,
לִמְקֹמ֑וֹ (lim·qō·mōw)
Preposition-l | Noun - masculine singular construct | third person masculine singular
Strong's 4725: A standing, a spot, a condition

and Balak
בָּלָ֖ק (bā·lāq)
Noun - proper - masculine singular
Strong's 1111: Balak -- 'devastator', a Moabite king

also
וְגַם־ (wə·ḡam-)
Conjunctive waw | Conjunction
Strong's 1571: Assemblage, also, even, yea, though, both, and

went
וַיֵּ֖לֶךְ (way·yê·leḵ)
Conjunctive waw | Verb - Qal - Consecutive imperfect - third person masculine singular
Strong's 1980: To go, come, walk

on his way.
לְדַרְכּֽוֹ׃ (lə·ḏar·kōw)
Preposition-l | Noun - common singular construct | third person masculine singular
Strong's 1870: A road, a course of life, mode of action


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OT Law: Numbers 24:25 Balaam rose up and went and returned (Nu Num.)
Numbers 24:24
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