Commentaries:
Barnes' Notes
Enchantment ... divination - More strictly "augury" and "soothsayer' s token," or the omen that was superstitiously observed. "Soothsayer" is the term applied to Balaam in Joshua 13:22.
The verse intimates that the seer was at last, through the overruling of his own auguries, compelled to own what, had he not been blinded by avarice and ambition, he would have discerned before - that there Was an indisputable interference of God on Israel' s behalf, against which all arts and efforts of man must Proverbs vain. The sense suggested by margin (i. e., that the soothsayer' s art was not practiced in Israel) would be strictly true (compare the Numbers 23:4 note).
According ... - Rather, in due time it shall be told to Jacob, etc. God will, through His own divinely appointed means (e. g. the Urim and Thummim), reveal to Israel, as occasion may require, His will and purposes.
Other Barnes' Notes entries containing Numbers 23:23:
Numbers 23:3
Deuteronomy 18:10
1 Samuel 28:8
Isaiah 9:8
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