BALAM, a prophet and diviner of the city of Pe-
thor, on the Euphrates, whose practices with Balak, king
of the Moabites, are recorded in the book of Numbers,
chap. xxii. It is a question much debated among divines,
whether Balaam was a true prophet of God, or no more
than a magician or fortune-teller. The Scripture, 2 Pet.
ii. 16, denominates him a prophet; and this by some has
been thought decisive of the point; although it is ex-
pressly stated that he "loved the wages of unrighteous-
ness," and was "rebuked for his iniquity" by "the dumb
ass," which "forbade the madness of the prophet." As to
what passed between him and his ass, when the latter
was miraculously enabled to accost its master and rebuke
him, commentators are divided in opinion; some doubting
whether the fact really and literally happened as Moses
relates it, and others thinking it an allegory only, or the
mere imagination or vision of Balaam. Philo, in his Life
of Moses, passes over this wonderful incident in silence;
and Maimonides pretends that it happened to Balaam in a
prophetic vision only. But St Peter (ubi supra) speaks of
this fact as literal and certain, and so most interpreters ex-
plain it. St Austin, who understands it exactly according
to the letter, finds nothing in the whole account more sur-
prising than the stupidity of Balaam, who heard his ass
speak to him, and answered it as if he had talked with a
reasonable person. Le Clerc thinks that Balaam might
probably have imbibed the doctrine of transmigration of
souls, which was certainly very common in the East; and
on this account he might probably be the less astonished at
hearing a brute speak. Gregory of Nyssa seems to think
that the ass did not utter any word articulately or dis-
tinctly, but that, having brayed as usual, the diviner, whose
practice it had been to draw presages from the cries of
beasts and singing of birds, comprehended easily the ass's
meaning by its noise; Moses designing to ridicule this su-
perstitious art of augurs and soothsayers, as if the ass had
really spoken in words articulate.