Numbers 22:33 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Unless she had turned from me, surely now also I had slain thee, &c.— The words of the angel respecting the ass, candidly interpreted according to the Hebrew idiom, and duly compared with the context, may be thus paraphrased: "How couldst thou thus unjustly and repeatedly abuse thine innocent beast, and not rather conclude, from her unusual starting aside, and crouching under thee, that something extraordinary must have stood in her way, and obliged her to do so? For, behold! I was, indeed, sent on purpose to oppose thee, because thy views were perverse before God, and opposite to his design in permitting thee to go with all this people, The sight of me hath made thine ass decline me these three times: and well it is for thee that some divine impulse enabled her both to perceive and avoid me, which was a sure signal to me that I should spare and let thee go on; and that the Divine Providence designed to cross thy malicious purpose against Israel, and oblige thee, in spite of thy sanguine hopes, to declare those signally blessed whom thou wert hired to curse; for, had it not been for that, I had certainly put an end at once both to thy life, and to thy ambitious attempts, and saved thine innocent beast."—For it is plain, that the sparing of the prophet was not owing to the accidental declining of the ass, but to her being able to see and avoid the threatening angel by turning aside from him, and where the narrowness of the way did not permit her to do so, by stopping short and crouching upon her belly; both which, being owing to a miraculous impulse, gave timely notice to the angel to stay his hand: the severer the threatening was, therefore, the more kindly must we judge it to have been meant, as it was indeed the most effectual way to deter the infatuated Balaam from turning further into his utter ruin. See Psalmanazar's Essays.