And God came unto Balaam— That is, he manifested or revealed himself to him in a dream, as he had manifested himself to Abimelech, Genesis 20:3. This is the reason why Balaam said to the envoys from the two nations, tarry here this night. All the known nations of the world have believed that the Deity frequently manifested himself, especially to the first men, and particularly by the ministry of angels. Among the proofs which the celebrated Huet has collected of this truth, there is none more express than the testimony of Catullus (de Nupt. Pelei. & Thetid. 61: ver. 384); and indeed one cannot conceive that Homer would so frequently have introduced the gods shewing themselves to his heroes, had it not been a thing well known, that God anciently revealed himself to the Gentiles as well as to the Israelites, before his making choice of the latter for his people. The idea of these appearances would never have been so generally received, had not the philosophers and people in all parts of the world been convinced that the Deity did reveal himself in this manner. Abaris, the Hyperhorean, and Zamolxis the Getan, were quite as famous among the northern nations, as the Egyptian and Chaldean prophets were among the nations of the south. In process of time, men being corrupted and having abandoned the true God, he also abandoned them, and, permitting evil angels to assume the place of the good, in order to seduce, men fell by degrees into the most shameful excesses of idolatry and vice. Balaam is a proof of this. Honoured, at first, with the revelation of the true God, and of his angels, the abuse which he made of them to gratify his avarice induced the Lord to withdraw from him his spirit, and to send to him a spirit of lying, which taught him the art of enchantments. At present, nevertheless, God works anew upon him by his spirit, with a view to check his evil inclinations; and this it is that hinders him from recurring as formerly to his incantations.
What men are these— "Those who are ever so little versed in the style and genius of the Hebrew and other Oriental tongues," says Mr. Psalmanazar, "will never misunderstand such questions as these; much less believe them to imply, that God wanted to be informed about those messengers, and the occasions of their errand, any more than when he asked Adam in Paradise, Where art thou?—or Cain,—where is thy brother Abel?—Hagar, Sarah's maid, whence camest thou? and whither wilt thou go? Abraham, where is Sarah thy wife? The like may be said of the question with which the prophet Isaiah prefaced his message from God to Hezekiah, upon his reception of the Babylonish ambassadors, What said these men? Whence came they unto thee? What have they seen in thine house? &c. of all which he was fully apprised before he came to him. Of the same kind are the questions asked of some of the prophets: Jeremiah what seest thou? and many more which need not here be cited."