I. Balaam was a man whose eye was open in his day. He was a man of splendid natural genius. We puzzle over the definition of genius; but perhaps it is only the open eye, the power to see things simply as they are. In every sphere of man's intellectual activity the man of genius is the seer.
II. Balaam's is at the same time a character of singular perplexity. He had both the open eye and the itching palm. He had power to see realities, while his heart lusted after vanities, and this condition is far from rare. Splendid endowments are often mated with moral narrowness or feebleness. On the lower level of Balaam's life he was base and grovelling; but when God took possession of his genius, he yielded it readily, and then he was true as steel to the vision. But the sensual nature was really master. It dragged the eagle-eyed spirit down. Faint, trembling, before the vision, he soon dropped to his congenial earth again, and finally he buried his splendid genius in the pit.
Notice: (1) The only word which a man says with power is truth. "The word that God also saith, that shall stand." (2) Balaam saw with his open eye that the man who stands with God stands absolutely beyond reach of harm. (3) There was a third thing that Balaam saw: the man whom God blesses is blessed; the man whom God curses is cursed, absolutely and for ever.
J. Baldwin Brown, The Sunday Afternoon,pp. 370, 378.