And the ass saw me, and turned from me these three times,.... The ass saw the angel when Balaam did not, and that was the reason of its turning aside; and it was well for him it did, and therefore he should not have smote it:
unless she had turned from me; if she had pushed on, endeavouring to make her way:
surely now also I had slain thee, and saved her alive; had certainly and only slain him, and not the ass; and from hence the Jewish writers t gather, that the ass was now slain, lest it should be said, this is the ass that spoke, and so be made an idol of.
t Bemidbar Rabba, sect. 20. fol. 227. 4. Aben Ezra in loc.