3. And Balaam said unto Balak. In this respect, also, he imitates the true servants of God: for he seeks retirement, because God has almost always appeared unto His servants when they have been separated from the company of men. You would say that he was another Moses, when he exhorts the king to persevering prayer, and, in order that he may be more earnest in supplication, bids him remain perfectly still by the altars. Meanwhile he withdraws himself from the crowd, and the eyes of the witnesses, so that he may be more ready to receive the revelation. Since, however, there was no sincerity in him, we may probably conclude, that in vain ostentation he imitated the servants of God, that, like one of God’s councillors, he might bring forth the secrets from the shrines of heaven. I know not why some render the word שפי, shephi, alone, others, sad; (155) it is more suitable to take it for a high place; which other similar passages confirm. The impostor, therefore, retired into a higher place, or summit, in order that he might come forth from thence more surely established as a prophet by his familiar intercourse with God.
(155) A.V. “an high place.” Margin, “he went solitary.” “Onkelos explains the word שפי as יחידי alone; but Kimchi interprets it as גכוח a high place. Rabbi Jehuda expounds is it as נשבר affected with grief; etc.” — S.M. There is a curious error in the Fr., evidently arising from its dictation to an amanuensis, “le mot que j’ay translate Amen,” i.e., “a mont,” as it stands in the Fr. Text.