Nevertheless the LORD thy God would not hearken unto Balaam; but the LORD thy God turned the curse into a blessing unto thee, because the LORD thy God loved thee.
The Lord thy God would not hearken unto Balaam. The obvious import of this statement is, that God would not permit Balaam to utter any imprecations against Israel, however harmless they might prove, but constrained him, by an overpowering influence, to utter, in presence of Balak and his courtiers, the highest eulogies and blessings. But Hengstenberg founds upon these words a hypothesis that Balaam, on being dismissed by the king of Moab, went directly to the Israelite camp, where being received coldly by Moses, he departed for Midian. (But see the note at Numbers 24:25.)
4th. More favour was to be shown to Edomites and Egyptians-to the former from their near relationship to Israel, and to the latter, from their early hospitalities to the family of Jacob, as well as the many acts of kindness rendered them by private Egyptians at the exodus (Exodus 12:36). The grandchildren of Edomite or Egyptian proselytes were declared admissible to the full rights of citizenship as native Israelites; and by this remarkable provision God taught His people a practical lesson of generosity and gratitude for special deeds of kindness, to the forgetfulness of all the persecution and ill services sustained from these two nations.