And Balaam lifted up his eyes, and he saw Israel abiding in his tents according to their tribes; and the spirit of God came upon him.
Balaam lifted up his eyes - a Hebrew phrase for earnest observation, used even when the spectator was looking down.
And he saw Israel abiding, х shokeen (H7931)] - encamped. The spot from which the weird seer of Mesopotamia, with the king of Moab and the sheikhs of Midian, were now surveying the hosts of Israel, was not now a distant one, as "the high places," the bare hill on the top of the rocks," or the cultivated "field" of Zophim on "the top of Pisgah," but "from the top of Peor" - the eminence that commanded a wide prospect of the Arabah. (See this view graphically described, Drew's 'Scripture Lands,' p. 96; Stanley's 'Sinai and Palestine,' pp. 130, 293, 315.)
According to their tribes - i:e., in the orderly distribution of the camp, (Numbers 2:1-34.)
The Spirit of God came upon him. Before the regular ministry of the prophets was instituted, God made use of various persons as the instruments through whom He revealed His will; and Balaam was one of these (Deuteronomy 23:5).