but assume that Balaam must have known it. It is
with intention that he does not speak of a plurality of Israelitish
kings. The Israelitish kingdom, on the contrary, appears to him in the
from of an _ideal_ king, because he knows that, at some period, it will
find Its full realization in the person of one king. For the same
reason, Moses also describes the prophetic order, in the first
instance, as an _ideal_ prophet. That Balaam knew that the Israelitish
kingdom would centre in the Messiah, is shown by the reference which
his prophecy has to that of dying Jacob, in Gen. xlix. 10, from which
the figure of the sceptre is borrowed. According to the latter passage,
the whole dignity of Judah as [Pg 102] ruler and lord over the whole
heathen world is to centre in one elevated individual--the Shiloh. As
to the letter, Balaam's prophecy falls short of the prophecy to which
it refers, and on which it is founded, in two points. Instead of Judah,
it mentions Israel; and instead of the invincible kingdom which is at
last to centre in the Messiah, it represents the invincible kingdom
only in general. But in both cases, this generality is easily accounted
for by the _external_ direction of Balaam's prophecy: a more definite
tendency was of importance only for those who were _within_. We are
fully entitled to suppose that Balaam himself knew what was contained
in the fundamental passage. To the same result we are led by the
contents of the prophecy itself. Balaam here brings into view an
Israelitish kingdom, all-powerful on earth, and raised absolutely above
the world's power. He does not stop with the victory over Moab and
Edom--even this victory appears to him as an absolute and lasting one,
and hence, essentially different from the temporary submission to
David--but, from the particular, which only serves to exemplify the
idea in reference to the historical relations existing at the present,
he passes on, in ver. 19, to the general, the total overthrow of the
whole hostile world's power. Indeed, such a progress is probably found
even in ver. 17 itself. If at the close of it we read, "And destroyeth
all the sons of the tumult," the word _all_, which is wanting in Jer.
xlviii. 45, indicates that by the sons of the tumult we are to
understand not only the Moabites, but the whole _species_ to which they
belonged, the whole heathen world, whose nature is restlessness, desire
for strife, and the spirit of conquest,--the opposites of mee