Balak did as Balaam had spoken; and Balak and Balaam offered on every altar a bull and a ram.
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Balak did as Balaam had spoken; and Balak and Balaam offered on every altar a bull and a ram.
And Balak did as Balaam had spoken; and Balak and Balaam offered on every altar a bullock and a ram.
And Balak did as Balaam had spoken, and Balak and Balaam offered up a bull and a ram on the altar.
unfoldingWord Literal Text — © unfoldingWord, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Word-aligned USFM3 via Door43 (git.door43.org/unfoldingWord/en_ult).
Every available English version of this verse, each an independent rendering of the whole verse.
Balak did as Balaam had spoken; and Balak and Balaam offered on every altar a bull and a ram.
So Balak did as Balaam had instructed, and Balak and Balaam offered a bull and a ram on each altar.
So Balak did as Balaam had instructed, and Balak and Balaam offered a bull and a ram on each altar.
And Balak did as Balaam had spoken; and Balak and Balaam offered on every altar a bullock and a ram.
And Balak did as Balaam had spoken; and Balak and Balaam offered on every altar a bullock and a ram.
And Balak did as Balaam had spoken; and Balak and Balaam offered on every altar a bullock and a ram.
And Balak did as Balaam sayd, and Balak and Balaam offred on euery altar a bullocke and a ramme.
And when he had done according to the word of Balaam, they laid together a calf and a ram upon every altar.
And Balak doth as Balaam hath spoken, and Balak -- Balaam also -- offereth a bullock and a ram on the altar,
And Balak does as Balaam has spoken, and Balak—Balaam also—offers a bullock and a ram on the altar,
So Balak did as Balaam requested. Then Balak and Balaam offered a bull and a ram on every altar.
And Balak did as Balaam had spoken, and Balak and Balaam offered up a bull and a ram on the altar.
And Balak did as Balaam had said; and Balak and Balaam offered up a bullock and a ram on [each] altar.
Balak did as Balaam had spoken; and Balak and Balaam offered on every altar a bull and a ram.
And Balak did as Balaam had spoken; and Balak and Balaam offered on every altar a bullock and a ram.
Balak did as Balaam had said, and together they offered a bull and a ram on each altar.
And Balak did as Balaam had said; and Balak and Balaam made an offering on every altar of an ox and a male sheep.
And Balak did as Balaam had spoken; and Balak and Balaam offered on every altar a bullock and a ram.
Literal Standard Version (2020), Covenant Press — licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API (eBible.org). Unlocked Literal Bible (unfoldingWord) — licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API (eBible.org). unfoldingWord Literal Text — © unfoldingWord, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Word-aligned USFM3 via Door43 (git.door43.org/unfoldingWord/en_ult). Free Bible Version, Dr. Jonathan Gallagher — licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API (eBible.org).
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These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →
Shared distinctive vocabulary
בָּלָ֔ק Balak H1111 occurs in 40 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:
Grammatical profile
Verb forms
Repetition
Words recur within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:
Hebrew & Septuagint length
In English translation the verse runs 19 words from the Hebrew and 19 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — the same length.
A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.
Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.
In the original languages it is 11 Hebrew tokens and 16 Greek tokens — but the two are counted differently (Hebrew bundles its prefixes and suffixes into one token; the Greek is in lemma form), so that isn’t a like-for-like length.
Topical passages linked to Numbers 23:2 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.
Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).
The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.
These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.
וַיַּ֣עַשׂ בָּלָ֔ק כַּאֲשֶׁ֖ר דִּבֶּ֣ר בִּלְעָ֑ם וַיַּ֨עַל בָּלָ֧ק וּבִלְעָ֛ם פָּ֥ר וָאַ֖יִל בַּמִּזְבֵּֽחַ
Balak did as Balaam had spoken; and Balak and Balaam offered on every altar a bull and a ram.
World English Bible · Public Domain
καί ποιέω βαλακ ὅς τρόπος εἶπον αὐτός βαλααμ καί ἀναφέρω μόσχος καί κριός ἐπί ὁ βωμός
And Balac did as Balaam told him; and he offered up a calf and a ram on every altar.
LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain
Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →
The Targum is the ancient Jewish Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures — an interpretive translation, not the Hebrew text itself. Onkelos (literal) and Pseudo-Jonathan (expansive) render the Torah, and Jonathan the Prophets. Coverage is partial: where no permissively-licensed English translation exists for a verse, only the Aramaic is shown. This is verse-level text, not a word-by-word alignment to the Hebrew.
וַעֲבַד בָּלָק כְּמָא דִי מַלֵיל בִּלְעָם וְאַסֵיק בָּלָק וּבִלְעָם תּוֹר וּדְכַר עַל כָּל מַדְבְּחָא
(no public-domain English translation for this verse)
Targum Onkelos — Aramaic: “Onkelos Genesis” (public domain); “Onkelos Exodus” (public domain); “Onkelos Leviticus” (public domain); “Onkelos Numbers” (public domain); “Onkelos Deuteronomy” (public domain). English: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “J.W. Etheridge. The Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan Ben Uzziel on the Pentateuch. London: Longmans, Green, 1862” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.
וַעֲבַד בָּלָק הֵיכְמָא דְמַלֵיל בִּלְעָם וְאַסֵיק בָּלָק וּבִלְעָם תּוֹר וּדְכַר עַל אָגוֹרָא
And Balak did as Bileam had said, and Balak and Bileam offered a bullock and a ram upon an altar.
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan — Aramaic: “Targum Jonathan on Genesis” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Exodus” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Leviticus” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Numbers” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Deuteronomy” (public domain). English: “The Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziel, trans. J. W. Etheridge, London, 1862” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.
Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.
Numbers, in the Pentateuch, opens this verse with 11 words (9 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is Bâlâq (“Balak”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.
Commentary
Notes on Numbers 23:2 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.
Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →
Trapp's Complete Commentary
John Trapp
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Geneva Bible (1599)
Geneva Bible translators
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
John Gill's Exposition
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Matthew Poole's English Annotations
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.