#Numbers 23:11-26
Balaam’s second speech
Second verse, same as the first. Interwoven with lines that keep us situated in the narrative are some nice traditional poetic and prophetic images - somewhat further down the poetic road than the last poem, not as far as we’ll get soon.
Balaam’s second speech
Second verse, same as the first. Interwoven with lines that keep us situated in the narrative are some nice traditional poetic and prophetic images - somewhat further down the poetic road than the last poem, not as far as we’ll get soon.
References to Balaam’s divinely ordained mission, and restrictions; to the Exodus, and less explicitly to the ancestral promises - these all keep one foot planted in the broader story, in a way that actually very few independent poems, especially older ones, do.
But the imagery - particularly the horns of the wild ox (or unicorn for all you KJV fans out there), the lion that rises to feed on its prey - these are standard poetic animal images that we find in older biblical poetry, like Gen 49 (which…is also brought to us by J).
This combination of narrative reference and poetic imagery is a good reminder that biblical authors were good at this: they knew how to use language, to put it to work for them, they knew how to combine older traditions and tropes with new framings. Like…writers!
We’re so often told that this material all comes from an oral culture, oral traditions, oral oral oral - and while that may be true, what we’re actually reading is, you know…written. And should be appreciated as written material, with written style.
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