Jewish tradition records that Balaam was a very great prophet, the non-Jewish counterpart of Moses.
When Balaam said, “He does not look at evil in Jacob, and sees no perversity in Israel”, it is like an experience I had recently:
I was a passenger in a vehicle that was struck by a vehicle driven by a very young driver. He made a sharp left turn in front of our vehicle without yielding. Just something dumb. His father showed up 10 minutes later and began arguing with police: Maybe the other vehicle was going too fast, maybe the driver was distracted, shouldn’t they have stopped even if they had the right of way? At home, the father may have been infuriated at his son, but he would unquestionably defend him to outsiders.
When God says, “Israel, my son”, it is best to keep in mind the behavior of a father toward the son, even when the son has done something dumb.
INDEED.
THX THX.
“When God says, “Israel, my son”, it is best to keep in mind the behavior of a father toward the son, even when the son has done something dumb.”
Interesting. And often speaking, a good father’s punishment is far worse than what the outside would impose.
Pn the flip side, I’ve always seen this as reading that G-d, being outside time, saw the enternal “good” that was there and did not see the temporal “bad.”