In order to engage the reader's attention to this passage, the
sacred historian has enumerated the preparatory circumstances, which
are these. Balaam requires the king of Moab to build him seven
altars, and to prepare him the same number of oxen and of rams. The
sacrifice being over, he retires alone to a solitude sacred to these
occasions, there to wait the Divine inspiration or answer, for which
the foregoing rites were the preparation. AND GOD MET BALAAM, AND
PUT A WORD IN HIS MOUTH; {16} upon receiving which, he returns back
to the altars, where was the king, who had all this while attended
the sacrifice, as appointed; he and all the princes of Moab
standing, big with expectation of the Prophet's reply. And he took
up his parable, and said, Balak the king of Moab hath brought me
from Aram, out of the mountains of the east, saying, Come, curse me
Jacob, and come, defy Israel. How shall I curse, whom God hath not
cursed? Or how shall I defy, whom the Lord hath not defied? For
from the top of the rocks I see him, and from the hills I behold
him: lo, the people shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned
among the nations. Who can count the dust of Jacob, and the number
of the fourth part of Israel? Let me die the death of the
righteous, and let my last end be like his. {17}

It is necessary, as you will see in the progress of this discourse,
particularly to observe what he understood by RIGHTEOUS. And he
himself is introduced in the book of Micah {18} explaining it; if by
RIGHTEOUS is meant good, as to be sure it is. O my people, remember
now what Balak king of Moab consulted, and what Balaam the son of
Beor answered him from Shittim unto Gilgal. From the mention of
Shittim it is manifest that it is this very story which is here
referred to, though another part of it, the account of which is not