Numbers 22:34, commentary and pictures

Balaam was on his way to curse Israel for Moab, a people God had blessed and whom he had at first been expressly forbidden to curse, and he went only by misusing a later conditional permission to go only if he was called. He went in presumptuous folly, pursuing his own will against God's direction, driven by covetousness and selfishness and love of honor and gain, double-mindedly professing to serve God as His prophet while trying to please both God and Israel's enemies. Anger and passion blinded him, so that when his donkey saw the angel and turned aside he raged at the animal, beating and ill-treating it, and even its speaking did not strike him as remarkable.

The angel of the Lord stood in the way to oppose and block him because his way was perverse, ready to slay him with a drawn and flaming sword, and when revealed terrified him into dismounting and bowing in humility. In the verse he admits he has sinned and did not know the angel stood against him, and offers to turn back if his going displeases the angel. The warning was meant to keep him from serving Moab's purpose and gratifying the Moabites, yet he was then permitted to continue so that God would honor and glorify His name before Israel's enemies by compelling even a covetous man to bless and not curse Israel.

His acknowledgment was not genuine repentance but was driven by terror and fear of losing his life, with distress over the consequences rather than sorrow for sin, involving no contrition, no true change of purpose, and no abhorrence of evil, and therefore it has no worth as confession. The surrounding encounter exposes his ill-treatment of his donkey as evidence of a perverse spirit, showing that God sees and opposes cruelty to animals, holds people accountable for it, speaks on behalf of the helpless animal, and can use an animal as His agent to confront one acting against His will. The verse illustrates how God can meet a person on the way and restrain and turn one bent on doing harm, and the wider story in which Balak moved Balaam from point to point in vain hope of turning the blessing into a curse parallels later vain efforts to move a steadfast reformer by friendly intercourse and reconciliation, where as the king of Moab failed so the bishop failed, because human applause and fear of man are powerless against decision sustained by divine power.