When Balak’s messengers came to fetch Bilaam to curse the Jewish people, he told them to stay overnight until G-d would tell him whether or not to go with them. In a dream, G-d told Bilaam that he was not to go with the messengers, for he could not curse the people that had already been blessed by G-d. How humiliating, no?
There he was, the greatest sorcerer of all time, whose reputation had spread throughout the land. “I know that those whom you bless are blessed, and those whom you curse are cursed,” Balak told Bilaam through his messengers. Yet, when it came right down to it, Bilaam took his orders from the same G-d with whom Balak’s enemies, the Jewish people, were close. That must have been a tough one to swallow for Bilaam.
In fact, it was. The next morning when Bilaam reported back to the messengers, he couldn’t tell them straight out that G-d had unequivocally told him to stay put. Instead, he told them that he couldn’t return with them, giving them the impression in the end that it wasn’t that G-d had refused him permission to do what he wanted, but, rather, that G-d had
The proud Bilaam had, through his cover-up, saved face, but, as we find out in the end, endangered his entire life. For, Balak read between the lines and found a message that wasn’t there, and instead of finding an alternative way of defending his land, sent a more impressive accompaniment for the “Great Bilaam.” Now how could Bilaam refuse?
Of course, he couldn’t, and he went with Balak’s second set of messengers. However, there is a rule in creation that the proud are sitting ducks for humiliation at the hand of G-d (Eiruvin 13b). G-d can tolerate a lot of things, but He despises the proud, and has very little patience for them. There’s only room enough in creation for one G-d!
In the end, Bilaam suffered nothing but humiliation after humiliation. First his donkey spoke along the way, and embarrassed him to no end. Then, each time he tried to curse the Jewish people, blessings spewed out of his mouth. And when, after the Jewish people took revenge against Midyan Bilaam was killed, he died an ignoble death by the sword.
And all because Bilaam couldn’t “swallow” his pride and admit the truth. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons why he was called “Bilaam,” which comes from the word to “swallow,” to remind us not of what Bilaam “swallowed,” but of what he couldn’t swallow, as a warning to the overly proud of history.
