All About Bilaam

Was Balaam a Jew and servant of God?

Shalom!

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Bilaam (or Balaam) was not a Jew at all. In fact, according to Jewish tradition, God sent Bilaam as a great prophet so that the non-Jewish world would not be able to say: "If we had only had a prophet like Moses, we would have been as righteous as the Jews!" Indeed, it is taught the Bilaam was born circumcised just as Moses was, and there were other similarities between them, as well.

In rabbinical literature, Bilaam is referred to as a “rasha,” or “the wicked one.” It is said that he was blind in one eye and lame in one leg. His students were known as those with “an evil eye, haughty, and greedy.”

Bilaam was hired by the evil king Balak to curse the Jews. When that didn’t work, he arranged for the Jewish people to get involved in all kinds of heresy and immorality which did indeed cause the death of many Jews.

We are taught that the name Bilaam is a play on the words “Belo Am” meaning, “without a nation,” alluding to, among other things, that Bilaam did not receive a portion in the World to Come

When Bilaam was eventually (deservedly) killed, all four methods of Jewish execution were used against him: stoning, burning, beheading, and strangling. There is a tradition that Bilaam was the grandson of the equally evil Laban, and that his sons were the infamous Jannes and Jambres, who served as the evil magicians and advisors to Pharaoh.

Sanhedrin 90a, 106; Bava Batra 14b; Yerushalmi Sanhedrin 10; Numbers Rabba Balak, Tanchuma Balak