Num 23:3-4
After the offering of the sacrifices, Balaam directed the king to stand by his burnt-offering, i.e., by the sacrifices that had been offered for him upon the seven altars, that he might go out for auguries. The meaning of the words, “I will go, peradventure Jehovah will come to meet me,” is apparent from Num 24:1 : and “he went no more to meet with the auguries” (נחשׁים, see at Lev 19:26). Balaam went out to look for a manifestation of Jehovah in the significant phenomena of nature. The word which Jehovah should show to him, he would report to Balak. We have here what is just as characteristic in relation to Balaam’s religious stand-point, as it is significant in its bearing upon the genuine historical character of the narrative, namely, an admixture of the religious ideas of both the Israelites and the heathen, inasmuch as Balaam hoped to receive or discover, in the phenomena of nature, a revelation from Jehovah. Because heathenism had no “sure word of prophecy,” it sought to discover the will and counsel of God, which are displayed in the events of human history, through various signs that were discernible in natural phenomena, or, as Chryssipus the Stoic expresses it in Cicero de divin. ii. 63, “Signa quae a Diis hominibus portendantur.”
To look for a word of Jehovah in this way, Balaam betook himself to a “bald height.” This is the only meaning of שׁפי, from שׁפה, to rub, to scrape, to make bare, which is supported by the usage of the language; it is also in perfect harmony with the context, as the heathen augurs were always accustomed to select elevated places for their auspices, with an extensive prospect, especially the towering and barren summits of mountains that were rarely visited by men (see Hengstenberg, ut sup.). Ewald, however, proposes the meaning “alone,” or “to spy,” for which there is not the slightest grammatical foundation.