Translations
KJVPrimary
King James VersionAnd God came unto Balaam at night, and said unto him, If the men come to call thee, rise up, and go with them; but yet the word which I shall say unto thee, that shalt thou do.
F.O.G.Secondary
The F.O.GElohim came to Bil'am that night and said, 'If the men have come to call you, rise and go with them — but only what I speak to you, that shall you do.'
F.O.G.M.
F.O.G MessageGod came to Balaam that night and said, 'If these men have come to summon you, rise and go with them — but speak only what I tell you.'
BSB
Berean Standard BibleThat night God came to Balaam and said, “Since these men have come to summon you, get up and go with them, but you must only do what I tell you.”
Footnotes
The divine permission in v.20 followed by divine anger in v.22 presents a deliberate narrative tension. Several readings are defensible: (1) God's permissive will and His moral will are not identical — He allows what He does not approve; (2) Bil'am went with the wrong heart, eagerly rather than reluctantly; (3) the conditional *ʾim* ('if') implies he should have waited to be summoned rather than rising first. FOG preserves the conditional force of 'if the men have come'; FOG Message renders it more naturally, allowing the implied tension to surface through context.
