The Death of Bilaam

Parshat Matos-Masei

by Rabbi Avi Billet

One of the features of Matos is the war with Midian, and in the verse which describes the defeat of the kings of Midian, we are told that Bilaam ben Be’or was killed by the sword as well (31:8). 

Considering where Bilaam lived (on the Euphrates) (22:5) and considering that we were told at the end of Parshas Balak that Bilaam had returned “to his place,” (24:25) which Chizkuni clarifies for us as “Aram Naharayim,” what was he doing at the Midian war? 

On a very simple level, it shows the degree of Bilaam’s hatred. No matter how poetic he waxed about only saying what God let him say, the fact that he turned around after a several hundred mile trek home to engage in a battle against Israel hundreds of miles away shows clearly that he was motivated by a deep-seeded hatred for Israel. 

 The Midrash Aggada (Rashi notes this is as well) indicates that he was looking for payment for the plague that killed 24,000 as if his curse had worked. (Ibn Ezra notes his 2-way journey while also focusing on Bilaam’s intent to be paid) 

This approach is challenged by Rabbi Eliyahu Mizrachi who wonders why Bilaam would think he’d get paid, considering that he did not curse, and was viewed as a failure by Balak, the man who hired him! Regardless, since Balak was the King of Moav, why would Bilaam go to Midian for payment? He raises two possibilities: 

1. He was going through Midian to get to Moav (I don’t think this argument holds up well on a map - AB) 
2. He was going to Midian, because it was Ziknei (the elders of) Midian who had invited him, at Balak’s behest. Since dealing with Balak had been unfruitful, and now that Israelites have lost 24,000 men, it seems his efforts were successful in the end, and therefore worthy of compensation.

The Maharal similarly offers that Moav could claim they didn’t owe Bilaam anything because their motivations in hiring him were based in fear – an unwarranted and therefore not binding “purchase.” Midian, on the other hand, didn’t fear Israel at all. They were consumed by hatred for Israel, and therefore Bilaam rightly felt he was owed by Midian for his services.

Targum Yonatan combines a lot of information, and puts them all into the mouth of Pinchas who corners Bilaam and is ready to kill him when Bilaam pleads for his life saying “If you let me live, I swear I will never curse your nation again.” Pinchas responds, “Indeed you are [a descendant] of Lavan, and you’ve wanted to destroy Yaakov’s descendants, and you came down to Egypt to do so. And after they left Egypt, you incited Amalek against them, and made the effort to curse us more recently. And when that didn’t work you instructed Balak to have the women of his nation stand at crossroads to entice our men, causing the deaths of 24,000.” [This is related to a tradition that Bilaam either was Lavan or was a descendant of Lavan. This approach even suggests that Bilaam’s leg was smashed against the pile of rocks called Gal-ed, as made in a treaty between Yaakov and Lavan, and his injury was demonstrating that he was violating the oath made between Yaakov and Lavan that neither would cross that line to harm the other.] 

B’chor Shor indicates that he was invited back because even though he felt a failure when he left, the deaths of the 24,000 opened the possibility that his curse would now actually be successful as they were unworthy of the Divine’s protection. This was a serious change from when he had said לא הביט און ביעקב – that he could not find a sin amongst the people of Israel. 

 While not arguing directly, the Baal HaTurim suggests he was brought before Moshe to be executed, and not that Pinchas killed him. 

 Or HaChaim doesn’t chime in on whether he was killed by Pinchas or Moshe (or the court), but claims that Bilaam was killed before the kings of Midian were killed.

Why was he killed? If he was killed in the field of battle, then we can chalk his death up to being a casualty of war. But if he was killed in a different context, as noted by the Targum Yonatan and Baal HaTurim approaches, then his death requires a little more exploration. Sifsei Chachamim notes that the Bnei Yisrael at that time likely would not have known of his antics with Balak, and that they would not have had much of a case against him. However, since he unabashedly was taking credit for causing Israel to sin with the women of Moav (and Midian) his crime was causing Israelites to go against the Torah and, more heinously, deny God’s role in their lives. 

 Interestingly, the Chasam Sofer claims that Bilaam should have been subject to the death by plague, since that was the death that he brought upon Israel (in a middah k’negged middah way). Even though he was asking for monetary compensation, what was coming to him was actually “payback” for what he had caused (death). And yet we are told that he was killed by the sword! He answers that Bilaam was unaware that two other people had died on his account, namely Zimri and Kozbi, and because when a person is subject to two possible death penalties the person is given the more stringent one, just as they died with a רמח (a spear or long blade), Bilaam was killed with a long blade, namely a sword. 

 Netziv says he was judged and killed as a Ben Noach is put to death – with a sword. 

 Malbim raises a number of possibilities as recorded in the Talmud, including that it was Midian, and not Israel, who killed Bilaam, on account of his impertinence in asking for payment for which they felt he was entirely undeserving. He records a view that the death penalty for a Ben Noach is actually Chenek (choking) and that the death penalty as given by a monarch is death by the sword. This argument strengthens the not-by-Jewish-court argument. 

This exercise is not to come to the defense of Bilaam in any way, as his character is beyond any kind of defense, from our perspective. But it demonstrates what either hatred or greed can do for a person, even bring him into the thick of a battlefield where he gets neither credit for his claims or payment for his services, but does lose his life. 

Pirkei Avos teaches us not to be like Bilaam, and to instead be like Avraham. If Bilaam is defined by hatred and greed – and these led to his death – then Avraham stands for love and honesty + magnanimity, not wanting to harm anyone, and not looking to profit off of anyone in any way that is undeserved or that is dishonest.