Illustration Credit: Elad Lifshitz, Dov Abramson Studio
What's going on here? מַה זֶה?
Bil’am’s donkey sees an angel of God, holding a sword. This makes the donkey scared, and it swerves off the road (Bemidbar 22:23).
What exactly did the donkey see? Did it really see something that Bil’am wasn’t able to see?
- Ramban says the donkey didn’t see anything unusual. After all, angels don’t have physical bodies! What happened is that the donkey felt something unusual and became scared.
- Rashi says God performed a miracle that allowed the donkey to see on a special, deeper level of perception. So its eyes actually saw an angel.
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