The interpretation timeline

Num 24:1

How this passage has been read — the sources, oldest to newest.

From the early Church Fathers to now.

Num 24:1 · Douay-Rheims

“And when Balaam saw that it pleased the Lord that he should bless Israel. he went not as he had gone before, to seek divination: but setting his face towards the desert,”

Patristic before A.D. 750

235

A.D.

Hippolytus of Rome Patristic

c. A.D. 170–235

“Now, in order that He might be shown to have together in Himself at once the nature of God and that of man,-as the apostle, too, says: "Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. Now a mediator is not of one man, but two," -it was therefore necessary that Christ, in becoming the Mediator between God and men, should receive from both an earnest of some kind, that He might appear as the Mediator between two distinct persons.”

Source

Modern · 1953 →

The in-app commentary runs from the Fathers to the early-modern record, then stops — that's where the public-domain sources end, not where the reading does. For the modern reading, follow the sources directly.