Balaam’s oracles
E228853
Balaam’s oracles are a series of prophetic pronouncements in the Hebrew Bible in which the seer Balaam, hired to curse Israel, instead delivers divinely inspired blessings and future predictions about the nation.
All labels observed (2)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Balaam’s oracles canonical | 3 |
| Balaam’s oracle | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T2056768 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Balaam’s oracles Context triple: [Book of Numbers, keyEvent, Balaam’s oracles]
-
A.
Blessing of Moses
Blessing of Moses is a biblical poetic passage in which Moses delivers final prophetic blessings to the tribes of Israel before his death.
-
B.
Song of Moses
The Song of Moses is a biblical hymn in Deuteronomy that poetically recounts God's faithfulness and Israel's unfaithfulness, serving as a covenantal witness and warning to the people of Israel.
-
C.
Prophets
Prophets is a major section of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament that contains the writings and historical accounts of Israel’s prophetic figures and their messages.
-
D.
On the Gods
On the Gods is a lost work of ancient scholarship by Apollodorus of Athens that likely examined Greek religious beliefs and deities.
-
E.
Jubilees
Jubilees is an ancient Jewish religious work from the Second Temple period that retells and expands upon the narratives of Genesis and Exodus, often considered part of the pseudepigrapha.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Balaam’s oracles Target entity description: Balaam’s oracles are a series of prophetic pronouncements in the Hebrew Bible in which the seer Balaam, hired to curse Israel, instead delivers divinely inspired blessings and future predictions about the nation.
-
A.
Blessing of Moses
Blessing of Moses is a biblical poetic passage in which Moses delivers final prophetic blessings to the tribes of Israel before his death.
-
B.
Song of Moses
The Song of Moses is a biblical hymn in Deuteronomy that poetically recounts God's faithfulness and Israel's unfaithfulness, serving as a covenantal witness and warning to the people of Israel.
-
C.
Prophets
Prophets is a major section of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament that contains the writings and historical accounts of Israel’s prophetic figures and their messages.
-
D.
On the Gods
On the Gods is a lost work of ancient scholarship by Apollodorus of Athens that likely examined Greek religious beliefs and deities.
-
E.
Jubilees
Jubilees is an ancient Jewish religious work from the Second Temple period that retells and expands upon the narratives of Genesis and Exodus, often considered part of the pseudepigrapha.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (55)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
Hebrew Bible passage
ⓘ
biblical text ⓘ prophetic oracle ⓘ |
| addressedTo | Balak ⓘ |
| canonicalStatus |
part of the Pentateuch
ⓘ
part of the Torah ⓘ |
| commissionedBy | Balak ⓘ |
| concern | Israel ⓘ |
| contain |
predictions about Israel’s exaltation among nations
ⓘ
predictions about Israel’s future prosperity ⓘ predictions about Israel’s military victories ⓘ |
| depictBalaamAs |
prophet
ⓘ
seer ⓘ |
| form | parallelism ⓘ |
| foundIn |
Hebrew Bible
ⓘ
linked to:
Tanakh
Old Testament ⓘ
linked to:
Bible
|
| foundInChapters | Numbers 22–24 ⓘ |
| genre | poetry ⓘ |
| includeImage |
Israel as a lion
ⓘ
Israel as a well-watered garden ⓘ scepter out of Israel ⓘ star out of Jacob ⓘ |
| includes |
additional short sayings
ⓘ
first oracle of Balaam ⓘ fourth oracle of Balaam ⓘ second oracle of Balaam ⓘ third oracle of Balaam ⓘ |
| interpretedAs | messianic prophecy by many Christian traditions ⓘ |
| language | Biblical Hebrew ⓘ |
| literaryFunction |
affirmation of God’s favor toward Israel
ⓘ
reversal of intended curse into blessing ⓘ |
| mention |
Amalek
ⓘ
linked to:
Amalekites
Asshur ⓘ
linked to:
Ashur
Eber ⓘ Edom ⓘ Kenites ⓘ Moab ⓘ |
| notableVerse | Numbers 24:17 ⓘ |
| numberOfMainOracles | 4 ⓘ |
| partOf | Book of Numbers ⓘ |
| primaryTheme |
blessing of Israel
ⓘ
futility of cursing Israel ⓘ immutability of divine blessing ⓘ |
| religiousTradition |
Christianity
ⓘ
Judaism ⓘ Samaritanism ⓘ |
| setting |
facing Jericho
ⓘ
near the Jordan River ⓘ plains of Moab ⓘ
linked to:
Plains of Moab
|
| sourceOfInspiration | YHWH ⓘ |
| spokenBy | Balaam ⓘ |
| timeInNarrative |
Israelite wilderness wanderings
ⓘ
before Israel’s entry into Canaan ⓘ |
| usedIn |
Christian exegesis
ⓘ
Jewish exegesis ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Balaam’s oracles Description of subject: Balaam’s oracles are a series of prophetic pronouncements in the Hebrew Bible in which the seer Balaam, hired to curse Israel, instead delivers divinely inspired blessings and future predictions about the nation.
Referenced by (4)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.