Balak is unusual for centering on a non-Israelite seer, Balaam, whose oracles the Torah records as genuine prophecy turned to Israel's blessing against his patron's wish. His words 'how goodly are your tents, O Jacob, your dwellings, O Israel' (24:5) open the traditional morning service on entering the synagogue. An extra-biblical inscription referring to a 'Balaam son of Beor' found at Deir Alla has drawn scholarly attention to the figure's wider ancient reputation.
The Deir Alla inscription, a plaster wall text discovered in Jordan and dated by most scholars to around the eighth century BCE, describes visions received by a seer named Balaam son of Beor warning of coming disaster, offering rare extra-biblical corroboration that a figure by this name held a wider reputation as a seer across the ancient Near East, though the inscription's own content and theology differ substantially from the Torah's account. Balaam's oracle describing Israel as 'a people dwelling alone, not reckoning itself among the nations' (Numbers 23:9) is read by commentators as an outsider's unwitting confirmation of Israel's distinct covenantal identity, made all the more striking for being pronounced by a non-Israelite prophet under pressure to curse rather than bless. His final oracles, foretelling a star that will come out of Jacob (Numbers 24:17), were read messianically in later Jewish tradition, including in connection with the second-century rebel leader Bar Kokhba, whose adopted name, son of a star, drew directly on this verse's imagery.