Commentary for Avodah Zarah 8:25

Only Bilaam could determine precisely that one infinitesimally small moment when God’s anger is unleashed every day. Interestingly, while Bilaam is vilified, the rabbis do acknowledge him as a prophet.

How could Bilaam know God, but not even understand his own animal. This leads to a reconstruction of Bilaam’s discussion with his famous donkey. Each passage is based on the donkey saying a verse back to Bilaam.

This is probably something you did not know from the Bible. Not usually taught in Hebrew school.

This is the conclusion of the passage. Bilaam did not really know God—he only knew when exactly during the day God would get angry. This would assumedly help him in his attempt to curse Israel.

This statement is here because it again connects with the Bilaam and with God’s wrath. Note that “Israel’s enemies” is a euphemism. The statement should read “none would have remained in Israel.” But the copyist did not even want to write such a terrible statement.

Abaye provides a natural phenomenon by which to determine when God’s wrath occurs.

This statement appeared earlier in the context of God asking the non-Jews to perform the mitzvot at the end of days.