Numbers 24:5 (BSB)

How lovely are your tents, O Jacob, your dwellings, O Israel!

From Numbers 24. Also in the ESV.

Commentary on Numbers 24:5

• John Calvin (Reformed), Calvin's Commentaries on Numbers 24:5: 5. How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob! The internal condition of prosperity enjoyed by the people is described by various similitudes akin to each other, and expressive of the same thing. He compares them to valleys and well-watered gardens, and then to trees which were rendered succulent by abundance of moisture, and finally to fields whose seeds imbibe fatness from the waters.
• Matthew Henry (Presbyterian), Matthew Henry's Complete Commentary on Numbers 24:1-9: The blessing itself which Balaam here pronounces upon Israel is much the same with the two we had in the foregoing chapter; but the introduction to it is different. I. The method of proceeding here varies much in several instances. 1.
• John Gill (Reformed Baptist), Exposition of the Old and New Testaments on Numbers 24:5: How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob,.... Not that the matter of which they were made was so rich, or their structure so admirable, but the order in which they were placed was so beautiful and agreeable: and thy tabernacles, O Israel; which is the same thing in other words, and which may be applied figuratively to the church of God, which often goes by...
• Jamieson-Fausset-Brown (Reformed), Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible on Numbers 24:5: How goodly are thy tents, . . . O Israel!--a fine burst of admiration, expressed in highly poetical strains. All travellers describe the beauty which the circular area of Bedouin tents impart to the desert. How impressive, then, must have been the view, as seen from the heights of Abarim, of the immense camp of Israel extended over the subjacent plains.