John Gill Commentary Numbers 22:28

"And Jehovah opened the mouth of the ass, and she said unto Balaam, What have I done unto thee, that thou hast smitten me these three times?" — Numbers 22:28 (ASV)

And the Lord opened the mouth of the ass, and she said to
Balaam

This was a very extraordinary and miraculous affair, and effected by a supernatural power, that a dumb creature, which has not organs endowed with speech, should speak so plainly and distinctly, as is after expressed; and yet it should not be thought incredible, for what is it that Omnipotence cannot do?

Therefore there is no need to say, as some Jewish writers ^F9, that this was all done in a visionary way, and not really and literally performed; nor can Heathens well object to the verity of it, if they believe what they themselves report concerning one of the asses which carried Bacchus over a river, to which, for reward, he gave the power of speaking with an human voice ^F11.

Though it is very probable the fable was framed from this story, and their writers frequently speak of other brute creatures endowed with speech; so Homer ^F12 represents Xanthus, the horse of Achilles, having the faculty of speech given to it by Juno: Pliny says ^F13, it is commonly reported among the wonderful things of the ancients, that an ox spoke; and Livy ^F14 frequently makes mention of an ox speaking in divers places, and of one particularly that said, ``Rome, take heed to thyself;''

Not to mention a lamb in Egypt in the times of Bocchoris that spoke, related by Aelianus ^F15 and others; nor of the ram of Phrixus, or the dog at Ariminum, and the elephant of Porus in India, with others Bochart ^F16 has collected: the words spoken by the ass were as follow:

what have l done to you, that you have smitten me these three
times?
and just so many times she had been smitten by him, (Numbers 22:23–27) .

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FOOTNOTES:

• F9: Maimon. Moreh Nevochim, par. 2. c. 42. Ben Gersom in loc.
• F11: Hygin. Poet. Astronomic. l. 2. c. 23. "Lactant, de falsa Relig". l. 1. c. 21.
• F12: Iliad. 19. "prope finem".
• F13: Nat. Hist. l. 8. c. 45.
• F14: Hist. l. 24. c. 10. l. 27. c. 11. l. 28. c. 11. and l. 35. c. 21.
• F15: De Animal. l. 12. c. 3.
• F16: Hierozoic. par. 1. l. 2. c. 14. col. 197, 198.