Bil'am (Balaam) son of Beor was a prophet or diviner from Pethor in upper Mesopotamia, summoned by Balak king of Moab to pronounce a curse upon Israel as they camped on the plains of Moab (Num 22-24). The narrative is one of the Bible's most vivid and ironic: God opens the mouth of Balaam's donkey to rebuke the seer, and then opens Balaam's own mouth to pronounce four magnificent blessings instead of curses, including the messianic oracle 'a star shall come out of Jacob' (Num 24:17). Later tradition took a darker view, blaming Balaam for counseling Moab to seduce Israel into idolatry (Num 31:16; Rev 2:14). All 60 occurrences refer to the same individual, rendered uniformly as Balaam in English, Spanish, and French, and Bileam in German.