במדבר, פרק כ״ג, פסוק כ״ה

After a continuous series of disappointments, the king of Moab reaches a breaking point. Seeing that every attempt to harm the Israelites is transformed into a divine blessing, Balak changes his strategy. Instead of demanding their destruction, he now begs for complete silence and total inaction. The primary approach among commentators is that his request operates as a mutual exclusion: Balak demands that Balaam neither bless nor curse, and neither curse nor bless [רש״י, ריב״א, שפתי חכמים, מזרחי]. This specific demand is designed to prevent Balaam from using any sequence of actions, such as initiating a curse that ultimately leads to a blessing, or vice versa [משכיל לדוד]. At its most basic level, it is simply a desperate plea from a defeated king: if you cannot bring them harm, at least do not bring them good [ביאור שטיינזלץ].

Balak observes a frustrating pattern in Balaam's methods. He realizes that Balaam is trying to be clever by attempting to issue an indirect curse without explicitly naming the nation. As a result, God intervenes and forces Balaam to speak favorably against his will. Balak concludes that if Balaam stops his attempts to curse completely, he will no longer be forced by God to bless them [אור החיים]. Furthermore, Balak understands that every effort to intensify and double the curse only provokes God to enforce an equally powerful and doubled blessing [אלשיך].

To break this cycle, Balak decides that total inaction is the only solution. Because receiving any prophecy requires spiritual readiness, Balak asks Balaam to avoid making any preparations at all. He finally understands that the very act of preparing for a curse is exactly what gives birth to the blessing [העמק דבר, מלבי״ם]. Other perspectives suggest that Balak's reaction stems from a deep misunderstanding of the prophecy itself. He may not have understood Balaam's words at all, hearing them merely as obscure riddles and parables without a clear meaning [שפתי כהן]. Additionally, Balak mistakenly assumed these declarations described the current state of the Israelites, completely unaware that Balaam was actually foreseeing their distant future [חזקוני].