“Like valleys that stretch out, Like gardens beside a river, Like aloes planted by the Lord, Like cedars beside the waters.
Parallel translations
- WEB As valleys they are spread out, as gardens by the riverside, as aloes which Yahweh has planted, as cedar trees beside the waters.
- KJV As the valleys are they spread forth, as gardens by the river’s side, as the trees of lign aloes which the LORD hath planted, and as cedar trees beside the waters.
- BSB They spread out like palm groves, like gardens beside a stream, like aloes the LORD has planted, like cedars beside the waters.
- NKJV Like valleys that stretch out, Like gardens by the riverside, Like aloes planted by the Lord, Like cedars beside the waters.
- NLT They spread before me like palm groves, like gardens by the riverside. They are like tall trees planted by the Lord, like cedars beside the waters.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Balaam likens Israel to spreading valleys, riverside gardens, aloes, and cedars planted by the LORD. The images convey abundant, God-given flourishing.
Overview
The lush pictures of well-watered gardens and towering trees portray Israel as a people of life and fruitfulness, planted and tended by God Himself. Such imagery anticipates later Scripture that compares the righteous to trees planted by streams of water. The point is that Israel's prosperity is the gift of the LORD's planting, not a chance of nature.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 15
- Ps 1:3He will be like a tree planted by the streams of water, that produces its fruit in its season, whose leaf also does not wither. Whatever he does shall prosper.
- Isa 58:11and Yahweh will guide you continually, and satisfy your soul in dry places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters don’t fail.
- Ps 104:16Yahweh’s trees are well watered, the cedars of Lebanon, which he has planted;
- Isa 41:19I will put cedar, acacia, myrtle, and oil trees in the wilderness. I will set cypress trees, pine, and box trees together in the desert;
- Jer 17:18Let them be disappointed who persecute me, but let not me be disappointed; let them be dismayed, but don’t let me be dismayed; bring on them the day of evil, and destroy them with double destruction.
- Jer 31:12They shall come and sing in the height of Zion, and shall flow to the goodness of Yahweh, to the grain, and to the new wine, and to the oil, and to the young of the flock and of the herd: and their soul shall be as a watered garden; and they shall not sorrow any more at all.
- Ps 45:8All your garments smell like myrrh, aloes, and cassia. Out of ivory palaces stringed instruments have made you glad.
- Gen 13:10Lot lifted up his eyes, and saw all the plain of the Jordan, that it was well-watered everywhere, before Yahweh destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, like the garden of Yahweh, like the land of Egypt, as you go to Zoar.
- Song 6:11I went down into the nut tree grove, to see the green plants of the valley, to see whether the vine budded, and the pomegranates were in flower.
- Gen 2:8–10Yahweh God planted a garden eastward, in Eden, and there he put the man whom he had formed.
- Ezek 31:3–4Behold, the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon with beautiful branches, and with a forest-like shade, and of high stature; and its top was among the thick boughs.
- Song 4:12–15A locked up garden is my sister, my bride; a locked up spring, a sealed fountain.
- Ezek 47:12By the river on its bank, on this side and on that side, shall grow every tree for food, whose leaf shall not wither, neither shall its fruit fail: it shall produce new fruit every month, because its waters issue out of the sanctuary; and its fruit shall be for food, and its leaf for healing.
- Ps 92:12–14The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree. He will grow like a cedar in Lebanon.
- Joel 3:18It will happen in that day, that the mountains will drop down sweet wine, the hills will flow with milk, all the brooks of Judah will flow with waters, and a fountain will flow out from Yahweh’s house, and will water the valley of Shittim.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.
Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.
Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
In the wilderness Christ is the water from the rock, the bronze serpent lifted up that the dying might look and live (John 3:14), and the star and scepter that Balaam saw rising out of Jacob.
How Numbers 24:6 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.