The Hebrew Bible records Balaam's first two oracles over Israel (Numbers 23), and both times, the pagan prophet finds himself unable to curse what God has blessed. Targum Onkelos translates these oracles with minimal deviation—because Balaam's words, spoken under divine compulsion, are already theologically correct.
"How can I curse when God has not cursed? What divine wrath can I evoke if God has not been angry?" (Numbers 23:8). Onkelos translates this verbatim. The logic is airtight. Cursing requires divine backing. Without it, the prophet's words are empty air.
The key divergences come in the bracketed additions. "A people which shall dwell alone" (Numbers 23:9)—Onkelos adds: "and are destined to inhabit the world, and will not be judged for annihilation." The isolation of Israel is not weakness. It is destiny. Other nations may rise and fall, subject to cosmic judgment. Israel endures.
"Who can count the dust of Jacob?" (Numbers 23:10)—Onkelos specifies: "the dust of the house of Jacob, of whom it is said they will multiply as the dust of the earth." The metaphor is grounded in God's earlier promise to Abraham. Balaam's poetry, in Onkelos's hands, becomes a recitation of covenant history.
The second oracle introduces one of Onkelos's sharpest theological claims. "God is not like man that He should act falsely, nor is He mortal that He should change His mind" (Numbers 23:19). Onkelos expands: "God's word is not as that of man who speaks with deceit. Nor is it as that of mankind who decree and then change their mind. He says and does, and His word endures." This is Onkelos's entire theological program distilled into a single verse: God's Word is the ultimate reality, unchanging, undeceitful, and permanent.