The Targum's version of (Numbers 23) reveals Bileam's inner strategy. When he looked at Israel, "he knew that strange worship was among them, and rejoiced in his heart." He spotted their sin and thought he could exploit it. He built seven altars and offered seven bulls and seven rams—an attempt to match the merit of Israel's seven patriarchs and matriarchs with raw sacrificial volume.
Then the Targum adds a chilling physical detail absent from the Torah. When Bileam went off alone to seek a curse, "he went, bending as a serpent." He literally walked like a snake, contorting his body in some kind of sorcerous posture. The image links him directly to the primordial serpent of Eden—a creature of cunning and deception.
But God hijacked his mouth. The forced blessings that poured out contained theological claims the Torah's Bileam never makes. "This people alone are to possess the world, because they are not led by the laws of the nations," the Targum has him say. Israel's separateness from gentile legal systems is presented as the very reason for their cosmic inheritance.
The Targum calls Bileam both "the wicked" and "the sinner" throughout, editorializing where the Torah remains neutral. When he saw Israel's encampment, he marveled: "Who can number the merits of these strong ones, or count the good works of one of the four camps of Israel?" Then he made a stunning admission: "If the house of Israel kill me with the sword, I shall have no portion in the world to come. Nevertheless, if I may but die the death of the true! O that my last end may be as the least among them!" Even the villain wanted to die like a righteous Israelite.
In the second oracle, the Targum inserts a messianic reference. Bileam declared: "The Word of the Lord their God is their help, and the trumpets of the King Meshiha resound among them." The shofar blasts Israel heard in the wilderness were not just ritual instruments—they were echoes of the future Messiah's arrival. At the same time, the Targum emphasized that "they of the house of Jakob who use divination are not established"—Israel's power came not from magic but from God's direct intervention.