Balak looked at Israel with his eyes and with a darker wisdom.
Zohar, Balak 1:1 asks what Balak saw when the Torah says he saw what Israel had done (Numbers 22:2). He saw through ordinary sight, but also through the windows of wisdom. The Zohar imagines the tails of the skirts of the stars as windows, and one window through which the essence of wisdom can be seen.
Balak is not treated as a fool. He sees enough to be afraid. He reads the heavens and understands that Israel cannot be measured only by armies, tents, or numbers. Something above is moving with them.
That makes his fear more serious. He is not simply a king reacting to battlefield news. He is a ruler who peers into starry apertures and recognizes that Israel's power is tied to a wisdom beyond him.
The Zohar turns the opening of the Balaam story into an act of cosmic surveillance. Balak watches through star windows, but seeing is not the same as mastering. He can glimpse Israel's mystery. He cannot command it.