The land of *whose* people??

Summary: Ibn Ezra vs. Mizrachi. And I suspect that neither one is right.

Post: At the start of Balak, Balak sends for Bilaam:

5. He sent messengers to Balaam the son of Beor, to Pethor, which is by the river of the land of his people, to call for him, saying, "A people has come out of Egypt, and behold, they have covered the "eye" of the land, and they are stationed opposite me.

ה. וַיִּשְׁלַח מַלְאָכִים אֶל בִּלְעָם בֶּן בְּעוֹר פְּתוֹרָה אֲשֶׁר עַל הַנָּהָר אֶרֶץ בְּנֵי עַמּוֹ לִקְרֹא לוֹ לֵאמֹר הִנֵּה עַם יָצָא מִמִּצְרַיִם הִנֵּה כִסָּה אֶת עֵין הָאָרֶץ וְהוּא יֹשֵׁב מִמֻּלִי:

Rashi explains, based on Midrashim, that in "the land of his people", "his" refers to Balak:

the land of his people: [I.e.,] Balak’s [people]. He came from there. This one [Balaam] prophesied, telling him, “You are destined to rule.” If you ask, “Why did God bestow His Shechinah on a wicked gentile?” [The answer is] so the nations should not have an excuse to say, “Had we had prophets we would have repented.” So He assigned them prophets, but they breached the [morally] accepted barrier, for at first they had refrained from immorality, but he [Balaam] advised them to offer themselves freely for prostitution. — [Mid. Tanchuma Balak 1, Num. Rabbah 20:1]

ארץ בני עמו: של בלק. משם היה, וזה היה מתנבא ואומר לו עתיד אתה למלוך. ואם תאמר מפני מה השרה הקב"ה שכינתו על גוי רשע, כדי שלא יהא פתחון פה לאומות לומר אלו היו לנו נביאים חזרנו למוטב, העמיד להם נביאים והם פרצו גדר העולם, שבתחלה היו גדורים בעריות וזה נתן להם עצה להפקיר עצמן לזנות:

Thus Balak is not initially from Moav. Thus Bemidbar Rabba:

ארץ בני עמו שמשם היה בלק והוא אמר לו שסופו למלוך. 


So too Midrash Tanchuma:
ארץ בני עמו שמשם היה בלק (כשנמלך), והוא אמר: שסופך למלוך.

To demonstrate that this need not be purely midrashic, I will note that Rashbam says the same:
ארץ בני עמו - של בלק. 

Ibn Ezra  writes on this:

ארץ בני עמו -והם ארמים.
וכן מפתור ארם נהרים.

ובדרש:
שבלעם הוא בלע, כי זה ארמי ואם בעבור בעור אביו, הנה בן אחשורוש קודם אחשורוש, רק הם שנים.

The first part it just to establish what is ambiguous, what land it is, namely Aram. In the second part, he dismisses the midrashic identification (made in Targum Pseudo-Yonatan) of Bilaam ben Beor the sorcerer with Bela ben Beor king of Edom. After all, "Bnei Amo" shows that this land, Aram, is his {= Bilaam's} land. And so how would he be the king of Edom, an Edomite?

Avi Ezer, a supercommentator of Ibn Ezra, says שרא ליה מריה and refers us to the supercommentary of Mizrachi on Rashi:

Basically, he gives the reason for Midrash Rabba (and Tanchuma) that why should we mention eretz bnei amo -- after all, the simple assumption is that any resident of a country was born there. Further, he is astonished at Ibn Ezra for arguing on the midrash, for by contrasting Bilaam the Aramean with Bela the Edomite, he is arguing on the (Tanchuma and) Bemidbar Rabba's explanation of עמו as referring to Balak! And furthermore, who revealed to Ibn Ezra the truth such that he will argue with a midrash?!

I don't think that Ibn Ezra would be bothered by such trumpeting. Of course he can argue on midrash when it comes to peshat. I would point out that the midrashic explanation rooted on Arami Oved Avi, brought down by Targum Yonatan, that Bilaam is really Lavan, is predicated on Bilaam being from Aram, and thus an Aramean, presumably is based in part on this Eretz Bnei Amo as Bilaam's land.

The midrash interpreted it as Balak's land because there was an ambiguity which called out darsheni, and so they chose the less obvious yet available interpretation. Further, it solves various other problems as to Balak and his role as now-king of Moav. That the midrash develops a general picture made out of particular interpretations of pesukim does not mean, however, that medieval parshanim must subscribe to that midrashic interpretation, as a religious matter.

Also, the radical Ibn Ezra is an easy target. Would Avi Ezer say שרא ליה מריה, and would Mizrachi be so ready to criticize Ramban? For Ramban explicitly says the same, as a matter of peshat:

ה): ארץ בני עמו - 

של בלק. משם היה, וזה היה מתנבא ואומר לו עתיד אתה למלוך, לשון רש"י מדברי אגדה (במדב"ר כ ז). ש

ופשוטו, ארץ בני עמו של בלעם, כי שם נולד ושם יחוסו. והטעם להזכיר כן, מפני שהיה קוסם מן הארץ שכל עמה קוסמים, כעניין שכתוב (ישעיה ב ו): כי מלאו מקדם ועוננים כפלשתים:

And the Netziv is frum, and yet agrees with Ramban (and thus Ibn Ezra) on this.

Despite all this, I suspect that neither the midrash nor Ibn Ezra are correct in interpreting eretz bnei amo, as a matter of peshat. Rather, I still maintain what I suggested a while back at some length, rather than עמו, we should understand it as עמון, the land of Bnei Ammon. That is the land of Ammon, as Ammon took its name from the boy called Ben-Ammi.

Anyway, I just noticed that the Samaritan Torah has the same -- they change עמו to עמון:

Not that I think that the text is correct. However, it does show that way back when, some people were looking at the text and thinking Ammon for Ammo, such that a scribe "corrected" the text to match this understanding.