Why did the ass give Bil'am such a detailed response ?
Rashi and Targum Yonasan #1: When they asked Bil'am why he was not riding a horse, 1 he replied that he had forgotten it in the meadow, 2 to which the ass retorted "ha'Lo Anochi Asoncha!"; When he replied that that was only for transporting loads, but not for riding, it retorted "asher Rachavta alai"; And in response to his reply that that was only temporary, it replied "me'Odcha ad ha'Yom ha'Zeh!" 3
Targum Yonasan #2: (See answer #1): The ass also told Bil'am mockingly that, if he was unable to curse it, a Tamei creature that lives only in this world, how could he expect to curse the children of Avraham, Yitzchak and Ya'akov on whose merits the world was created? 4
How will we reconcile the ass's statement - insinuating that Bil'am was unable to curse Yisrael, with the fact that he cursed Mo'av that he would be defeated by Sichon, and that he would have cursed Yisrael, had Hashem not prevented him from doing so?
What is the meaning of "ha'Hasken Hiskanti ... "?
Rashi #1 (citing Targum Onkelos) and Seforno: It means 'Am I accustomed to doing this to you'? - a sign 1 from Heaven that he was not destined to succeed on his mission, and should therefore retract.
Targum Yonasan and Sanhedrin, 105a: It hinted that Bil'am rode on it by day but was intimate with it by night, 2
Seforno: As the Gemara says in Chulin, 95b 'Even though one may not divine (act based on superstitions), one may heed a Siman'.
Since the word 'Sochen' also refers to intimacy, like we find in Melachim 1, 1:2. Hadar Zekenim (on Pasuk 22) and Ba'al ha'Turim (based on Sanhedrin, 105a): The Gematriya of "Rachavta Alai" is equivalent to that of "Riv'atani" (You raped me). See Torah Temimah, notes 11-13.
Sanhedrin, 105a learns from "u'Sehi lo Sochenes" (Melachim 1, 1:2) that "Hiskanti" refers to Bi'ah. But the Pasuk (4) there states that David ha'Melech was not intimate with her?
Moshav Zekenim (citing the Ri): Since the Pasuk needed to say that he was not intimate with her, we can extrapolate that generally, the word refers to intimacy. 1
Moshav Zekenim: His servants intended him to be intimate with her, but he declined to do so, since he already had eighteeen wives and was forbidden to marry a nineteenth one; neither did he want to divorce one of his wives.
