A NEST — and, at Numbers 24:21, a pun no version on either shelf can print. Balaam looks at the KENITE, ha-Qeini, and says his qen is set in the crag: the people's name and the word for the nest are the same two consonants. ⚠ Every version keeps both words and the joke evaporates in the gap between them. The next verse doubles it by calling the nation Kain — the name of Cain — so the oracle runs Kenite, nest, Cain in three lines. ⭐ The image is not decorative: a nest in a rock face is exactly how a small, un-conquerable hill people looks from below, and the oracle's point is that even that is not high enough. → first discussed at Num 24:21