‘The high places of Baal’ — the ridge Balak walks Balaam up at the end of Numbers 22 so that he can see Israel encamped below. ⚠ The name is a plural of bamah, the raised open-air sanctuary the books of Kings spend centuries condemning, and it is very probably the same site as the plain ‘Bamoth’ that appears as a stop on the itinerary at Numbers 21:19. The older half of the shelf translates the name (‘the high places of Baal’) and the newer half transliterates it; both are defensible and neither can do both. It is the first of three vantage points Balak will try, each chosen in the hope that a different view will produce a different oracle.