Balak is not a king you would call of royal heritage. Nor is he a king of physical might that led armies. His abilities came through sorcery; through a bird he sacrificed to.

Why then was Balak chosen? Because he had passion, desire, and a singular cause. He wanted the Jews eradicated spiritually forever. People notice passion, and Balak's dedication obviously made an impression on Moab and Midian, who were willing to overlook formal titles.

Considering that Balak was an imposter king and individually obsessed, it's no coincidence then that Balak ends up calling Bilam, someone “bli am,” without a nation. These were two rogue individuals tapping into evil forces to destroy the Jewish people eternally.

This also explains a seeming difficulty with the first verse in Balak. The verse discusses Balak, even though the real theme of the beginning of the parsha relates to the fear that Moab and Midian had collectively of Bnei Yisrael, who were wiping out mighty kings. The answer is that Balak's passion brought him to the forefront, and he received his title based on effort.

Because spiritual elements were involved, the stakes couldn't be higher. Balak was going after Bnei Yisrael’s inherent kedusha, something manifested through speech. Our power is in our Torah, tefillah, and inspired deeds.

What G-d did for us, without us knowing, was give Bilam a moment of prophecy, to take all evil forces from the most wicked and transform them into blessings. This surpasses any kind of physical victory that could have occurred. We were saved from any eternal damage.

This explains well why Bilam didn't start with the advice of having the Jews intermingle with the Moabites. That didn't guarantee the annihilating of the Jews; spiritual curses did.

Though we prevailed over a pseudo king and man without a nation, our spiritual battle with Eisav and Yishmael continues.

For Eisav and Yishmael, Torah, tefillah and good deeds are strong antidotes. Yishmael has a natural edge in tefillah because of Hagar. We have to outdo that. When it comes to Eisav, Yaakov told Eisav that he prevailed over Lavan, but with a caveat: prevailing will come if our passion for good surpasses Eisav's passion for evil.

With Divine souls, our passion and dedication has much greater force than a pseudo king and self-serving individual. Let us exercise that strength and defeat our enemies.