Nombres 24:1

Bil’am saw that it was favorable, etc. He said, “it is no longer necessary for me to test the Holy One, Blessed is He, for He will never want to curse them.

He did not approach, as at each time. As he had done twice.

Towards sorcery. To divine whether God would perhaps chance to appear to him as he wished. He said, “Whether or not He wants to curse them, I will mention their sins, so that the curse will descend with the mention of their sins.”

He set his face toward the wilderness. As Targum [Onkelos] renders.

And Bileam, seeing that it was good before the Lord to bless Israel, went not, as once and again before, in quest of divinations, but set his face toward the wilderness, to recall to memory the work of the calf which they had there committed.

AND HE WENT NOT, AS AT OTHER TIMES, TO SEEK FOR ENCHANTMENTS. [This means] that on the previous [two] occasions Balaam acted as an enchanter, and wanted to curse them by means of enchantment, and G-d came to him as if by chance, and not because he [Balaam] had concentrated on [attaining] prophecy, nor because of any superior status that he had achieved [because he was in fact not worthy of prophecy]. But now when he was told, For there is no enchantment in Jacob, neither is there any divination in Israel, whether to do them evil or good, Balaam abandoned his enchantments, and he went not [any more] as at [the] other times to seek them. Instead, he set his face toward the wilderness where Israel was [encamped], so that he would see them and prepare his soul towards them, so that the Divine communication would come unto him, as had happened to him twice [previous], and so indeed it happened to him now. Therefore Scripture states, and ‘the spirit of G-d’ came upon him, for now the hand of the Eternal was upon him as it was upon the prophets,. and just as Moses said, would that all the Eternal’s people were prophets, that the Eternal would put ‘His spirit’ upon them! — and it is further said: ‘The spirit of the Eternal G-d’ is upon me. Therefore Balaam now referred to himself as him who heareth the words of G-d, for he was [for that particular moment] a prophet. Now Rashi commented: “And he set his face toward the wilderness. This is to be understood as the Targum [Onkelos] rendered it.” For the Rabbi’s [Rashi’s] Targum contained [the following text]: “He directed his face toward the wilderness in which the children of Israel had made the [golden] calf.” But this is not found in accurate editions of Onkelos’ Targum, and is [only] written in some of the texts [of Onkelos], which were emended on the basis of the Targum Yerushalmi, (translations) of the Pentateuch: Onkelos, Yonathan, and Yerushalmi. The latter was lost for many centuries, and only parts of it have reached us. Recently, however, a copy of this Jerusalem Targum has been found in its full version, and the text quoted here by Ramban appears in it. but the correct interpretation is as we have explained [above, that Balaam turned to the wilderness in order to receive Divine communication as he had previously, and not because that was the place where they had made the golden …

ולא הלך כפעם בפעם לקרת נחשים, to try different locations in order to find one from which he could curse the people. The Torah reports that as of now Bileam had his heart in blessing the Israelites. As a result, ותהי עליו רוח אלוקים, the spirit of G’d now remained with him. G’d now inspired him out of a feeling of genuine liking for him.

לקראת נחשים, he stopped trying to divine the precise hour when a curse could stick to the Israelites, seeing that by no he had realised that it pleased G’d to bless the Jewish people. There was no hope that any curse could become effective.

וישא אל המדבר פניו, to bestow limited blessings on them, blessings which contained potential harm for the nation if it did not live up to the premise underlying the blessings. Our sages (Taanit 20) have illustrated this point when they said “the curse of the prophet Achiyah from Shiloh was easier to live with than having to live with Bileam’s blessings.”

'ולא הלך וגו, “he did not continue to attempt using divinations;” he knew that such attempts would be futile. From this point on he blessed the Israelites with a full heart. G–d Himself assisted him in doing so. This is why the Torah immediately testifies at that point the spirit of Hashem came to rest upon him. Alternately, Bileam’s mindset actually was not deterred, but G–d forced him to utter blessings because he had been so inspired from above.