Numbers 24:5

How goodly are your tents. Because he saw that their entrances were not facing each other.

Your dwelling places. Your camps, as Targum [Onkelos] renders. Another interpretation of how goodly are your tents: How goodly is the tent of Shiloh and the Eternal Temple when they are inhabited, for sacrifices are offered in them to bring you forgiveness.

Your dwelling places. Even when they are desolate, since they are held as security for you, and their desolation brings atonement for your souls, as it is said, “Adonoy expended his fury” — and how did He expend it? “He ignited a fire in Tziyon.”

How beautiful your houses of instruction, in the tabernacle where Jakob your father ministered; and how beautiful this tabernacle of ordinance which is found among you, and the tents that surround it, O house of Israel!

How good. The verb is in the past, as in "how my eyes brightened" (I Samuel 14:29)

!מה טובו אהליך יעקב; a reference to the Torah academies. [the word אהל in that sense dates back to Genesis 25,27 where Yaakov is described as יושב אהלים a dweller in tents.” It was also used in this sense by Noach when he blessed his son Shem (Genesis 9,27) We find it even more prominently as possessing this meaning in Exodus 33,7 “anyone desirous of finding the presence of G’d would go out to the Tent of Testimony.”

משכנותיך, a reference to the synagogues of the Jews all over, as well as to their Temples when these existed. The reason that Bileam said מה טובו, an unusual formulation, is that he wanted to make plain that the Torah academies are not only of benefit to the people who study in them, but that they also are good in a transitive sense, i.e. their very existence is of benefit to the entire nation. The very name יעקב also contains such a dual meaning. On the one hand it appears to have a negative connotation, but it also symbolises עקב a heel, something at the tail end of matters, meaning after everything else has already disappeared the עקב still remains, endures. The name “Israel” that was added to Yaakov’s name was justified by this thought, that its bearer had come out of a confrontation with celestial forces and had survived, had endured. If Israel could contend with celestial forces successfully, it would certainly be able to do so with terrestrial forces, i.e. עם אנשים, (Genesis 32,29).

מה טובו אהליך יעקב, ”how goodly are your tents, Yaakov;” In the Talmud tractate Sanhedrin folio 105 treatment of this verse, Rabbi Yochanan is quoted as saying that the wording, i.e. the metaphors of Bileam’s blessings reveal that these blessings had been involuntary. He had intended to point to the paucity of synagogues and houses of Torah study, but what came out of his mouth were words of admiration for same. He referred to these houses of studies now as if they were equivalent to Tabernacles devoted to G–d as His residence, i.e. משכנותיך ישראל. Instead of saying that its dynasties would be short lived, he said that they would flow like rivers. Instead of saying that they would not enjoy orchards and vineyards, he said: כגנות על נהר, “like gardens situate near a river;” (for easy irrigation) Rabbi Yochanan there continues in this vein. An alternate interpretation by Rabbi Abba bar kahane: all of Bileam’s blessings eventually turned into curses when the Jewish people did not live up to the idealistic version of them he had painted, except the blessings concerning the synagogues and houses of Torah study. A different scholar understands the word נטיו, derived from נטיה, meaning: “propensity,” rivers having a propensity, inclination, to wend their way through the landscape in a certain fashion sometimes becoming wider or narrower depending on the contours of the landscape surrounding them. Bileam suggests that the fortunes of the Jewish people in the future will parallel what we observe with rivers. Isaiah uses the same simile in Isaiah 66,12, when he said: נוטה אליה כנהר שלום, “like a river at peace.” (as opposed to flood in the next simile of the prophet) Bileam’s similes reflect the changing experiences of rivers and streams as reflecting Jewish history in the future. The more active the rivers, the more they symbolise powerful blessings for the Jewish people. Isaiah 54,2 is also a metaphor describing this concept where it is applied to the earth’s solid surface.

'כאהלים נטע ה, “like aloes planted by Hashem.” This is a metaphor recalling the excellence of the plants in the garden (Eden) which G–d Himself had planted. (Compare Genesis 2,8)