The fourth part of Israel. אֶת־רבַע is so rendered by the Targums, as alluding to the four great camps into which the host was divided. The Septuagint has δήμους, apparently from an incorrect reading.
The Samaritan and the older versions, followed by the Vulgate, render it "progeny,'" but this meaning is conjectural, and there seems no sufficient reason to depart from the common translation. Let me die the death of the righteous.
The word "righteous" is in the plural ( יְשָׁרִים, δικαίων): it may refer either to the Israelites as a holy nation, living and dying in the favour of God; or to the patriarchs, such as Abraham, the promises made to whom, in faith of which they died, were already so gloriously fulfilled.
If the former reference was intended, Balaam must have had a much fuller and happier knowledge of "life and immortality" than the Israelites themselves, to whom death was dreadful, all the more that it ended a life protected and blessed by God (cf.
e.g; Psalms 88:10-12; Isaiah 38:18, Isaiah 38:19). It is hardly credible that so singular an anticipation of purely Christian feeling should really be found in the mouth of a prophet of that day, for it is clear that the words, however much inspired, did express the actual emotion of Balaam at the moment.
It is therefore more consistent with the facts and probabilities of the case to suppose that Balaam referred to righteous Abraham (cf. Isaiah 41:2) and his immediate descendants, and wished that when he came to die he might have as sure a hope as they had enjoyed that God would bless and multiply their seed, and make their name to be glorious in the earth.
Let my last end be like his. אַחַרִית (last end) is the same word translated "latter days" and "latter end" in Numbers 24:14, Numbers 24:20. It means the last state of a people or of a man as represented in his offspring; the sense is not incorrectly expressed by the Septuagint, γένοιτο τὸ σπέρμα μου ὡς τὸ σπέρμα τούτων.