How goodly are your tents, Yaakov, your dwelling-places, Israel.
Torah Temimah: Sanhedrin 105b — R. Yochanan: from that wicked one’s blessings you know what was in his heart.
English: R. Yochanan said: From the blessings of that wicked one you know what was in his heart. He wished to say that they should have no synagogues or study-houses — [instead] he said, “How goodly are your tents, Yaakov”; he wished to say that the Divine Presence should not rest upon them — [instead] he said, “and your dwelling-places, Israel.”
Reading forced blessing as inverted intended curse.
Each clause of Mah Tovu answers a specific destructive intent — the verse preserves both the blessing and the map of what Bilam meant to destroy.