Having defeated the Amorites and the Bashanites, the Israelites travel to the plains of Moab and camp along the river Jordan. The Moabites have seen how their new next door neighbours deal with people who get in their way and they're quite understandably a little nervous. Terrified in fact. The king of Moab, Balak, decides that something needs to be done about these Israelites and so he decides to call on Balaam, who appears to have been a Mesapotamian seer or prophet with a reputation as the go-to guy for curses and blessings. Balak wants him to curse the Israelites, and so the elders of Moab and Midian travel to Balak's home with the fee for divination. He invites them to stay the night, while he waits for a word from God.
This is where I get a little confused. Balaam says he will "give [the elders] the answer the Lord gives [him]". The fact that he uses the epithet "the Lord", the name God chose for Himself and which predominates throughout the Bible, implies that this is God with a capital G that he's talking to. Not any old god, but the same God that the Israelites worship. But Balaam isn't an Israelite. And the Moabites don't worship God either. Nobody involved in this plan to curse the Israelites worships God and surely it wouldn't take a genius to figure out that if you want to curse someone, you don't ask their god to do it. It would be like trying to hire a loving mother to asassinate her own son. Not going to work. So why does Balaam want to speak to Him? Well, he may not worship God, but chances are he knows of Him by reputation. This is the God that drowned the entire Egyptian army and set fire to two of His own priests because they disobeyed Him. And if it doesn't take a genius to work out that you don't ask that God to curse His own people, then neither does it take a genius to work out that if you want to curse His people yourself, you'd better have a word with Him first. Unless you fancy ending at the bottom of the sea or spontaneously combusting.
So God talks to Balaam and asks him who the men who have come to see him are. God already knows so He doesn't really need to ask, but maybe He wants to know what kind of guy Balaam is. Can He trust Him? It turns out He can, because Balaam tells Him exactly who the men are. God tells Balaam not to go with them or curse the Israelites because He has blessed them. Balaam dutifully returns to the men with this message, and they return to Balak. Balak's not one to give up so easily though, and he sends even more men to Balaam to try and persuade him with the offer of handsome rewards. Balaam tells them that nothing they could offer him could make him go against the word of God. And here it gets interesting because he calls Him "the Lord my God". Did you get that? Balaam called Him his God. I've already said that Balaam wasn't an Israelite, why refer to God as his God? Maybe he was trying to ingratiate himself. Or maybe his experience of God had had a profound impact on him. God was never just for the Israelites.
Balaam tells the men to stay the night, just as the others did, will he goes and speaks to God again. This time God tells him to go with the men, but to do only what He tells him. So the next day Balaam saddles his donkey and sets off. He's doing just as God said, and yet for some reason God is angry with him and sends an angel to stop him in his tracks. Balaam doesn't see the angel but his donkey does and turns off the road. Balaam isn't happy about this and he beats the donkey to get her back on the road. Again the angel appears, this time in a narrow place, so when the donkey tries to turn she crushed Balaam's foot against the wall. Again, Balaam beats the donkey to force her on. One last time, the angel appears, but here there is no place to turn so the donkey simply lies down. Balaam starts to beat her again, but the Lord opens the donkey's mouth and she asks Balaam why he keeps beating her. I think I might have been a little freaked out if my donkey suddenly started talking, but Balaam takes it all in his stride and answers her, saying that she has made a fool of him and he would kill her if he could. She asks him if she is in the habit of doing this, to which Balaam can only reply by saying no. I can't believe I'm about to say this, but the donkey has a point. If Balaam had though before striking out, he may have realised something was up.
At this point, God opens Balaam's eyes and he finally sees the angel with its sword drawn. The angel tells him that if it had not been for the donkey turning away, he would have killed him by now, and that he has come to stop him because his path is reckless before God. In the most literal sense, his path is the one dictated by God. He's going where God told him to go, so surely He can't be angry about that. Maybe there's another issue here. Like Balaam's career path. Balaam is into divination, which God has already declared an abomination. Before God lets him go to Balak to do His work, He needs to set him straight. So He reminds Balaam that he must speak only what He tells him. If we're on the wrong path, God will tell us. But more than that, He'll show us the right one.
So Balaam arrives in Moab and warns Balak that he can only say what God puts in his mouth. The next day, Balak takes Balaam up to Bamoth Baal, from where they can see part of the Israelite camp. They sacrifice seven rams and seven bulls, then Balaam goes away to await God's word. When he comes back, he tells Balaam that he cannot curse those who God has not cursed. He also describes the Israelites as a people who live apart and hopes for a righteous death and for his end to be like theirs. Balak isn't happy about this, but Balaam simply says that he can only speak God's words.
Balak tells Balaam to neither bless nor curse the Israelites, but then he changes his mind and decides to try again and takes Balaam to another place which commands a different view of the Israelites. Again they sacrifice seven bulls and seven rams, and again Balaam awaits Gods reply. This time Balaam comes back and says that God is not a man and so he is not fickle or a liar. He has chosen to bless the Israelites and so Balaam can not change that. Balaam also says that God is with the people and He protects and strengthens them so that others will say "See what God has done" and that there is no divination against Israel. In other words, Balak's plan won't work. Balak still wants another try though, so he takes Balaam to another spot and sacrifices another seven rams and seven bulls. Balaam realises now that God will speak if He wants to speak, and sorcery is not necessary, so he ditches all of the divination tricks he apparently used on the previous attempts, and the Spirit of God comes on him and he blesses the Israelites, describing the beauty of their land, their abundance, their power and their strength. This message, or oracle, is slightly different to the others, as he starts by saying it is the oracle of one who sees clearly, who has heard God and seen a vision from Him. God had managed to get through to him before, but now that he has ditched the sorcery, he can experience God in a more real and powerful way.
Balak is really angry now. He summoned Balaam to curse the Israelites, but instead he has blessed them three times. He refuses to pay Balaam, saying that God has kept him from his reward, but Balaam calmly replies that he told him all along that he could only say what God wanted him to say, and no reward was going to change that. As his parting shot, Balaam warns Balak and the surrounding nations that they will be destroyed by the Israelites. He then begins his journey back home, and that is the last we hear of him. I do wonder though, did his experience of God change him? Did he ditch the divination and tell his family and friends about the god he has called "the Most High" and claimed for himself? I'd like to think he did.
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