Numbers 22 to 24 and 31 · Person · Featured Study
Balaam
A seer from Aram whom eight books of the Bible name, from Numbers to Revelation.
Gerrit Claesz. Bleker, The Ass with the Prophet Balaam Stopped by the Angel, 1634. Public domain.
THE ARTWORKBleker paints the angel with a drawn sword in the road of Numbers 22:31. Balaam raises his stick against the donkey, who has seen what he cannot, while the princes of Moab ride on behind him.
Balak hired Balaam for curses, and every word he spoke over Israel came out as a blessing.
Summary
Balaam son of Beor lived at Pethor by the Euphrates, and Balak king of Moab sent for him when Israel camped on the plains of Moab.
- God told him to speak only the words He gave, and he did.
- His fourth oracle sees a star and a scepter rise from Israel.
- Moses later traces the sin at Peor to his counsel.
- Israel killed him with the five kings of Midian.
- Peter, Jude and John each name him as a warning to the church.
Where Balaam Stands
The first mention and his trade
Balak's request shows the name Balaam already had.
he sent messengers to Balaam son of Beor at Pethor, which is by the Euphrates in the land of his people. “Behold, a people has come out of Egypt,” said Balak. “They cover the face of the land and have settled next to me. So please come now and put a curse on this people, because they are too mighty for me. Perhaps I may be able to defeat them and drive them out of the land; for I know that those you bless are blessed, and those you curse are cursed.”Joshua gives him his trade. The Hebrew word behind the diviner is qosem, from the verb qasam, to divine.
The Israelites also killed the diviner Balaam son of Beor along with the others they put to the sword.Written in the record of the land given to Reuben.
The Life, Turn by Turn
Twelve turns from the hire at Pethor to the counsel Moses names, each with its verse
- The hireBalak sends messengers to Pethor, Numbers 22:5
- The refusalGod tells him to stay, for the people are blessed, Numbers 22:12
- The leaveGod lets him go on one condition, Numbers 22:20
- The roadThe LORD opens the donkey's mouth, Numbers 22:28
- The first oracleHe cannot curse what God has not cursed, Numbers 23:8
- The second oracleGod does not lie or change His mind, Numbers 23:19
- The third oracleThe Spirit of God comes upon him, Numbers 24:2
- The fourth oracleA star from Jacob and a scepter from Israel, Numbers 24:17
- The returnHe goes back to his homeland, Numbers 24:25
- PeorIsrael joins the worship of Baal of Peor, Numbers 25:3
- The swordIsrael kills him with the kings of Midian, Numbers 31:8
- The counsel namedMoses traces Peor to his counsel, Numbers 31:16
Nine turns fall in Numbers 22 to 24, and the last three in chapters 25 and 31.
From the Border of Moab to Peor
Numbers 22:36 to 25:9, and 31:16
Balak meets him at the border of Moab and asks why he did not come when first called.
“See, I have come to you,” Balaam replied, “but can I say just anything? I must speak only the word that God puts in my mouth.”His answer to the king.
Balak takes him to three high places in turn and builds seven altars at each, hoping a new view of the camp will bring a curse.
God is not a man, that He should lie, or a son of man, that He should change His mind. Does He speak and not act? Does He promise and not fulfill? I have indeed received a command to bless; He has blessed, and I cannot change it. He considers no disaster for Jacob; He sees no trouble for Israel. The LORD their God is with them, and the shout of the King is among them.The heart of the second oracle.
Each of his speeches opens with the Hebrew word mashal, a saying set as a poem, which the Berean text renders as an oracle.
After the third oracle Balak strikes his hands together in anger and tells him the LORD has kept the reward from him.
Now I am going back to my people, but come, let me warn you what this people will do to your people in the days to come.”The fourth oracle, which Balak did not ask for.
The next chapter tells the sin at Peor without naming Balaam, and Numbers 31 names him.
While Israel was staying in Shittim, the men began to indulge in sexual immorality with the daughters of Moab, who also invited them to the sacrifices for their gods. And the people ate and bowed down to these gods. So Israel joined in worshiping Baal of Peor, and the anger of the LORD burned against them.A plague followed, and 24,000 died.
“Look, these women caused the sons of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to turn unfaithfully against the LORD at Peor, so that the plague struck the congregation of the LORD.Moses, angry that the women of Midian were spared.
How Scripture Remembers Him
Deuteronomy to Micah, then Peter, Jude and John
The Old Testament remembers Balaam for what God did with him. Joshua, Nehemiah and Micah recall the hire, and Deuteronomy gives the reason God overruled it.
Yet the LORD your God would not listen to Balaam, and the LORD your God turned the curse into a blessing for you, because the LORD your God loves you.Spoken to Israel on the plains of Moab, near where the hire took place.
The New Testament remembers him for what he wanted.
They have left the straight way and wandered off to follow the way of Balaam son of Beor, who loved the wages of wickedness.Peter, writing of false teachers in the church.
Woe to them! They have traveled the path of Cain; they have rushed headlong into the error of Balaam; they have perished in Korah’s rebellion.Jude, setting him among three men of Genesis and Numbers.
But I have a few things against you, because some of you hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to place a stumbling block before the Israelites so they would eat food sacrificed to idols and commit sexual immorality.The risen Christ to Pergamum, the one verse that says what Balaam taught.
Pethor, Moab and Deir Alla
Where he came from, who hired him, and a seer of his name in plaster
Balaam calls his home Aram and the mountains of the east in his first oracle, and Deuteronomy gives the land its full name, Aram of the two rivers.
For they did not meet you with food and water on your way out of Egypt, and they hired Balaam son of Beor from Pethor in Aram-naharaim to curse you.Why Moab was barred from the assembly of the LORD.
In 1967 an excavation at Tell Deir Alla in the Jordan valley found inked plaster fallen from a wall. The text on it is dated to about 800 BC and opens with the sayings of Balaam son of Beor, a seer of the gods. In it he receives a night vision from the gods and gives an oracle.
The oracle on the plaster is its own, and it names neither Israel nor Balak. It shows that a seer of this name and father was remembered east of the Jordan centuries after the events of Numbers. The page on Balaam's donkey shows the plaster find in full.
What the Text Leaves Unsaid
His teacher, his nation, his end and his star
Numbers gives no account of where Balaam learned the name of the LORD. No verse makes him an Israelite.
The text records no repentance after the oracles and no account of how he came to be among the Midianites. Numbers never quotes the counsel itself. Scripture never ties his star to the star the Magi saw.
But Balaam replied to the servants of Balak, “If Balak were to give me his house full of silver and gold, I could not do anything small or great to go beyond the command of the LORD my God.Proof that he knew the LORD by name before he met Israel.
A Star out of Jacob
Two horizons in one oracle, the near and the far
Two Hebrew words carry the fourth oracle. Kokhav is a star and, by a figure, a prince, and shevet is the rod a ruler holds.
I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near. A star will come forth from Jacob, and a scepter will arise from Israel. He will crush the skulls of Moab and strike down all the sons of Sheth.David, who subdued MoabAdam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible
The oracle names Moab and Edom, and both fell to David.
“And Edom shall be a possession - That is, to David: as it is said: ‘And all they of Edom became David’s servants;’ 2Sa 8:14. Seir also shall be a possession - That is, unto the king Messiah; as it is said: ‘And saviours shall come upon Mount Zion to judge the Mount of Esau; and the kingdom shall be the Lord’s;’ Oba 1:21. See Ainsworth.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible · on Numbers 24:18Evangelical
David also defeated the Moabites, made them lie down on the ground, and measured them off with a cord. He measured off with two lengths those to be put to death, and with one length those to be spared. So the Moabites became subject to David and brought him tribute.The war Clarke reads as the star's crushing of Moab.
The objection: the oracle's own words put its ruler far off.
Christ, the bright Morning StarCharles Spurgeon, Sermon 3343, The Star Out of Jacob
Spurgeon allows that the prophecy may refer to David and preaches the star as Christ.
“I, Jesus, have sent My angel to give you this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, the bright Morning Star.”Where the New Testament names the star.
Eusebius of Caesarea ties the oracle to the wise men of Matthew 2.
“We are told that Balaam's successors moved by this (for the prediction was preserved most likely among them) when they noticed in the heavens a strange star besides the usual ones, fixed above the head, so to say, and vertically above Judea, hastened to arrive at Palestine, to inquire about the king announced by the star's appearance.”
Eusebius of Caesarea · Proof of the Gospel 9.1 · on Numbers 24:17Patristic
The objection: Numbers 24:18 goes on to Edom and Seir, the neighbours of the oracle's own day, and asks for no second fulfilment.
Voices on Balaam
Rashi and John Wesley
Rashi, Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki of Troyes (1040 to 1105), finds three marks of the man in Numbers. He reads pride in Balaam's answer to the first princes, greed in his answer to the second, and an evil eye in his look over Israel's camp.
The first two he takes from the Midrash Tanchuma, and he names all three together where Balaam lifts his eyes over the camp. On Numbers 25:1 he reads the sin at Peor as done by the advice of Balaam, from the Talmud's tractate Sanhedrin.
John Wesley on God's angerExplanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, 1765
Wesley answers why God was angry when He had given leave.
“Because he went - Because he went of his own accord, with the princes of Moab, and did not wait till they came to call him, which was the sign and condition of God's permission, but rather himself rose and called them. The apostle describes Balaam's sin here to be, that he ran greedily into an error for reward, Jude i, 11.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament · on Numbers 22:22Evangelical
What Kind of Seer Was He?
A diviner overruled, or a true gift sold
A diviner God overruledJohn Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament
This reading takes his trade at its word. Wesley finds a sign of it in how Balaam met the talking donkey.
“Balaam said - Balaam was not much terrified with the ass's speaking, because perhaps he was accustomed to converse with evil spirits, who appeared to him and discoursed with him in the shape of such creatures. Perhaps he was so blinded by passion, that he did not consider the strangeness of the thing.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament · on Numbers 22:29Evangelical
And when Balaam saw that it pleased the LORD to bless Israel, he did not resort to sorcery as on previous occasions, but he turned his face toward the wilderness.The verse this reading rests on.
The objection: God comes to him at night and speaks with him, at Pethor and again before he sets out.
A true gift sold for gainJohn Calvin, Commentaries, on Numbers 24:3
Calvin asks whether Balaam's praise of himself can be trusted.
“And the man whose eyes are open, hath said. This preface has no other object than to prove that he is a true prophet of God, and that he has received the blessing, which he pronounces, from divine revelation; and indeed his boast was true as regarded this special act, though it might be the case that pride and ambition impelled him thus to vaunt.”
John Calvin · Commentaries · on Numbers 24:3Reformed
When Balaam looked up and saw Israel encamped tribe by tribe, the Spirit of God came upon him, and he lifted up an oracle, saying: “This is the prophecy of Balaam son of Beor, the prophecy of a man whose eyes are open,The opening of the third oracle, the verse Calvin reads.
The objection: his trade was divination, which the law of Moses forbids in Israel.
Books to Read Next
Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament
John Wesley · 1765
The notes are short, a few lines to a verse, and run through Numbers 22 to 24 in order.
Pentateuch with Rashi's Commentary
M. Rosenbaum and A. M. Silbermann, translators · 1929 to 1934
This edition gives Rashi's notes on Numbers 22 to 24 in English, with the Midrash and Talmud passages he draws on.
Read Rashi on the third oracle at SefariaAramaic Texts from Deir 'Alla
J. Hoftijzer and G. van der Kooij · 1976
Hoftijzer and van der Kooij published the plaster text that names Balaam son of Beor.
In print: find it wherever books are sold.
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