Page 104 - Pentateuch - Student Textbook

Balaam seems to know the God of Israel. He talks to Yahweh using his personal name. We do not know
how God’s reputation came to Balaam. Perhaps he is like Melchizedek (Gen. 14) or Abimelech (Gen. 20)
who had a memory of God outside of the promise to Abraham, handed down from one of the other
sons of Noah. Perhaps he has also heard about God’s promised blessing on Israel as they have exited
Egypt. He asks for permission to go with Balak. God does not give him permission, and Balaam
108
refuses (22:12, 13). The negotiations continue, and eventually Balaam is allowed to go but is given strict
warning not to say anything but what YHWH tells him to say (22:20). God is not just dealing with Israel.
He has purposes for Balaam and for Moab. On the journey God reinforces his warning to be careful of
his words, using a donkey’s words and those of the angel of the Lord. “Speak only what I tell you”
(22:35).

In a series of prophecies, Balaam does this very thing. King Balak wants him to curse
Israel. Balaam blesses instead. “How can I curse those whom God has not cursed
(23:8)?” Again, “I have received a command to bless; he has blessed, and I cannot
change it” (23:20). Again, he speaks, “the prophecy of one who hears the words of
God, who sees a vision from the Almighty (24:4).” He loses the promised fee for
coming (24:13) yet speaks once again in a series of messages with a core prophecy of
the coming Messiah. “I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near. A star will
come out of Jacob; a scepter will rise out of Israel. He will crush the foreheads of
Fig. 68: Sirius star Moab, the skulls of all the people of Sheth (24:17).” This is not what the king wants to
hear.

The prophecy of the Messiah picks up several phrases from previous Messianic passages. In the oracles
of Balaam… we find the central messianic themes of the Pentateuch restated and expanded. A
109
crouching lioness (24:9; Gen. 49:9) and a scepter (24:17; Gen. 49:10) were used by Jacob. Cursing and
blessing (24:9; Gen. 12:3) reflects God’s promise to Abraham. Crushing foreheads (24:17; Gen. 3:15)
picks up God’s language to Satan, Adam, and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

The incident is not complete, although three chapters have been used to describe the events. While King
Balak cannot curse Israel through this prophet, he can get Israel to bring destruction on itself. Moab’s
religion is more interesting than that of Israel. As with most of the nations in the area, Moab used sex in
their worship, wanting to encourage the gods and goddesses to give them crops and animals and
children. The pleasures were more than Israel could resist. Sexual immorality led them to worship other
gods (25:1-3).

God pronounced judgment, and the nation gathered at the entrance of the tabernacle weeping. A
plague had already begun that would eventually kill 24,000 people (25:9). While all this was taking place,
an Israelite man brought a woman into the camp. Some confusion exists about the nature of their sin.
They enter a “tent.” Is it the tabernacle in imitation of the worship of Moab? A different word is used for
“tent” than “tent of meeting,” one that is used only here in the OT. Is Moses hesitant to use
“tabernacle” as the place of their profanity? They are seen by Moses and everyone else who have
gathered at the tabernacle. They are killed, a spear driven through both the man and woman’s stomach.
Are they engaging in sex, again following the worship dictates of the other nations (25:8)? The plague is
stopped, and the spearman rewarded by God (25:13).

108 George Bush, Notes on Numbers (Minneapolis: James & Clock, 1976), 344.

109 Sailhammer, Pentateuch, 408

103