The Curious Case of Balaam

            A long, powerful, bewildering reading today!  Balak, king of Moab, is frightened of the sheer magnitude of the people of Israel.  He fears he can’t defeat such a horde militarily and summons a mysterious—what?  a shaman?  a prophet? a diviner?—Balaam’s never really described.  Balaam, though, consults with the Lord, the God of Israel.  Apparently Balaam has at least some knowledge of Israelite religion, but he seems to communicate with the Lord in ways unlike Moses—through divination and augury.  At first, the Lord tells him not to go; then, the Lord allows him to go.

            There’s the first question this reading raises.  If the Lord allowed him to go, why did the angel of the Lord block his path and threaten to kill him?  We have to read between the lines here, but it seems as if the Lord is testing Balaam to see if he will do what is right and good.  After all, the Lord has already told him not to go.  But when Balak’s messengers come a second time, Balaam sure seems to want to go with them.  Balak’s offering good money!  That seems to be a theme throughout the reading:  Balaam really wants the payday!  Why else would he go with Balak’s men and why else would he attempt to curse them three times?  I suppose a decent analogy might be a parent who tells his child, “Here’s what I really want you to do.  But you choose if you’ll honor that.”

            Lutherans put it this way:  God doesn’t tempt us to go evil, but He may test us to see whether we’ll choose the good.  That can get pretty complicated as we try to sort through how the failure to do good can often lead us to choose evil.  But it seems to be the case with Balaam.

            A second bewilderment is the repeated relocation of Balaam to try the cursing again.  By my count, they made 21 altars at three separate sites.  Why?  Lutheran Study Bible suggests that Balak thinks Balaam is intimidated by the sheer magnitude of Israel, so in the second instance, Balak insists, “You’ll only see a small portion of them,” and in the third instance, Balaam looks toward the wilderness, perhaps not looking at Israel at all.  That may be the case.  I suspect that part of the story is that ancients conceived of deities as localized.  So, by moving Balaam around, Balak is hoping to move him outside of the Lord’s circle of influence—close enough to pronounce a curse, far enough away to not be influenced by Israel’s God.  Neither Balak nor Balaam seem to know whom they are dealing with!

            A third thing that bears commenting is the content of Balaam’s eventual oracles, especially the third one.  Considering how much trouble Israel has given the Lord up to this point in the story, it’s a little surprising to hear how Balaam describes Israel.  He notes that he is seeing things as the Almighty sees them, and he describes Israel as lovely, prosperous, and powerful.  We read Numbers, and we see in Israel a stiff-necked people.  The Lord looks at Israel and sees a stiff-necked people whom He continues to delight in!

            It’s good to know that the Lord can see us both as we really are—sinful, stiff-necked, broken beings—and as He has declared us to be in Christ—forgiven, restored sons and daughters.
--reposted from February 21, 2011