When Balaam saw that it pleased Yahweh to bless Israel, he didn’t go, as at the other times, to use divination, but he set his face toward the wilderness. Balaam lifted up his eyes, and he saw Israel dwelling according to their tribes; and the Spirit of God came on him.
He took up his parable, and said, “Balaam the son of Beor says, the man whose eyes are open says;
he says, who hears the words of God, who sees the vision of the Almighty, falling down, and having his eyes open:
How goodly are your tents, Jacob, and your dwellings, Israel!
As valleys they are spread out, as gardens by the riverside, as aloes which Yahweh has planted, as cedar trees beside the waters.
Water shall flow from his buckets. His seed shall be in many waters. His king shall be higher than Agag. His kingdom shall be exalted.
God brings him out of Egypt. He has as it were the strength of the wild ox. He shall consume the nations his adversaries, shall break their bones in pieces, and pierce them with his arrows.
He couched, he lay down as a lion, as a lioness; who shall rouse him up? Everyone who blesses you is blessed. Everyone who curses you is cursed.”
Balak’s anger burned against Balaam, and he struck his hands together. Balak said to Balaam, “I called you to curse my enemies, and, behold, you have altogether blessed them these three times. Therefore, flee to your place, now! I thought to promote you to great honor; but, behold, Yahweh has kept you back from honor.”
Balaam said to Balak, “Didn’t I also tell your messengers whom you sent to me, saying, ‘If Balak would give me his house full of silver and gold, I can’t go beyond Yahweh’s word, to do either good or bad from my own mind. I will say what Yahweh says’? Now, behold, I go to my people. Come, I will inform you what this people shall do to your people in the latter days.”
He took up his parable, and said, “Balaam the son of Beor says, the man whose eyes are open says;
he says, who hears the words of God, knows the knowledge of the Most High, and who sees the vision of the Almighty, Falling down, and having his eyes open:
I see him, but not now. I see him, but not near. A star will come out of Jacob. A scepter will rise out of Israel, and shall strike through the corners of Moab, and crush all the sons of Sheth.
Edom shall be a possession. Seir, his enemies, also shall be a possession, while Israel does valiantly.
Out of Jacob shall one have dominion, and shall destroy the remnant from the city.”
He looked at Amalek, and took up his parable, and said, “Amalek was the first of the nations, But his latter end shall come to destruction.”
He looked at the Kenite, and took up his parable, and said, “Your dwelling place is strong. Your nest is set in the rock.
Nevertheless Kain shall be wasted, until Asshur carries you away captive.”
He took up his parable, and said, “Alas, who shall live when God does this?
But ships shall come from the coast of Kittim. They shall afflict Asshur, and shall afflict Eber. He also shall come to destruction.”
Balaam rose up, and went and returned to his place; and Balak also went his way.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10, 11, 14, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 Where the Israelites camped.
Where the Israelites camped.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 Num 24:1 And when Balaam saw that it pleased…
Num 24:1 And when Balaam saw that it pleased the LORD to bless Israel, he went not, as at other times, to seek for enchantments, but he set his face toward the wilderness.
Ver. 1. He went not as at other times.] As being resolved to curse howsoever, and without God’s leave; yea, al despito di Dio, as that mouth of blasphemy, Pope Julius III, once said in another case; {a} to take his own course whatever came of it.
Read full note →
He set his face.] As fully bent to do it, and nothing should hinder him. So our Saviour Christ "steadfastly set (εστηριξε) his face to go to Jerusalem." {Luk 9:51} He steeled his forehead against all oppositions.
{a} Act. and Mon., fol. 1417.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 14, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 To seek for enchantments, i.e. to use enchantments, which…
To seek for enchantments, i.e. to use enchantments, which he is said to have done, either because when he consulted and sacrificed to God, he did also use enchantments and consult with the devil, that if one would not, the other might help him; or because he consulted God in a magical and superstitious way, by using such postures or instruments or forms of words as enchanters used.
Toward the wilderness, where Israel lay encamped, either with intent to curse Israel without God’s leave; or rather, expecting what God of his own accord would suggest to him concerning this matter.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv1, 10, 15 The blessing itself which Balaam here pronounces upon Israel…
The blessing itself which Balaam here pronounces upon Israel is much the same with the two we had in the foregoing chapter; but the introduction to it is different.
I. The method of proceeding here varies much in several instances. 1. Balaam laid aside the enchantments which he had hitherto depended on, used no spells, or charms, or magic arts, finding they did him no service; it was to no purpose to deal with the devil for a curse, when it was plain that God was determined immovably to bless, Num 24:1. Sooner or later God will convince men of their folly in seeking after lying vanities, which cannot profit. To what purpose should he seek for enchantment? He knew that God was out of the reach of them. 2. He did not now retire into a solitary place as before, but set his face directly towards the wilderness where Israel lay encamped; and, since there is no remedy, but they must be blessed, he will design nothing else, but will submit by compulsion. 3. Now the Spirit of God came upon him, that is, the Spirit of prophecy, as upon Saul to prevent him from taking David, Sa1 19:23. He spoke not his own sense, but the language of the Spirit that came upon him. 4. He used a different preface now from what he had used before (Num 24:3, Num 24:4), much like that of David (Sa2 23:1-3), yet savouring very much (as some think) of pride and vain-glory, taking all the praise of this prophecy to himself, and magnifying himself as one of the cabinet-council of heaven. Two things he boasts of: - (1.) The favour God did him in making known himself to him. He heard the words of God, and saw the vision of the Almighty. God himself had met him and spoken to him (Num 23:16), and with this he was greatly puffed up. Paul speaks with humility of his visions and revelations (Co2 12:1), but Balaam speaks of his with pride. (2.) His own power to receive and bear those revelations. He fell into a trance indeed, as other prophets did, but he had his eyes open. This he mentions twice; but the words in the original are not the same. The man whose eyes were shut, some think it may be read so (Num 24:3-9), but now having his eyes open, Num 24:4. When he attempted to curse Israel, he owns, he was in a mistake, but now he began to see his error, and yet still he remained blinded by covetousness and ambition, those foolish and hurtful lusts. Note, [1.] Those that oppose God and his people will sooner or later be made to see themselves wretchedly deceived. [2.] Many have their eyes open that have not their hearts open, are enlightened, but not sanctified; and that knowledge which puffs men up with pride will but serve to light them to hell, whither many go with their eyes open.
Read full note →
II. Yet the blessing is for substance the same with those before. Several things he admires in Israel: -
1. Their beauty (Num 24:5): How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob! Though they dwelt not in stately palaces, but in coarse and homely tents, and these, no doubt, sadly weather-beaten, yet Balaam sees a beauty in those tents, because of their admirable order, according to their tribes, Num 24:2. Nothing recommends religion more to the good opinion of those that look upon it at a distance than the unity and harmony of its professors, Psa 133:1. The amiableness of this people, and the great reputation they should gain among their neighbours, are compared (Num 24:6) to the beauty and sweetness of fruitful valleys and fine gardens, flourishing trees and fragrant spices. Note, Those whose eyes are open see the saints on the earth to be excellent ones, and their delight is accordingly in them. The righteous, doubtless, is more excellent than his neighbour. They are trees which the Lord has planted; that is their excellency. The branches of righteousness are the planting of the Lord. See Hos 14:5-7.
2. Their fruitfulness and increase. This may be intended by those similitudes (Num 24:6) of the valleys, gardens, and trees, as well as by those expressions (Num 24:7), He shall pour the water out of his buckets; that is, God shall water them with his blessing like rain from heaven, and then his seed shall be in many waters. Compare Hos 2:23, I will sow her unto me in the earth. And waters are in scripture put for peoples, and multitudes, and nations. This has been fulfilled in the wonderful increase of that nation and their vast multitude even in their dispersion.
3. Their honour and advancement. As the multitude of the people is the honour of the prince, so the magnificence of the prince is the honour of the people; Balaam therefore foretells that their king shall be higher than Agag. Agag, it is probable, was the most potent monarch in those parts; Balaam knew of none more considerable than he was; he rose above the rest of his neighbours. But Balaam foretells that Israel's chief commander, who, after Moses, was Joshua, should be more great and honourable than ever Agag was, and make a far better figure in history. Saul, their first king, triumphed over Agag, though, it is said, he came delicately.
4. Their power and victory, Num 24:8. (1.) He looks back upon what they had done, or rather what had been done for them: God brought them forth out of Egypt; this he had spoken of before, Num 23:22. The wonders that attended their deliverance out of Egypt contributed more to their honour, and the terror of their adversaries, than any thing else, Jos 2:10. He that brought them out of Egypt will not fail to bring them into Canaan, for, as for God, his work is perfect. (2.) He looks down upon their present strength. Israel hath, as it were, the strength of a unicorn, of which creature it is said (Job 39:9, Job 39:10), Will he be willing to serve thee, or abide by thy crib? Canst thou bind him with his band in the furrow? "No, Israel is too powerful to be checked or held in by my curses or thy armies." (3.) He looks forward to their future conquests: He shall eat up the nations his enemies; that is, "he shall not only destroy and devour them as easily and irresistibly as a lion does his prey, but he shall himself be strengthened, and fattened, and enriched, by their spoils."
5. Their courage and security: He lay down as a lion, as a great lion, Num 24:9. Now he does so in the plains of Moab, and asks no leave of the king of Moab, nor is he in fear of him; shortly will he do so in Canaan. When he has torn his prey, he will take his repose, quiet from the fear of evil, and bid defiance to all his neighbours; for who shall stir up a sleeping lion? It is observed of lions (as the learned bishop Patrick takes notice here) that they do not retire into places of shelter to sleep, but lie down any where, knowing that none dares meddle with them: thus secure were Israel in Canaan, chiefly in the days of David and Solomon; and thus is the righteous bold as a lion (Pro 28:1), not to assault others, but to repose themselves, because God maketh them to dwell in safety, Psa 4:8.
6. Their interest, and influence upon their neighbours. Their friends, and those in alliance with them, were happy: Blessed is he that blesseth thee; those that do them any kindness will certainly fare the better for it. But their enemies, and those in arms against them, were certainly miserable: Cursed is he that curseth thee; those that do them any injury do it at their peril; for God takes what is done to them, whether good or evil, as done to himself. Thus he confirms the blessing of Abraham (Gen 12:3), and speaks as if therefore he did at this time bless Israel, and not curse them, because he desired to share in the blessing of Israel's friends and dreaded the curse on Israel's enemies.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 And when Balsam saw that it pleased the Lord…
And when Balsam saw that it pleased the Lord to bless Israel,.... That it was good in his sight, what he approved of, and was well-pleasing to him, and that it was his determined mind that Israel should be blessed, and not cursed, from which there was no turning him, by offering sacrifices to him, and much less by his sorceries and divinations:
he went not as at other times; or, "as at a time in a time" (q), at two times, of which see Num 23:3, he abode in the place where the sacrifices were offered, and did not depart to another at some distance, as he had twice before done:
Read full note →
to seek for enchantments; which it seems he used before, for he not only offered sacrifices to the true God, which yet were attended with superstitious rites, but he made use of his divining art also; and not only went to meet with God, and hear what he would say to him, but consulted the devil also, being willing to have two strings to his bow, and that, if possible, he might carry his point, and get what his covetous and ambitious mind was desirous of: the words may be literally rendered, "to meet enchantments" (r); but what should be meant by the phrase is not easy to say; I should rather choose to render them, "to meet serpents", and make use of them in his divinations, make observations on them, and predictions from them: one sort of divination is called "ophiomancy", or divining by serpents; so Calchas, on seeing a serpent devour eight sparrows with their dam, foretold the duration of the siege of Troy (s):
but he set his face towards the wilderness: where the people of Israel lay encamped, not with an intention to bless them, though he saw it pleased the Lord, but to take an opportunity, if he could, without his leave, to curse them; and therefore he did not go out as he did before, to know his will, but stood by the sacrifice, with his face to the wilderness, where the people were, to take any advantage that offered.
(q) "sicut vice in vice", Montanus, Vatablus. (r) "in occursum auguriorum", Pagninus, Montanus, Vatablus. (s) Homer. Iliad. 2. see more instances in Bochart. Hierozoic. par. 1. l. 1. c. 3. col. 21, 22.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 11, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 Balaam inspired by God, blesses Israel again, ver. 1-9.…
Balaam inspired by God, blesses Israel again, ver. 1-9. Answers Balak's reproof, ver. 10-13. Utters several prophecies, ver. 14-24 Goes home, ver. 25.
At other times - In former times. Toward the wilderness - Where Israel lay encamped, expecting what God of his own accord would suggest to him concerning this matter.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 Balaam, finding that God was determined to bless Israel,…
CHAPTER XXIV
Balaam, finding that God was determined to bless Israel, seeks
Read full note →
no longer for enchantments, 1.
The Spirit of God coming upon him, he delivers a most important
prophetic parable, 2-9.
Balak's anger is kindled against him, and he commands him to
depart to his own country, 10,11.
Balaam vindicates his conduct, 12, 13;
and delivers a prophecy relative to the future destruction of
Moab by the Israelites, 14-17;
also of Edom, 18, 19;
of the Amalekites, 20;
and of the Kenites, 21, 22.
Predicts also the destruction of Asshur and Eber, by the naval
power of Chittim, which should afterwards be itself destroyed,
23, 24.
Balaam and Balak separate, 25.
NOTES ON CHAP. XXIV
Verse 1. He went not, as at other times, to seek for enchantments] We have already had occasion to observe that the proper meaning of the word נחש nachash is not easily ascertained; see Nu 21:9, and see on Ge 3:1. Here the plural נחשים nechashim is rendered enchantments; but it probably means no more than the knowledge of future events. When Balaam saw that it pleased God to bless Israel, he therefore thought it unnecessary to apply for any farther prophetic declarations of God's will as he had done before, for he could safely infer every good to this people, from the evident disposition of God towards them.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25 Num 24:1. He went not as at other times…
Num 24:1. He went not as at other times — At former times; to seek for enchantments — The word נחשׁ, from which נחשׁים, necashim, here rendered enchantments, is derived, signifies to augur, conjecture, search, make trial, find out: 1Ki 20:33, it is translated, to observe diligently; Gen 30:27, to learn by experience, and, in the margin of Gen 44:5, to make trial, although in the text there it is rendered to divine. It certainly is not necessary to understand the word of enchantments. Nor is there any proof that Balaam had had recourse to any on either of the two former occasions. On the contrary, the sacred historian informs us, that he retired both times, not to meet evil spirits, and receive communications from them, but to meet JEHOVAH, and receive intimations of his will, saying to Balak on the first occasion, Whatsoever he showeth me I will tell thee. And both times we read that Jehovah put a word in Balaam’s mouth. All, therefore, that we can reasonably conclude from the passage before us is, that Balaam omitted to do now what he had done before. He went not — Retired not, as he had done the former times, for the meeting, or obtaining of divinations, that is, for the purpose of obtaining information from the Lord concerning future things, or to make inquiries about them. M. Saurin seems to be clearly of this opinion, and to consider the expression as signifying no more here than “the revelations which Balsam desired of God concerning the destiny of the Israelites.” Houbigant is of the same mind, observing that the word נחשׁיםnechashim, auguries, is here to be understood in a good sense, because Balaam interpreted the will of the true God, and not the will of the god of Moab, from these auguries. Thus also Le Clerc, paraphrasing the passage, says, “He judged it superfluous to inquire further into the mind of God, as God had sufficiently declared his purpose to bless Israel.” Indeed, as Christ is known to have no communion with Belial, it seems strange that any Christian should ever have imagined that God would thus have made known his will, and thus lay open the secrets of futurity, to a man that had or attempted to have intercourse with evil spirits. See Isa 8:19; and Isa 44:25; and Isa 47:12. He set his face toward the wilderness — Where Israel lay encamped, expecting what God, of his own accord, would suggest to him concerning this matter.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 Balaam gazed over the camp of Israel that stretched…
Balaam gazed over the camp of Israel that stretched before him, and allowed the spectacle to work its own influence upon him.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 Divination. Septuagint, "to meet the birds." The augurs judged…
Divination. Septuagint, "to meet the birds." The augurs judged of future events by the flying, eating, and other appearances of birds. Hebrew, "enchantments." (Menochius) --- Desert. The plains of Moab, where the Israelites were encamped. He found himself, as it were, involuntarily transported by the spirit of God, ver. 2. (Calmet) --- Yet, for all that, he did not become more holy. Some work miracles, and are damned, Matthew vii. 22. (Worthington)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v10 10And Balak’s anger was kindled against Balaam, and he…
H.—THE LAST SAYING
Num_24:10-25
Read full note →
10And Balak’s anger was kindled against Balaam, and he smote his hands together: and Balak said unto Balaam, I called thee to curse mine enemies, and, behold, thou hast altogether blessed them these three times. 11Therefore now flee thou to thy place: I thought to promote thee unto great honour; but, lo, the Lord hath kept thee back from honour. 12And Balaam said unto Balak, Spake I not also to thy messengers which thou sentest unto me, saying, 13If Balak would give me his house full of silver and gold, I cannot go beyond the commandment of the Lord, to do either good or bad of mine own mind; but what the Lord saith, that will I speak? 14And now, behold, I go unto my people: come therefore, and I will advertise thee what this people shall do to thy people in the latter days. 15And he took up his parable and said,
Balaam the son of Beor hath said,
And the man whose eyes are open hath said:
16 He hath said, which heard the words of God,
And knew the knowledge of the Most High,
Which saw the vision of the Almighty,
Falling into a trance, but having his eyes open:
17 I shall see him—but not now:
I shall behold him—but not nigh:
There shall come a Star out of Jacob,
And a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel,
And shall smite the corners of Moab,3
And destroy all the children of Sheth.
18 And Edom shall be a possession,
Seir also shall be a possession for his enemies;
And Israel shall do valiantly.
19 Out of Jacob shall come he that shall have dominion,
And shall destroy him that remaineth of the city.
20And when he looked on Amalek, he took up his parable, and said,
Amalek was the first of the nations;4
But his latter end shall be5 that he perish for ever.
21And he looked on the Kenites, and took up his parable and said,
Strong is thy dwelling place,
And thou puttest thy nest in a rock.
22 Nevertheless the Kenite6 shall be wasted,
Until Asshur shall carry thee away captive.
23And he took up his parable and said,
Alas! who shall live
When God doeth this!
24 And ships shall come from the coast of Chittim,
And shall afflict Asshur, and shall afflict Eber,
And he also shall perish for ever.
25And Balaam rose up, and went and returned to his place: and Balak also went his went his way.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
[Num_24:14. Heb. אִיעָצְךָ. I will give thee counsel or advice. It is not used for a simple announcement.—A. G.]
[Num_24:14. Better at the end of days, since that is the usual significance of the word אַחֲרִית.—A.G.]
[Num_24:17. The text is better than the margin here. פַּאֲהֵי, the two corners or sides of Moab, from side to side.—A.G.]
[Num_24:17. Children of Sheth, rather the sons of tumult or confusion. See Jer_48:45; Amo_2:2. So most modern interpreters.—A. G.]
[Num_24:18. Increase in power and wealth.—A. G.]
[Num_24:22. The particles כִּי אִם—and עַד־מָה may be better rendered here with Ewald and Knobel. only then—when; or with Keil, Bible Com.: For surely is it that (giving the אִם a strong negative force) Kain shall be for destruction. He shall not be until, etc.—A. G.]
[Num_24:23. Sets, establishes him. מִשֻּׂמוֹ, since, or from his establishing. The suffix may refer to the general destruction which follows, or to the power by which it is wrought.—A. G.]
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
In his indignation Balak changes his courtly conduct towards Balaam. He does not indeed go further than a threatening movement of his hands. [The clapping of the hands together was not, however, designed to terrify Balaam. It was simply an expression of the disappointment and passion of the king.—A. G.] Still he describes the calling of Balaam as a royal command which he had thrice disregarded. But now he commands him to flee. He drives him away and with scorn. He had thought to promotehim to honor; but Jehovah (i. e. Balaam’s belief in Jehovah) has withheld him from this distinction. But his anger seems to have kindled also the anger of the proud seer. He reminds Balak of his declaration at the very outset that he was dependent upon Jehovah (Num_22:18). The breach between them is indicated in the expression: Since I am going hence to my people, come therefore I will teach you what this people will do to thy people at the end of days. [Kurtz: “ ‘The end of days’ denotes the horizon of a prophetic uttterance. It begins when the prophecy enters upon its actual fulfilment. For Jacob, whose hope and desire were limited largely to the dwelling of his descendants in the land of promise, the end began at the time of Joshua; but for Moses and Balaam, who saw that this possession of the promised land did not give perfect rest, ‘the end of days’ could only be when the strifes and hindrances should be removed, the enemies overcome. The end to them began with the line of David. The prophecy then received its preliminary and partial fulfilment. But that fulfilment was only relatively perfect, since the entire opposing powers to the people of God were not yet destroyed. There remained yet a future and wider fulfilment. ‘The end of days’ was not yet complete.”—A. G.]
Num_24:15. It is scarcely correct to say that the succeeding outburst of anger is to be viewed as the culminating point of his predictions, as perhaps we might be inclined to do from the striking figure of the star out of Jacob. The narrator lets him pour out his saying without any preliminary or preparatory announcement. His self-consciousness comes out clearly in the description he gives of himself. He is here as one having the knowledge of the Most High עֶלְיוֹן, in which respect he may be regarded as belonging to the primitive religion of Melchizedec. But as a worshipper of אֵל עֶלְיוֹן, he passes into the ranks of those who worship El-Shaddai and receives the vision which the Almighty discloses to him, with his eyes open and falling to the ground. The fundamental thought in his saying is now almost exclusively, the King who shall come forth out of Israel. We must distinguish here also between the conscious purpose of the seer, and the typical significance of his words, which grows out of the fact that he has a vision of the glory of Israel, and that the glory of Israel is in reality a type of the Messianic kingdom. I shall see him, but not now. What could this mean in the conscious thought of the man who was just about to pass by the tents of Israel on his way homeward? The thought: I see him now, but not as a man of the present, is not definitely and clearly expressed. It might be rendered: I shall see him; but He is not here. I shall look for him, but not nigh (not as one near at hand). The typical significance of the words extends to the time of the kings of Israel, and still further to the time of its ideal king. The declaration which follows: there shall come a star out of Jacob, is explained more fully by the sceptre of Israel, which should first smite Moab on every side, as he had already been smitten on the side of Heshbon. It is not in this way that the ideal Messiah would be announced. We call to mind also that it is not the purpose of the writer to include Balaam among the Messianic prophets; still less here when he burns with anger against Balak. That this prediction, as all that follows it here, must be fulfilled, is the result of the idea, that Israel is the people of Jehovah. And they were fulfilled. After Moab follow the sons of Sheth, not of Seth, nor of ‘the drinker,’ to wit, Lot, but of those rising up tumultuously against the dominant people of God (see Psalms 2). Then follows Edom first as to its people, then as to its land (Seir). By it as a possession will Israel grow strong. We translate the additional clause: One shall descend out of Jacob, and shall destroy all the fugitives out of the city, i. e. the captured cities.
The prophecy closes with single sentences foretelling the general destruction of all heathen powers. The first of the hostile heathen nations is Amalek; but his latter end shall be: to destruction. [First: Not as pre-eminent among the hostile nations in position and power, nor as the most ancient of these nations, but as the first who had entered into conflict with Israel, and had resisted successfully their entrance into the promised land, Exo_17:8 and Num_14:45. The conflict began with Amalek. They were to experience early its necessary issue in subjection.—A. G.]
The second utterance brings to view a new feature, viz. that one nation perishes by the hand of another; the Kenites by Asshur. In the interpretation of the following obscure sentences, we agree with Keil: enduring is thy dwelling-place, and laid (past participle) upon the rock thy nest. For is it that Kain shall fall into destruction until, i. e. Kain shall not be destroyed until [see Text. Note.—A. G.]. The Sept. gives the remarkable interpretation which seems to imply that Balaam alludes to the destruction which he himself brought upon the Midianites. Knobel appears to have been guided by the passage in Jdg_4:14; Jdg_4:17. “A part of the Kenites had separated themselves from their tribe in the south, and had settled in Kadesh in Naphtali, and were doubtless carried away captive with others when Tiglath-Pileser wasted Galilee about 740 B. C. 2Ki_15:29.” Thus this part of the Kenites, sons of the blacksmith (Kain), dwelt safely up to this time in their rocky nest in the northern mountains of Canaan. [The Kenites were probably of Midianitish extraction, as Moses’ father-in-law, who was a priest of Midian, was a Kenite. Kurtz holds that Balaam here refers to the Midianites, who as enemies of Israel must be involved in ruin, and who here receive the unusual name Kenites from the resemblance between קֵן, their rock-dwellings or fastnesses, and קֵינִי, the Kenites. He urges that as the Midianites were even now in covenant with Moab for the cursing and destruction of Israel, it is perfectly in place to regard them as the object of the curse directed against the Kenites; that it would be remarkable indeed if they had not been mentioned among the enemies of Israel who must perish, and that unless they are alluded to here, they are passed by entirely. But there is no sufficient evidence that the Midianites were ever called Kenites. Nor is it necessary to suppose that every enemy of Israel should be specifically mentioned; on the contrary those who are named appear in their representative character. It is very questionable too whether this view can be reconciled either with the text, or with the demands of the history. It seems on the whole better with Keil to regard the Kenites as the friends, and not the foes of Israel, who having laid their nest upon a rock, i. e. joined the true people of God, and thus a secure resting-place and refuge, were safe from destruction until Israel itself should fall under chastisement. Keil adds: “There is no prediction here of the captivity of Israel, because that was simply a transitory judgment, which served to refine the nation of God, and not destroy it, but which became a captivity of judgment to the Kenites, because they were not really in fellowship with Israel, though outwardly associated with them.” The outward association secured a strong dwelling-place, safety for a time. For should Kain be destroyed, until, i. e. Kain or Kenite shall not perish until Asshur shall carry thee captive. See Num_10:32; Deu_35:19.—A. G.]
In the next saying Balaam appears to have seen more than he may announce to Balak. Alas, who shall live when God appointeth him (Asshur to do this). In his present state and disposition, he bewails the future of Israel (Knobel, p. 147). Still he comforts himself with the thought that God appoints Asshur to execute His judicial sentence (Isa_10:5). From Mesopotamia, Balaam might well know Asshur’s martial strength and lust of conquest. Keil regards the lamentation as introductory to the prophecy concerning Asshur. Balaam bewails the sons of his people. [He renders also with our version: who sets, doeth this, making the suffix in מִשֻׁמוֹ neuter and referring to the substance of the following prophecy, and not to Asshur. What pained the heart of the seer was not merely that Israel and the associated Kenites should be carried captive, which seemed to “involve the ruin of all peace and safety upon earth,” but that the judgment should fall upon Asshur, upon his own people.—A. G.]
Num_24:23. A new saying truly begins here. But it does not follow that the saying must refer to Asshur, since the judgment upon Asshur opens with a disjunctive particle in Num_24:24. Why should not his woe apply to the unuttered future lot of Israel which appeared to be so directly in conflict with his previous blessing? Let it be noticed also, that the judgment upon the naval power from Chittim is not introduced with a new parable. At last the universal ruin of the nations appears in the vision. Hostile ships come from Chittim. “כִּתִּים is Cyprus with its capital Citium (Gen_10:4) mentioned as intervening between Greece and Phœnicia, and the chief station for the maritime commerce of Phœnicia, so that all the fleets passing from the west to the east necessarily took Cyprus in their way.” Keil. These ships afflict Asshur and afflict (cast them to the ground) Eber. A mere vague glimpse of a great western empire, which overthrows the oriental power, limits his prophetic horizon, and his vision of judgment closes with this, that he sees even the shadowy and unknown one, the prince of the ships from Chittim going down unto destruction. And he shall perish forever. “These words cannot refer to Eber and Asshur, for their fate is already announced in the word afflict or press, but only to the new western power which was to come over the sea.” Keil. But when Keil says Eber “neither refers to the Israelites merely as Hebrews (Sept. and Vulg.), nor to the races beyond the Euphrates (Onkelos and others), but like ‘all the sons of Eber’ (Gen_10:21), to all the posterity of Abraham, who descended from Eber through Peleg, and also to the descendants of Eber through Joktan,” his exposition lies aside from the actual and peculiar thought of Balaam. The strange vision meets him again, so in conflict with the whole scope of his prophecy, that with the posterity of Eber, not only the descendants of Abraham generally, but Israel itself should be visited with judgment; but he prefers to say Eber rather than Israel. And since he combines Eber with his native race Asshur, he chooses for them the mildest term. They shall be bowed, humbled; while of the unknown one, under whose power they shall be bowed, he says with apparent delight: he also shall perish forever. The shadowy nature of these last visions of judgment is a strong proof of the great antiquity of this prophecy. The look into the far distant future stretches beyond the Babylonian and Persian histories, and rests upon a faint vision of the Macedonian empire, behind which the Roman power lay hidden, or with which it was included. Punitive judgments and universal ruin form the last words of the heathen prophet; a picture unrelieved by any light background, more terrible even than the Scandinavian “twilight of the gods” Thus Balaam takes his departure from Balak, not only in anger, but in a kind of despair; the Spirit of God appears to have revealed nothing more encouraging, and in this state he may easily have offered himself to Moses, as Simon Magus to Peter. At all events this excessive spirit of judging and cursing is that very extreme which, according to ancient and modern experience, passes over into the region of impure and idolatrous fanaticism. For special treatises upon the narrative, see Tholuck, Hofmann, Keil [also Hengstenberg and Kurtz.—A. G.]. Above all things, we must guard against including Balaam in the class of the Messianic prophets, and the typical significance of his words must not be confounded with conscious prophecies.
[The question here, however, is not whether Balaam was conscious of the real import of his words. He was speaking under the influence of the Spirit of God. Lange’s view that he spake in anger, because reproached by Balak, has not sufficient ground, at least not in the sense and importance he gives it. How far in his condition he may have been subject to ordinary frames and passions, we cannot determine.
Whatever may have been true, these frames and passions were under the control of the Spirit who came upon him.—Neither is it possible to determine how far he may have been conscious of what his words meant. We are to deal with the words, not his inward consciousness or passions. The thing of moment is what his words really mean. Are they explained, or fairly explainable on any other supposition than that they are Messianic? Do they find their complete fulfilment in the immediate future, or at the time of David, or in Christ and His kingdom? It is not necessary to determine, further, whether on the supposition that the prophecy is Messianic, we are to regard it as pointing to Christ only as the ideal King, and under whom the ideal kingdom would come to completion, all its enemies be subdued and destroyed, as Hengstenberg, or with Kurtz, that Christ is referred to as the personal, concrete, real King—the Messiah Himself. Both views are consistent with the full Messianic interpretation of the prophecy while the latter seems on the whole preferable. It is here at the close of the prophecy that we may best consider what is its real character. If the words he shall perish forever refer as the tenor of the prophecy implies and the later history demands, to the western power which the prophet saw in the dim distance coming over the sea—to the Macedonian and Roman empire—then we have, as Kurtz well says, “a real prophecy of that which no human wit, no powers of penetration, either in the time of Moses or David, or even Malachi, could have foreseen.”7 The overthrow of this last power of the world connects this prophecy with those of Daniel, who takes up and describes more accurately these world powers in their nature and progress and decay. If this is so then the end of days in which Balaam’s prophecy falls, within which it all lies, must embrace the Messianic period, or at least the period of the kingdom, from its beginning through all its stages of progress, until its completion in the kingdom of God, and the destruction of all its foes, when in the widest sense of the words Even he shall perish forever. But if the end of days denotes the whole period of the kingdom, then the prophecy whose very core and substance is in the words, there shall come a star out of Jacob, and a sceptre shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite all the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Sheth, or tumult, finds its preliminary fulfillment in David in whom the kingdom was established, and by whose victories the power of Moab and Edom was broken, but its final and complete fulfillment only in Christ, in whom the kingdom reaches perfection, and who destroys all the enemies of Israel. Any other interpretation limits the “end of days,” so that it no longer affords scope for the very terms and exigencies of the later predictions. It would afford no room for the appearing and downfall of that power which the prophet sees coming from the west, triumphing over all its foes, but whose end is that “even he shall perish forever” We must either find some escape from the clear reference to the Macedonian and Roman empire, or we must recognize both the possibility of prophetic predictions, and that this prophecy speaks of Christ—or at least the Messianic kingdom. That Balaam’s prediction was not exhaustively fulfilled by the victories of David, is clear not only from the history, in which both Moab and Edom appear again and again in their hostile attitude, throwing off the yoke under which they had been brought—a history confirmed by the inscriptions upon the Moabitish stone—but from the repeated and explicit references in the prophets to those powers centuries after the time of David. See Isaiah 15 and Isa_16:1-5; Amo_2:1; Zep_2:8-9; Isa_34:5; Ezekiel 12-14; Amo_9:11-12.
The Messianic view is so obviously implied in the terms of the prophecy, that it was universally held by the Jews from the most ancient times. They held indeed that it received its preliminary fulfillment in David, but always regarded it as pointing to the Messiah. See Hengst.: Christology, Vol. I. p. 105. So wide-spread was this explanation that the renowned pretender, or Pseudo-messiah in the reign of Hadrian styled himself Bar-Cochba (the son of the star) with a clear reference to this prophecy. From the Jews it passed into the Christian Church, and has been the prevalent view down to the present day. It is rejected of course by the extreme rationalists; but the attempt to find any adequate explanation of its terms in the person and triumphs of David, is so in the face of the facts of the history subsequent to the time of that monarch, that those who receive the history at all are conscious of failure. We must either reject the whole history, even that part which the critics regard as genuine, or admit that the star out of Jacob, the ruler who should smite through all the opposing powers of the world, is the Messiah.
It is no objection to this view that at the time of Christ Moab and Edom had disappeared from the history. For these nations appear here as the present enemies of Israel, but at the same time as the representatives of all the nations hostile to the kingdom of God. It is not as Moabites that they are to be smitten, but as the enemies of the people of God. It is not their national character, but their attitude and spirit in relation to the divine kingdom, which calls for judgment. The limits of their national existence cannot therefore be the limit of the prophecy or of its fulfillment. So that even if it could be maintained that Moab and Edom were completely destroyed by David, that the application of the prophecy to those particular enemies was thus final and complete, that would not change the fact that Moab in the wider prophetic sense still existed, and would exist, until all the enemies of the kingdom of God were subdued or destroyed. The eternal principles and ideas of prophecy run through infinite cycles. Where there are enemies, there are Moabites, and there the predictions of Balaam must be fulfilled.
When it is said that we can hardly suppose Balaam to have rejoiced in such a kingdom, which should in its onward progress crush all the powers which placed themselves in its path, it is enough to reply, that we are not told that he did. We do not know what were his personal feelings any more than we know how far he was conscious of the import of what he said. He was in a prophetic state. The Spirit of God came upon him; he was under the influence and control of that divine agent, and so spake his predictions. It is not probable that he did rejoice in what he saw, as we know that he remained in will and heart opposed to Israel. But this in no way affects the scope and meaning of his prophecy.
If we compare Balaam’s prophecy with the prediction of the dying Jacob, “that the sceptre should not depart from Judah until Shiloh came to whom the nations should gather,” we feel at once that they are closely connected, and yet that they are very different both in the definiteness of the predictions, and in the spirit they breathe. But this difference is to be accounted for partly from the nature of the Messianic prophecy, unfolding itself more and more fully in history, from the germ to the full bloom and fruit, and partly from the inward and outward circumstances which give rise to the prophecy. Balaam sees “the nation of Israel encamped, according to its tribes, in the face of its foes, the nations of the world.” “He looks only upon the external results of the Messianic kingdom, and these again in a one-sided limited aspect, to the heathen powers in their opposition to the kingdom of God and their consequent subjection. Of the spiritual and earthly blessings which the Messiah should bring, not only for Israel, but for the heathen who should voluntarily yield to His sway, he sees and describes nothing.” Kurtz. Still he does not lose sight of the blessed and the blessing nature of the Messianic kingdom, Num_24:5-9. “Balaam, the heathen seer, out of Mesopotamia, the centre of the national development of the ancient world, proclaims, first to the existing representatives of the nations hostile to Israel,” and through them to all hostile powers as they should rise in succession, that in their enmity to Israel they were struggling against the power of the Almighty, and must perish, “since life and salvation were found only in Israel whom God had blessed.”
The star which the wise men from the East saw, and which led them in the way to the newborn “king of the Jews,” refers clearly to the prophecy of Balaam. It was not the star which he foretold, which he saw but not nigh; that star was Christ. The star which appeared to them announced that the star which Balaam saw had now risen out of Jacob in the birth of the king of the Jews. These Magi were, like Balaam, from the east. They were engaged in similar pursuits, devoting their lives to the study of occult sciences; men whose whole disposition would lead them to study eagerly the revelation made to the people of God scattered widely throughout the known world. They would naturally be drawn to the predictions of Balaam, one of their own class, and from their own country. “Upon this natural enlightenment,” says Hengstenberg, “rests the supernatural revelation granted to them. God unfolded to their minds, which were already filled with a longing for the ‘Star out of Jacob’ foretold by Balaam, the meaning of the star which proclaimed the fulfillment of Balaam’s prophecy; He revealed to them, that is to say, the fact that it announced the birth of the ‘King of the Jews.’ And just as Balaam had joyously (?) exclaimed ‘I see Him,’ and ‘I behold Him,’ they also could say ‘We have seen his star.’ ”—A. G.].
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
On the whole section: Balaam is a type which is reflected a thousand-fold in art, poesy, science, in the pulpit, in ecclesiastical government, whose double face appears often in the contrast between a higher inspiration, or spiritual (enthusiastic) contemplation, and a lower tendency and final reprobation.
His history is important for the knowledge of prophetic psychology, for the distinction between verbal and typical prophecy, for that between belief and superstition regarding blessings and curses, as well as for hermeneutical science. Even the ass throws a light on the question of animal psychology, a question over which not only has rationalism fallen, but Apologetics has stumbled. See the exegesis.
[The history is impressive further as to the blinding power of sin when persisted in. Balaam’s love of gold blinds him to the light of that knowledge of God which he obviously possessed before Balak’s call—to the clearer light which shone from the angel who met him in the way—and lastly to the light of those revelations which shone around him so clearly. The person so blinded passes into deeper darkness from the very process through which he has passed. The light within becomes darkness, and how great is the darkness.
The history brings out clearly the Providence of God in the development and growth of the characters of bad men. The conditions under which that progress is made, the outward circumstances which furnish the occasion by which the character is tested and matured, these are a part of the divine plan. Balaam’s place in history is not accidental, nor are the circumstances in which he appears either the result of chance, or shaped merely by human agencies. But all through his history the divine providence works restraining the evil principles, then permitting the man to have his own way, until the final test is applied, when he must choose between conscience and sinful lusts, between God and self. The history of Balaam repeats itself more or less fully in a thousand cases. It is obvious further, how God shields and blesses His people.—A. G.].
HOMILETICAL HINTS
The policy of Balak. He seeks by the curse to depress the courage of the Israelites and to stimulate the courage of the Moabites, and thus secure the power to destroy Israel. An old story, yet ever new. It is like a page from the latest contemporary history. The dark fame of Balaam—that as a curser or imprecator he was without a rival. The character of Balaam. This combination of great capacities for inspiration with low aims and passion, is of more frequent occurrence than we are apt to think (see the exegetical notes). Balaam’s struggle and apparent triumph. The signs of his defeat and the fearful depths of his fall. The self-contradiction in his nature grew into an irreconcilable breach. Balaam’s speaking ass, a mystery of the animal, and still more of the human soul-life. The prophecies of Balaam: examples of the overpowering rhetorical pathos of (enthusiastic) inbreathed spiritual discourse. The gradation in his prophecies. The core and heart of them. The typical star. The Balaam behind the scenes. Balaam and Balak. Balaam as presented in the Old Testament and in the New.
[Num_22:9-14. Balaam’s true state betrays itself at the outset. He knows to some extent the history of Israel, and that God had blessed them. Yet he inclines to go and pronounce the curse. He parleys with the temptation. He lays himself open to stronger temptation. The Lord refuseth to give me leave to go with you.—1. He wishes to go. 2. He is restrained only by fear. 3. His reply invites a renewal of the proposals, and prepares the way for the overmastering temptation to come.
Num_24:15-21. Henry: “The enemies of the church are restless and unwearied in their attempts against it. How artfully Balak manages the temptation. 1. The messengers were more and more honorable. 2. The request was more urgent. 3. The rewards were greater.” Balaam’s seeming refusal, his real inclination and purpose. Wordsworth: “He adds hypocrisy to covetousness. Thus he tampers with his own conscience, and tempts God to change His mind whom he knew and declared to be immutable.” Go with them.—Henry: “As God sometimes denies the prayers of His people in love, so sometimes He grants the desires of the wicked in wrath. It is a fearful thing when God leaves a bad man to follow his own will, Isa_66:4; Jer_2:19.
Num_24:22-25. God’s anger was kindled.—Henry: “The sin of sinners is not to be thought the less provoking to God because He permits it. We must not think that therefore He approves it. Nothing is more displeasing to God than malicious designs against His people; he that touches them touches the apple of His eye.” God stands as an adversary in the way of sinners. He restrains and checks them in their downward career; and yet He makes them the ministers of His purposes toward His own children.
Num_22:41. On the morrow.—A deliberate act. He goes after full reflection, and yet without delay, he is eager to fulfil the wish of Balak and secure the coveted wealth.
Num_23:1-10. Balaam covers his purpose to curse Israel with a show of devotion. His sacrifice not to honor God, but either to constrain Him or win His favor. It is characteristic of hypocrisy. I have prepared altars and offered sacrifices. Henry: “He pronounces God’s people happy in three things. 1. Happy in their peculiarity and distinction from the rest of the nations (Num_24:9). 2. Happy in their numbers (Num_24:10). 3. Happy in their last end. Let me die, etc. There are many who, like Balaam, desire to die the death of the righteous, but do not endeavor to live the life of the righteous. They would be saints in heaven, but not saints on earth. This is the desire of the slothful which kills him because his hands refuse to labor.”
Num_24:11-24. He hath blessed and I cannot reverse it.—The gifts and calling of God are without repentance. The security of Israel against all the machinations and power of their enemies. 1. In the unchanging purpose of God, who has made them blessed (Num_24:19-20). 2. In their moral character, as they are viewed by God, the objects of His choice (Num_24:21). 3. In their past experience of the saving power of God (Num_24:22). 4. God’s presence with them as their King. What hath God wrought.—Henry: “The defeating of the design of the church’s enemies ought to be had in everlasting remembrance to the glory of God.”
Num_24:1-9. Henry: “The blessing is in substance the same as before, yet he admires in Israel: 1. Their order and beauty (Num_24:5); 2. their fruitfulness and increase (Num_24:6-7); 3. their honor and advancement; 4. their power and history (Num_24:8); 5. their courage and security (Num_24:9); 6. Their interest and influence upon their neighbors (Num_24:9).” Num_24:6-7. Wordsworth: “A beautiful picture of the true Israel of God flowing forth from Christ, the divine fountain of grace, pouring out the living waters of salvation, the pure streams of the Spirit (Isa_12:3; Joh_3:5; Joh_4:10; Joh_7:38-39), and watering the wilderness of the world to rejoice and be glad, and to blossom as the rose.”
Num_24:10-14. Balaam loses the wages of unrighteousness and the favor and blessing of God. Seeking to gain both, he gains neither. We cannot serve God and Mammon. The double-minded man ordinarily loses all.
Num_24:15-24. Know the knowledge of the Most High.—Henry: “A man may be full of the knowledge of God, and yet utterly destitute of the grace of God.” Here is the prophecy of the kingdom which is carried on and completed in Daniel. It shall come in the latter (at the end of) days; it shall come out of Jacob; it shall come as a star and sceptre in splendor and with authority; it shall be irresistible in its progress; its enemies shall be destroyed or fall into its possession; it shall be universal in its extent, and endure through the end of days.—A. G.]
Footnotes:
[3]Marg. or smite through the princes of Moab.
[4]Marg. The first of the nations that warred against Israel.
[5]Marg. shall be even to destruction.
[6]Heb. Kain.
[7]The effort of the rationalistic critics to find a basis for this prophecy in some transient landing of a few Greeks upon the coasts of Western Asia, who after inflicting some real damage were compelled to retreat; whose expedition scarcely left a trace or tradition behind it, is so absurd as not to require any refutation. The attempt to make this brief and comparatively harmless irruption an explanation of this prophecy of the wide and permanent ruin wrought by some western power, shows to what extremities they are reduced who start with the principle “that prophecy, strictly speaking, is impossible,” and to what shifts they will resort to escape conclusions which any fair exegesis involves, but which they rightly feel would be destructive to their principle.—A. G.].
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 10, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25 he saw Israel abiding in his tents according to…
he saw Israel abiding in his tents according to their tribes--that is, in the orderly distribution of the camp (Num. 2:1-34).
the spirit of God came upon him--Before the regular ministry of the prophets was instituted, God made use of various persons as the instruments through whom He revealed His will, and Balaam was one of these (Deu 23:5).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 25 ISRAEL’S HAPPINESS, Num_24:1-4.
ISRAEL’S HAPPINESS, Num_24:1-4.
1. Enchantments — Auguries. See Num_23:3; Num_23:15; Num_23:23, notes.
Read full note →
Toward the wilderness — The plains of Moab, where Israel was encamped. Chap. Num_22:1.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 1. he went not, as at the other times,…
1. he went not, as at the other times, to meet with omens] The Heb. has a curious idiom which may be rendered either as in R.V. , or ‘as at other times’ (omitting ‘the’), i.e. as was his usual practice on similar occasions. In either case the verse cannot be from the same writer as that of ch. 23, for on the one hand ch. 23 does not relate that Balaam sought for omens, and on the other (if the present words refer to his usual practice) the remark that he did not seek for omens would more naturally have been placed at the beginning of ch. 23 and not after two of his utterances.
Num_24:1-2. Balaam knew that Jehovah wished Israel to be blessed; he did not therefore seek an omen to guide him, but began his declaration at once.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25 (1) He set his face toward the wilderness.—i.e., towards…
XXIV.
(1) He set his face toward the wilderness.—i.e., towards the place where the Israelites were encamped on the steppes of Moab.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. H. Mackintosh 1880 · Public Domain On v1 Numbers 22 - 24
Numbers 22 - 24
These three chapters form a distinct section of our book - a truly marvellous section, abounding in rich and varied instruction. In it we have presented to us, first, the covetous prophet; and, secondly, His sublime prophecies. There is something peculiarly awful in the case of Balaam. He evidently loved money - no uncommon love, alas! in our own day. Balak’s gold and silver proved a very tempting bait to the wretched man - a bait too tempting to be resisted. Satan knew his man, and the price at which he could be purchased.
Read full note →
If Balaam’s heart had been right with God, he would have made very short work with Balak’s message; indeed it would not have cost him a moment’s consideration to send a reply. But Balaam’s heart was all wrong, and we see him, in chapter 22 in the melancholy condition of one acted upon by conflicting feelings. His heart was bent upon going, because it was bent upon the silver and gold; But, at the same time, there was a sort of reference to God - an appearance of religiousness put on as a cloak to cover his covetous practices. He longed for the money; but he would fain lay hold of it after a religious fashion. Miserable man! most miserable! His name stands on the page of inspiration as the expression of one very dark and awful stage of man’s downward history. "Woe unto them," says Jude, "for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward and perished in the gainsaying of Core." Peter, too, presents Balaam as a prominent figure in one of the very darkest pictures of fallen humanity - a model on which some of the vilest characters are formed. He speaks of those "having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls; an heart they have exercised with covetous practices; cursed children: which have forsaken the right way, and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness; but was rebuked for his iniquity: the dumb ass speaking with man’s voice forbad the madness of the prophet." 2 Peter 2: 14-16.
These passages are solemnly conclusive as to the true character and spirit of Balaam. His heart was set upon money - "he loved the wages of unrighteousness," and his history has been written by the pen of the Holy Ghost, as an awful warning to all professors to beware of covetousness which is idolatry. We shall not dwell further upon the sad story. The reader may pause for a few moments, and gaze upon the picture presented in Numbers 22. He may study the two prominent figures, the crafty king, and the covetous self-willed prophet; and we doubt not he will rise up from the study with a deepened sense of the evil of covetousness, the great moral danger of setting the heart’s affections upon this world’s riches, and the deep blessedness of having the fear of God before our eyes.
We shall now proceed to examine those marvellous prophecies delivered by Balaam in the audience of Balak, king of the Moabites.
It is profoundly interesting to witness the scene enacted on the high places of Baal, to mark the grand question at stake, to listen to the speakers, to be admitted behind the scenes on such a momentous occasion. How little did Israel know or imagine what was going on between Jehovah and the enemy. It may be they were murmuring in their tents at the very moment in the which God was setting forth their perfection by the tongue of the covetous prophet. Balak would fain have Israel cursed; But, Blessed Be God, He will not suffer any one to curse His people. He may have to deal with them Himself, in secret, about many things; but He will not suffer another to move his tongue against them. He may have to expose them to themselves; but He will not allow a stranger to expose them.
This is a point of deepest interest. The great question is not so much what the enemy may think of God’s people, or what they may think about themselves, or what they may think of one another. the real - the All-important question is, What does God think about them? He knows exactly all that concerns them; all that they are; all that they have done; all that is in them. Everything stands clearly revealed to His all penetrating eye. The deepest secrets of the heart, of the nature, and of the life, are all known to him. Neither angels, men, nor devils know us as God knows us. God knows us perfectly; and it is with Him we have to do, and we can say, in the triumphant language of the apostle," If God be for us, who can be against us? (Rom. 8) God sees us, thinks of us, speaks about us, acts towards us, according to what He Himself has made us, and wrought for us - according to the perfection of His own work. "Beholders many faults may find;" but, as regards our standing, our God sees us only in the comeliness of Christ; we are perfect in Him. When God looks at His people, He beholds in them His own workmanship; and it is to the glory of His holy name, and to the praise of His salvation, that not a blemish should be seen on those who are His - those whom He, in sovereign grace, has made His own. His character, His name, His glory, and the perfection of His work are all involved in the standing of those with whom He has linked Himself.
Hence, therefore, the moment any enemy or accuser enters the scene, Jehovah places Himself in front to receive and answer the accusation; and His answer is always founded, not upon what His people are in themselves, but upon what He has made them through the perfection of His own work. His glory is linked with them, and, in vindicating them, He maintains His own glory. He places himself between them and every accusing tongue. His glory demands that they should be presented in all the comeliness which He has put upon them. If the enemy comes to curse and accuse, Jehovah answers him by pouring forth the rich current of His everlasting complacency in those whom He has chosen for Himself, and whom He has made fit to be in His presence for ever.
All this is strikingly illustrated in the third chapter of the prophet Zechariah. There, too, the enemy presents himself to resist the representative of the people of God. How does God answer him? Simply by cleansing, clothing, and crowning the one whom Satan would fain curse and accuse, so that Satan has not a word to say. He is silenced for ever. The filthy garments are gone, and he that was a brand is become a mitred priest - he who was only fit for the flames of hell is now fitted to walk up and down in the courts of the Lord.
So also when we turn to the Book of Canticles we see the same thing. There the Bridegroom, in contemplating the bride, declares to her, "Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee." (Cant. 4: 7) She, in speaking of herself, can only exclaim "I am black." (Cant. 1: 5, 6) So also in John 13 the Lord Jesus looks at His disciples, and pronounces them "Clean every whit;" although, in a few hours afterwards, one of them was to curse and swear that he did not know Him. So vast is the difference between what we are in ourselves and what we are in Christ - between our positive standing and our possible state.
Should this glorious truth as to the perfection of our standing make us careless as to our practical state? Far away be the monstrous thought! Nay, the knowledge of our absolutely settled and perfect position in Christ is the very thing which the Holy Ghost makes use of in order to raise the standard of practice. Hearken to those powerful words from the pen of the inspired apostle, "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. when Christ, our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory. Mortify therefore your members," &c. (Col. 1 - 5.) We must never measure the standing by the state, but always judge the state by the standing. To lower the standing because of the state, is to give the death-blow to all progress in practical Christianity.
The foregoing line of truth is most forcibly illustrated in Balaam’s four parables. To speak after the manner of men, we never should have had such a glorious view of Israel, as seen in "The vision of the Almighty" - "from the top of the rocks" - by one "having his eyes open," had not Balak sought to curse them. Jehovah, blessed be His name, can, very speedily, open a man’s eyes to the true state of the case, in reference to the standing of His people, and His judgement respecting them. He claims the privilege of setting forth His thoughts about them. Balak and Balaam with "all the princes of Moab" may assemble to hear Israel cursed and defied; they may "build seven altars," and "offer a bullock and a. lamb on every altar;" Balak’s silver and gold may glitter under the covetous gaze of the false prophet; but act all the powers of earth and hell, men and devils combined, in their dark and terrible array, can evoke a single breath of curse or accusation against the Israel of God. As well might the enemy have sought to point out a flaw in that fair creation which God had pronounced "very good," as to fasten an accusation upon the redeemed of the Lord. Oh! no; they shine in all the comeliness which He has put upon them, and all that is needed, in order to see them thus, is to mount to "the top of the rocks" - to have "the eyes open" to look at them from His point of view, so that we may see them in "the vision of the Almighty."
Having thus taken a general survey of the contents of these remarkable chapters, we shall briefly glance at each of the four parables in particular. We shall find a distinct point in each - a distinct feature in the character and condition of the people, as seen in "The vision of the Almighty."
In the first of Balaam’s wonderful parables, we have the marked separation of God’s people from all the nations, most distinctly set forth. "How shall I curse, whom God hath not cursed? or how shall I defy, whom the Lord hath not defied? For from the top of the rocks I see him, and from the hills I behold him: lo, the people shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations. Who can count the dust of Jacob, and the number of the fourth part of Israel Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his."*
{*Poor, wretched Balaam! miserable man! He would fain die the death of the righteous. Many there are who would say the same; but they forget that the way" to die the death of the righteous" is to possess and exhibit the life of the righteous. Many - alas! how many - would like to die the death who do not live the life. Many would like to possess Balak’s silver and gold, and yet be enrolled amongst the Israel of God. Vain thought! Fatal delusion! We cannot serve God and Mammon.}
Here we have Israel singled out, and partitioned off to be a separated and peculiar people - a people who, according to the divine thought concerning them, were never, at any time, on any ground, or for any object Whatsoever, to be mingled with or reckoned amongst the nations. "The people shall dwell alone." This is distinct and emphatic. It is true of the literal seed of Abraham, and true Of all believers now. Immense practical results flow out of this great principle. God’s people are to be separated unto Him, not on the ground of being better than others, but simply on the ground of what God is, and of what He would ever have His people to be. We shall not pursue this point further just now; but the reader would do well to examine it thoroughly in the light of the divine word. "The people shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations." Numbers 23: 8, 9.
But if Jehovah, in His sovereign grace, is pleased to link Himself with a people; if He calls them out to be a separate people, in the world - to "dwell alone," and shine for Him in the midst of those who are still "sitting in darkness and the shadow of death," He can only have them in such a condition as suits Himself. He must make them such as He would have them to be - such as shall be to the praise of His great and glorious name. Hence, in the second parable, the prophet is made to tell out, not merely the negative, but the positive condition of the people. "And he took up his parable and said, rise up, Balak, and hear; hearken unto me, thou son of Zippor: God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good? Behold, I have received commandment to bless; and he hath blessed; and I cannot reverse it. He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel: the Lord his God is with him, and the shout of a king is among them. God brought them out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of an unicorn. Surely there is no enchantment against Jacob, neither is there any divination against Israel: according to this time it shall be said of Jacob and of Israel, What hath God wrought [not what hath Israel wrought?] Behold, the people shall rise up as a great lion, and lift up himself as a young lion: he shall not lie down until he eat of the prey, and drink the blood of the slain." Num. 23: 18-24.
Here we find ourselves on truly elevated ground, and on ground as solid as it is elevated. This is, in truth "The top of the rocks" - the pure air and wide range of "the hills," where the people of God are seen only in "the vision of the Almighty" - seen as He sees them, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing - all their deformities hidden from view - all His comeliness seen upon them.
In this very sublime parable, Israel’s blessedness and security are made to depend, not on themselves, but upon the truth and faithfulness of Jehovah. "God is not a man that he should lie; neither the son of man that he should repent." This places Israel upon safe ground. God must be true to Himself. Is there any power that can possibly prevent Him from fulfilling His word and oath? Surely not. "He hath blessed; and I cannot reverse it." God will not, and Satan can not reverse the blessing.
Thus all is settled. "It is ordered in all things and sure." In the previous parable, it was, "God hath not cursed." Here it is, "He hath blessed." There is very manifest advance. As Balak conducts the money-loving prophet from place to place, Jehovah takes occasion to bring out fresh features of beauty in His people, and fresh points of security in their position. Thus it is not merely that they are a separated people dwelling alone; but they are a justified people, having the Lord their God with them, and the shout of a king among them. "He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel." The enemy may say, "There is iniquity and perverseness there all the while." Yes, but who can make Jehovah behold it, when He Himself has been pleased to blot it all out as a thick cloud for His name’s sake? If He has cast it behind His back, who can bring it before His face "It is God that justifieth; who is he that condemneth?" God sees His people so thoroughly delivered from all that could be against them, that He can take up His abode in their midst, and cause His voice to be heard amongst them.
Well, therefore may we exclaim "What hath God wrought" It is not "What hath Israel wrought!" Balak and Balaam would have found plenty to do in the way of cursing, had Israel’s work been in question. The Lord be praised, it is on what He hath wrought that His people stand, and their foundation is as stable as the throne of God. "If God be for us, who can be against us" If God stands right between us and every foe, what have we to fear? If He undertakes, on our behalf, to answer every accuser, then, assuredly, perfect peace is our portion.
However, the king of Moab still fondly hoped and sedulously sought to gain his end. And, doubtless, Balaam did the same, for they were leagued together against the Israel of God, thus reminding us forcibly of the beast and the false prophet, who are yet to arise and play an awfully solemn part in connection with Israel’s future, as presented on the apocalyptic page.
"And when Balaam saw that it pleased the Lord to bless Israel, he went not, as at other times, to seek for enchantments [what a dreadful disclosure is here] but he set his face toward the wilderness. And Balaam lifted up his eyes, and he saw Israel abiding in His tents, according to their tribes; and the Spirit of God came upon him. And he took up his parable, and said, Balaam the son of Beor hath said, and the man whose eyes are open hath said, he hath said, which heard the words of God, which saw the vision, of the Almighty, falling into a trance, but having his eyes open: How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and thy tabernacles, O Israel! As the valleys are they spread forth, as gardens by the river’s side, as the trees of lign aloes which the Lord hath planted, and as cedar trees beside the waters. He shall pour the water out of his buckets, and his seed shall be in many waters, and his king shall be higher than Agag, and his kingdom shall be exalted. God brought him forth out of Egypt; he hath, as it were, the strength of an unicorn: he shall eat up the nations his enemies [terrible announcement for Balak!] and shall break their bones, and pierce them through with his arrows. He couched, he lay down as a lion, and as a great lion: who shall stir him up? Blessed is he that blesseth thee, and cursed is he that curseth thee." Numbers 24: 1-9.
"Higher and higher yet" is surely the motto here. we may well shout "Excelsior," as we mount up to the top of the rocks, and hearken to those brilliant utterances which the false prophet was forced to give out. It was better and better for Israel - worse and worse for Balak. He had to stand by and not only hear Israel "blessed," but hear himself "cursed" for seeking to curse them.
But let us particularly notice the rich grace that shines in this third parable. "How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and thy tabernacles, O Israel!" If one had gone down to examine those tents and tabernacles, In "the vision" of man they might have appeared "Black as the tents of Kedar." But, looked at in ’the vision of the Almighty," they were "goodly," and whoever did not see them thus needed to have "his eyes opened" If I am looking at the people of God "from the top of the rocks," I shall see them as God sees them, and that is as clothed with all the comeliness of Christ - complete in Him - accepted in the Beloved. This is what will enable me to get on with them, to work with them, to have fellowship with them, to rise above their points and angles, blots and blemishes, failures and infirmities.* If I do not contemplate them from this lofty - this divine ground, I shall be sure to fix my eye on some little flaw or other, which will completely mar my communion, and alienate my affections.
{*The statement in the text does not, by any means, touch the question of discipline in the house of God. We are bound to judge moral evil and doctrinal error. 1 Cor. 5: 12, 13.}
In Israel’s case, we shall see, in the very next chapter, what terrible evil they fell into. Did this alter Jehovah’s judgement? Surely not. "He is not the son of men that he should repent." He judged and chastened them for their evil, because He is holy, and can never sanction, in His people, anything that is contrary to His nature. But He could never reverse His judgement respecting them. He knew all about them. He knew what they were and what they would do; but yet He said, "I have not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither have I seen perverseness in Israel. How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and thy tabernacles, O Israel!" Was this making light of their evil? The thought were blasphemy. He could chasten them for their sins; but the moment an enemy comes forth to curse or accuse, He stands in front of His people and says, "I see no iniquity" - "How goodly are their tents"
Reader, dost thou think that such views of divine grace will minister to a spirit of Antinomianism? Far Be the thought! we may rest assured we are never further away from the region of that terrible evil than when we are breathing the pure and holy atmosphere of "the top of the rocks" - that high ground from whence God’s people are viewed, not as they are in themselves, but as they are in Christ - not according to the thoughts of man, but according to the thoughts of God. And, furthermore, we may say that the only true and effectual mode of raising the standard of moral conduct is to abide in the faith of this most precious and tranquillising truth, that God sees us perfect in Christ.
But we must take one more glance at our third parable. Not only are Israel’s tents seen to be goodly in the eyes of Jehovah, but the people themselves are presented to us as abiding fast by those ancient sources of grace and living ministry which are found in God. "As the valleys are they spread forth, as gardens by the river’s side, as the trees of lign aloes which the Lord hath planted, and as cedar trees beside the waters." How exquisite! How perfectly beautiful! And only to think that we are indebted to the godless confederacy between Balak and Balaam for those sublime utterances!
But there is more than this. Not only is Israel seen drinking at those everlasting well-springs of grace and salvation, But, as must ever be the case, as a channel of blessing to others. "He shall pour the water out of his buckets." It is the fixed purpose of God that Israel’s twelve tribes shall yet be a medium of rich blessing to all the ends of the earth. This we learn from such scriptures as Ezekiel 47 and Zechariah 14, on which we do not now attempt to dwell; we merely refer to them as showing the marvellous fullness and beauty of these glorious parables. The reader may meditate, with much spiritual profit, upon these and kindred scriptures; but let him carefully guard against the fatal system falsely called spiritualising, Which, in fact, consists mainly in applying to the professing church all the special blessings of the house of Israel, while, to the latter, are left only the curses of a broken law. We may rest assured that God will not sanction any such system as this. Israel is beloved for the fathers’ sakes; and "the gifts and calling of God are without repentance." Romans 11.
We shall close this section by a brief reference to Balaam’s last parable. Balak, having beard such a glowing testimony to Israel’s future, and the overthrow of all their enemies, was not only sorely disappointed, but greatly enraged; "And Balak’s anger was kindled against Balaam, and he smote his hands together: and Balak said unto Balaam, I called thee to curse mine enemies, and, behold, thou hast altogether blessed them these three times. Therefore now flee thou to thy place: I thought to promote thee unto great honour; [?] But, lo, the Lord hath kept thee back from honour. and Balaam said unto Balak, Spake I not also to thy messengers which thou sentest unto me, saying, If Balak would give me his house full of silver and gold [the very thing his poor heart craved intensely,] I cannot go beyond the commandment of the Lord, to do either good or bad of mine own mind; but what the Lord saith, that will I speak. And now, behold, I go unto my people: come therefore, and I will advertise thee what this people shall do to thy people in the latter days. [This was coming to close quarters.] And he took up his parable, and said, Balaam the son of Beor hath said, and the man whose eyes are open hath said: he hath said, which heard the words of God, and knew the knowledge of the most High, which saw the vision of the Almighty, falling into a trance, but having his eyes open: I shall see him, but not now: I shall behold him, but not nigh: [tremendous fact for Balaam!] there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Sheth." Verse 10-17.
This gives great completeness to the subject of these parables. The top-stone is here laid on the magnificent superstructure. It is, in good truth, grace and glory. In the first parable we see the absolute separation of the people; in the second, their perfect justification; in the third, their moral beauty and fruitfulness; and, now, in the fourth, we stand on the very summit of the hills - on the loftiest crag of the rocks, and survey the wide plains of glory in all their length and breadth, stretching away into a boundless future. We see the Lion of the tribe of Judah crouching; we hear his roar; we see Him seizing upon all his enemies, and crushing them to atoms. The Star of Jacob rises to set no more. The true David ascends the throne of His father, Israel is pre-eminent in the earth, and all his enemies are covered with shame and everlasting contempt.
It is impossible to conceive anything more magnificent than these parables; and they are all the more remarkable as coming at the very close of Israel’s desert wanderings, during which they had given such ample proof of what they were - of what materials they were made - and what their capabilities and tendencies were. But God was above all, and nothing changeth His affection. Whom He loves, and as He loves, He loves to the end; and hence the league between the typical "beast and false prophet’’ proved abortive. Israel was blessed of God and not to be cursed of any. "And Balaam rose up, and went, and returned to his place: and Balak also went his way."
C. H. Mackintosh, Notes on the Pentateuch — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 12, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 As at other times, or, "as (he had done)…
As at other times, or, "as (he had done) time after time." Septuagint, kata to eiwyov . To seek for enchantments. Rather, "for the meeting with aunties." tar Septuagint, to sunanthsin toiv oiwnoiv . Nachashim., as in Num_23:23, is not enchantments in the sense of magical practices, but definitely auguries, i.e. omens and signs in the natural world observed and interpreted according to an artificial system as manifesting the purposes of God. As one of the commonest and worst of heathen practices, it was forbidden to Israel (Lev_19:26 Deu_18:10) and held up to reprobation, as in 2Ki_17:17 2Ki_21:6 2Ch_33:6. Toward the wilderness. rBdMih. Not "Jeshimon," but apparently the Arboth Moab in which Israel was encamped, and which were for the most part desert as compared with the country around.
HOMILIES BY J. WAITE Vers. 1-9. Balaam the third parable.
Read full note →
This passage marks the period at which Balaam becomes finally convinced that it is vain for him to attempt to satisfy Balak, or to carry out the baser promptings of his own heart. He confesses his defeat. gives up his enchantments, "sets his face towards the wilderness" where the camp of Israel lay, and utters the words that God puts into his mouth. But still his spirit is not subdued, for, as we learn from verse 14, instead of casting in his lot, as he might have done, with the chosen nation, he resolves in spite of all to go back to his own people and his old ways. Combining these two features of his case, we see how a man may "approve the right and follow the wrong." It affords a striking example of
(1) true convictions followed by
(2) a false and fatal determination.
I TRUE CONVICTIONS. Though it was by the constraint of a higher Power that Balaam uttered these words of benediction, we must regard them also as being, to a great extent, the result of his own intuitions, symptoms of the struggling of better thought and feeling within him. He was not the mere senseless medium of the spirit of prophecy. Unwillingly, but not altogether unwittingly, was he made the organ of a Divine inspiration. A bad man may utter words that are good and true, and may often be compelled by the force of outward testimony, or of the inward witness of his own conscience, to do honour to that in others which condemns himself. There are chiefly three characteristics here which find their higher counterpart in the spiritual Israel, and which her enemies, like Balaam, have often been constrained to confess.
1. Beauty. How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob! Rich valleys, stuffing gardens, lign-aloes and cedars planted beside the water-courses, are, to the poetic imagination of the seer, the fitting images of their goodly array. But what is the beauty that captivates the eye compared with that which appeals to the sensibility of the soul? All outward forms of loveliness are but the shadow and reflection of the Diviner beauties of holiness, the spiritual glory of truth, purity, goodness the "adorning of the hidden man of the heart in that which is not corruptible." The richest Oriental imagery can but feebly represent the changing phases of this beauty. And many a man has felt the charm of it, and yet been utterly destitute of that sympathy of spirit that would move him to make it his own. It compels his admiration, but does not win his love.
2. World-wide fruitfulness. "He shall pour the water out of his buckets," &c. the image of abundant, far-reaching beneficence. The promise to Abraham was fulfilled: "In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed". ; (Gen_22:16, Gen_22:17) The benefits the seed of Abraham conferred upon the human race did but foreshadow those of Christianity. It is the "light of the world," the "salt of the earth," carrying the stream of a new life over all lands, diffusing a healing influence through all the waters. Its adversaries know this, and are often constrained in spite of themselves to acknowledge it. They are themselves living witnesses to its truth, for they owe to Christianity the very culture, the spiritual force, the social advantages, the literary facilities, &e, that they turn as weapons against it. ;
3. Victorious power. The triumphant way in which God led forth his people out of Egypt was prophetic of the power that should always overshadow them and dwell among them; often a latent, slumbering strength like that of a crouching or sleeping lion, but irresistible when once it rouses itself to withstand their foes. Such power dwells ever in the redeemed Church. "God is in the midst of her," &c. ; (Psa_46:5) "The weapons of our warfare," &c. ; (2Co_10:4) Nothing so strong and invincible as truth and goodness. The light must triumph over the darkness. The kingdom of Christ is.a "kingdom that cannot be moved," and many a man whose heart has had no kind of sympathy with the cause of that kingdom has been unable to suppress the secret conviction that it will surely win its way, till it shall have vanquished all its enemies and covered the face of the whole earth.
II A FALSE AND FATAL DETERMINATION. "And now, behold, I go unto my people" (verse 14). He returns to his former ways, plunges again into the darkness and foulness of idolatrous Mesopotamia, having first, it would appear, counseled Balak as to how he might corrupt with carnal fascinations the people whom it was vain for him to "curse", (see Num_31:16 Rev_2:14) and at last is slain with the sword among the Midianites. (Num_31:8 Jos_13:22) Learn
1. How powerless are the clearest perceptions of the truth in the ease of one whose heart is thoroughly set in him to do evil. There are those who "hold the truth in unrighteousness". (Rom_1:18) "They profess that they know God, hut in works they deny him". (Tit_1:16)
2. How there is often a deeper fall into the degradation of sin when such a one has been uplifted for a while by the vision and the dream of a better life. "The last state of that man is worse than the first". (Mat_12:45) "For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness," &c.. W. ; (2Pe_2:21, 2Pe_2:22)
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 9, 10, 17, 25 He set his face toward the wilderness.
Num_24:1-9
He set his face toward the wilderness.
Read full note →
The face set toward the wilderness
Evidently there is a change at this point in Balaams method. Hitherto he has played the soothsayer. At last he confesses himself vanquished, and instead of renewing the practices of his magic science, awaits, with eye fixed upon the waste distant desert, a revelation different in kind from any that have gone before it. It was a turning-point in his strange history. Not the first, nor the greatest, yet real, and, would he have had it so, saving. He has learned the helplessness of man striving with his Maker. He has learned the futility of approaching the God of truth with a lie in the right hand. He has learned that to set the face toward the wilderness is the one hope and wisdom of inquiring man; to look away from enchantments; to look away from courts and crowds, from pleasures and businesses; to look away from types and forms, and to fix the earnest gaze upon that solitude of earth and heaven which is the presence of the soul in the presence of God. The crisis was lost, we know, upon Balaam. The dreams of avarice and of worldliness prevailed in him, even over the open vision. We cannot alter his destiny; let us learn something from this incident.
1. There is in all of us a strange reluctance to the thing here described--this setting of the face toward the wilderness where God is alone. I might say many things to you of the ministerial man--the man, I mean, whose office it is to communicate with God for the edification of His people. How often, when this ministry, the Churchs prophesying, is to be, exercised, does the indolent, the half-hearted, the perfunctory minister run to his enchantments; to his books and to his manuscripts, to his commentaries; to the old bakemeats, his own or anothers, which have done duty before, and can be made coldly to furnish forth another table! How often--to change the illustration--does the abler, the more ingenious, the more eloquent minister betake himself to his task of preparation for preaching by a mustering of his own gifts of argument, of rhetoric, of pathos and persuasiveness, as the enchantments by which he is to bring God into these hearts I How often does a man--to use the prophets strange but expressive metaphor--sacrifice to his net, and burn incense to his drag; pay the homage of a gratified vanity to his own performance, count instead of weighing his hearers, and set down all to his own credit in prophesying, of which he should rather say to himself in deepest self-humiliation, What hast thou that thou didst not receive?
2. Yet think not that the Balaams of this age are all prophets, or that the warning is only for the professional teacher. I seem to see a place for it in these lives which minister and people live in common. How often, in the anxious questionings which life brings to all of us--at those dubious turnings which compel decision, and cannot be decided upon twice over--is the temptation powerfully present to seek for some enchantment of discrimination between the wrong for us and the right! Who has not made advice such an enchantment? In the multitude of counsellors there is safety; but then the counsellors must be well chosen, must be honestly sought, must be diligently informed, must be faithfully followed.
3. I would add a word upon the application of the text not to the life, but to the soul. Side by side with a bold scepticism which simply passes by the gospel on the other side there is also an anxiety, a curiosity, to hear, which secures an audience wheresoever there is a preacher, which stimulates all manner of agencies for bringing home the gospel. In the same degree the warning is more urgent, that we confound not, in these highest matters, the enchantments and the wilderness. Who feels not in himself the easiness of listening and the difficulty of praying? Who is not conscious of the temptation to compound for inward torpor by outward bustle, and to make a multiplication of services and communions an apology for neglect and shameful sloth in the nearer and more intimate converse between the soul and its God? (Dean Vaughan.)
Balaam . . . the man whose eyes are open.
Balaam--the open eye
An open eye is a rare thing even in the matters of common experience. They are the few who can see clearly the things which God has set round them in their daily paths. Men of science tell us that it is difficult to meet with a competent observer of even the simplest and most familiar phenomena. Lawyers complain that a good witness, who can tell what he knows, and only what he knows, is as rare. It is supposed by experienced persons that a fact is just the most difficult thing in the world to get at, so few walk with their eyes open and care to make themselves simply conductors of truth. We see things through mists which take the colours of prejudice or passion, and it is but a vague outline of them which meets our sight. Lord, that our eyes may be opened, is a prayer full of meaning for all of us as we move amidst the realities of our daily lives. In the higher sphere of the being the open eye is rarer still. The realities in that region are solemn things to look upon. There is something awful in their grandeur, and even in their beauty. A man needs courage and faith to face them as they are.
I. Balaam was a man whose eye was open in his day. He was a man of splendid natural genius. We puzzle over the definition of genius; but perhaps it is only the open eye, the power to see things simply as they are. In every sphere of mans intellectual activity the man of genius is the seer.
II. Balaams is at the same time a character of singular perplexity. He had both the open eye and the itching palm. And this condition is far from rare. Splendid endowments are often mated with moral narrowness or feebleness. With many of these men of insight, men with the seers power, there is a flaw in the thoroughness somewhere. But then these men, when their genius possesses them, rise above the sphere of their humiliation; the temptations which ensnare them snap like the withes of Samson; they see clearly, and declare with the freedom and the force of prophets the things which have been shown to them by the Lord. Lord Bacon may have been capable of very poor ambitions, very grovelling thoughts and actions; but when his genius possessed him, when he loosed his splendid faculty in the quest of truth, the simplest fact became sacred to him; he would not have dared to misrepresent or to tamper with what he saw for worlds. It was thus with Balaam. On the lower level of his life he was grovelling; but when God took possession of his genius he yielded it readily, and then he was true as steel to the vision.
III. The man whose eyes were open saw some things with startling clearness. Some words of his ring out like trumpet notes through the field of lifes battle; they are conceived with a vividness and expressed with a force which makes them prophetic for all ages; we hear from his lips the words of God.
1. The only word which a man can say with power is truth. The word that God also saith, that shall stand (Num_22:38). The counsellor who knows the Divine plan is the man who has power. The position of the Jews among the nations, and the influence which they wielded, which is popularly much under-estimated, rested wholly on the fact that they knew as no other nation knew the Divine counsels, they held the key to the mystery of all these worlds. Balaam saw that the trickster and liar is impotent. Laocoon, locked in the serpent wreaths, wrestling madly, but with the death agony in his face, is not more powerless than the monger of falsehood to escape his doom. The gain is there, it is always there; you can have it if you like by cheating and lying. Balaam saw it, and there was that within him which longed for it. But his eye was open; he dared not touch it. He saw the pure folly as well as the shame of dreaming of it, of thinking that anything but truth, right, and the blessing of God can stand a man in any stead in life, in death, and in the great court of Heaven.
2. He saw with that open eye that the man who stands with God stands absolutely beyond the reach of harm (Num_23:23).
3. There was a third thing that Balaam saw. The man whom God blesses is blessed; the man whom God curses is cursed, absolutely and for ever. (J. B. Brown, B. A.)
How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob.--
The prosperity of the Church
With great admiration he beginneth to declare the future prosperity of that people, and doth it by six similitudes.
1. As the valleys are they stretched forth, or as the rivers say some, which coming from one head spread themselves into great broad waters, so this people having sprung from Jacob, one patriarch, hath spread into this multitude, and yet further shall spread into many more.
2. As gardens by the rivers side. Such gardens are watered so by the rivers as if the heat be never so great, yet they are not burned up. So shall this people in all adversities and dangers be preserved by the power and blessing of God till the coming of the Messiah, and overcome by no assaults of Satan and his instruments.
3. As the trees of lign aloes which the Lord hath planted.
4. As the cedar trees beside the waters, which, growing to a great height, notably show how this people with their offspring should wonderfully grow with their virtue and famous acts, getting a great name in the world.
5. The water droppeth out of his bucket; that is, as such water floweth abroad, so shall this people abound with the water of heavenly doctrine and wisdom, and from them be spread to other nations plentifully, according to that Out of Sion shall a law go, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
6. His seed shall be in many waters. As seed that is cast into a field well watered soon springeth and beareth fruit, so this people. These are the prophetical resemblances of this people Israel, which do still declare unto us the flourishing and happy state of Gods Church, whatsoever worldly men conceive and think. The Church is the tabernacle of God, wherein He dwelleth, and familiarly with His chosen as with His domestics and household servants converseth, providing things necessary both for this life and that to come. The Church is that little river which spreadeth itself far and wide throughout the world. The Church is that well-watered garden, set with sweet trees casting forth the fragrant smell of life, of the knowledge of God and of virtue, whereof Solomon in his Canticles: My sister, my spouse, is a garden enclosed, as a spring shut up, and a fountain sealed up. The Church is that shadow that yieldeth comfortable cooling, in the sense and feeling of Gods wrath to sin. It is that cedar planted by the water-side, and growing so high, whereof the prophet in the Psalm: The righteous shall flourish like a palm-tree, and grow like a cedar in Lebanon. Such as be planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. They shall still bring forth fruit in their age; they shall be fat and flourishing, &c. The Church is that bucket, containing doctrine of life, and dropping it out to the comfort of souls. Finally, that seed shall live again in the life to come, and for ever spring and flourish. (Bp. Babington.)
Balaams third parable: the glory of the people of God
I. The preparation of the prophet to declare the Divine will.
1. Balaam renounces the search for auguries.
2. He beholds the encampment of Israel.
3. He is inspired by the Holy Spirit.
4. He hears Divine words and sees Divine visions.
II. The declaration by the prophet of Israels glory.
1. Their beautiful appearance.
(1) Beauty--
(a) Of order.
(b) Of culture and fertility.
(2) Fragrance.
(3) Majesty.
2. Their prosperous condition.
3. Their exalted position.
4. Their conquering power.
(1) Great strength.
(2) Great conquests.
(3) Great security.
(4) Great influence. (W. Jones.)
Balaams third parable
Seen from the top of the rocks, everything about Israel is perfection. Had we been down in the valley, and looked into them from an earthly standpoint, we should have seen deformity enough. But from Gods presence everything is changed. But mark the figures under which this beauty is described. As valleys are they spread forth. These are the valleys watered by the river; these are the people of God, made beautiful by the refreshing streams of living water which flow down from the throne of God. Not yet are they as watered valleys, but as gardens by the rivers side. This is a richer description still. They are the garden of the Lord. They are the plants planted by the Father. They have been taken out of the world--transplanted--and are now to bring forth much fruit. The streams from the river of God find their way to the roots of their spiritual life; and thus they become fruitful. Jesus is the source of their life and their fruitfulness. And in all this we see growth--as the valleys are they spread forth; as gardens by the rivers side. The entire figure implies sanctification--growth in grace. There will always be three kinds of growth where the soul is really abiding in Jesus. There will be the outward growth as the lily--the life before men; the hidden growth as the roots of Lebanon--the life before God; and the relation toward men as the branches spreading, the influence which they cast around. But the figure grows in richness: as trees of lign aloes which the Lord hath planted. The aloe tree was highly valued on account of its fragrance, and it was the tree from which the incense was prepared. Thus the believer abiding in Jesus is a sweet savour of Christ. The fragrance of that blessed One is diffused far and wide through him. He is beautiful with the beauty which the Lord puts upon him. His scent is as the wine of Lebanon. And to what cause is all this fragrance due? To the Lords planting. There is one more step in advance in the spiritual life in this verse: as cedar trees beside the waters. As the lily and trees of Lebanon in the passage, in Hosea, so here. The growth of the believer is brought before us under the loftiness of the cedar tree, its luxuriance, and the durability of its wood. Now, having noticed what the people of God are as seen in Jesus, let us mark their testimony. He shall pour the water out of his buckets. The people of God are personified, as a man carrying two pails overflowing with water. A bucket or vessel is empty. It can give nothing. It can only receive. The buckets are the empty vessels to be filled with living water by the Holy Ghost. Like the two pails on a mans shoulder which are filled to the brim, he cannot move a step without the water overflowing. So with the believer abiding in Jesus. He is the empty vessel filled by the Holy Ghost. He cannot move a step without making that influence felt. There will be a trail of living water in his path--a track of light in every step of the way. And oh, what empty places there are within us and around us! Within us--desires, affections, longings, hopes, aims, plans; without us--home, duties, efforts, a weeping Church, and a dying world. Oh, that these buckets were filled with the living water! Then would gladness be written as with a sunbeam on every brow, and sunshine light up every heart. His seed shall be in many waters. This is the effect of the outpoured water from the buckets of the believers soul. He is made a blessing on every side. His king shall be higher than Agag, and his kingdom shall be exalted. Christ the King of the Jews is to be higher than all the kings of this world; and Christs kingdom exalted above all other kingdoms. All this glory is then traced to the first great act of redemption God brought him forth out of Egypt. Thus deliverance from Egypt and future glory are linked together. He hath as it were the strength of the buffalo. Here is the power of God abiding with, and resting upon, those whom He has redeemed. Then follows, in connection with their redemption from Egypt, that final triumph and glory. He shall eat up the nations his enemies, and shall break their bones, and pierce them through with his arrows. This is the foretold destruction mentioned in the New Testament, which awaits all the enemies of the Lord at His coming. But in the meantime the attitude of the Church of Christ is one of expectation. Her attitude is not one of judgment yet, but one of grace. This is strikingly brought before us in the next clause; he couched, he lay down as a lion. The couching of the lion is always the attitude of expectation--looking forward to the moment when he shall spring upon his prey. Lying down indicates rest. The believer now rests in Jesus, and awaits His return. In the meantime blessing is his portion--blessed is he that blesseth thee, and cursed is he that curseth thee. And we notice how the blessing culminates here. The first was, How shall I curse, or how shall I defy? After it was, He hath blessed, and I cannot reverse it. Lastly, it is Blessed is he that blesseth thee. This last form in which Balaam expresses himself shows us Gods estimate of His people Israel. He that toucheth you toucheth the apple of His eye. (F. Whitfield, M. A.)
Sermon at reopening of a church
I. Let us attempt to justify and elucidate this sacred exclamation. The language is proper.
1. On account of the author of their construction.
2. The beneficial effect of their institution.
3. The pleasantness of their unity.
4. The joys of their fellowships.
5. Their perpetuity, and the certainty of their increase.
II. What ought to be the effects produced upon us by such a survey of the assemblies of the people of God. We should--
1. Cherish a spirit of gratitude for the establishment and increase of these tents of God.
2. Shun all that would impair, and diligently maintain all that would secure the blessing.
(1) Guard against lukewarmness, as that which would deface the beauty of ordinances, and rob us of the advantages we might receive from their celebration.
(2) Take care of holding the truth in unrighteousness.
(3) Be cautious not to violate the true spirit of love.
(4) Preserve the vigour of wholesome, salutary discipline; so that the testimony may be borne you from on high, I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, &c.
(5) Follow up all with importunate prayer. Peace be within thy walls, &c. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem, &c.
3. Endeavour to increase the number of those who frequent the tabernacles, and dwell in the tents of Jacob. Imitate the tribes when ambulating in the wilderness. Remember that you are surrounded by those who have no hope. Tell them plainly that you are pilgrims and strangers. Inform them of the privileges you enjoy by the way; of the manna which drops by your door; of the streams which flow from the rock Christ; of the light which guides your feet; of the cloud which screens you from temptation; of the victories you obtain over your foes; of the prospect you have of passing through Jordan safely; and of the rich land of promise which you are shortly about to enter. Press on them not to linger.
4. Anticipate the time when your tents will be struck, and all the ransomed tribes assemble in the tabernacle above. These tents of the Israelites were valuable as they traversed the sands of Arabia; but they left them when they entered on the rest which their prophets had predicted, and their poets sung. And what are our temples? They are only preparatory for the enjoyments of the Canaan above. May it be your privilege to join the tribes of the redeemed as they go up to Zion with everlasting joy upon their heads! (J. Clayton, M. A.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v10 Num_24:10-25; Num_25:1-18
THE MATTER OF BAAL-PEOR
Num_24:10-25; Num_25:1-18
Read full note →
THE last oracle of Balaam, as we have it, ventures into far more explicit predictions than the others, and passes beyond the range of Hebrew history. Its chief value for the Israelites lay in what was taken to be a Messianic prophecy contained in it, and various bold denunciations of their enemies. Whether the language can bear the important meanings thus found in it is a matter of considerable doubt. On the whole, it appears best not to make over-much of the prescience of this mashal, especially as we cannot be sure that we have it in the original form. One fact may be given to prove this. In Jer_48:45, an oracle regarding Moab embodies various fragments of the Book of Numbers, and one clause seems to be a quotation from Num_24:17. In Numbers the reading is, "and break down, all the sons of tumult"; in Jeremiah it is, "and the crown of the head of the sons of tumult" The resemblance leaves little doubt of the derivation of the one expression from the other, and at the same time shows diversity in the text.
The earlier deliverances of Balaam had disappointed the king of Moab; the third kindled his anger. It was intolerable that one called to curse his enemies should bless them again and again. Balaam would do well to get him back to his own place. That Jehovah of whom he spake had kept him from honour. If he delayed he might find himself in peril. But the diviner did not retire. The word that had come to him should be spoken. He reminded Balak of the terms on which he had begun his auguries, and, perhaps to embitter Moab against Israel, persisted in advertising Balak "what this people should do to his people in the latter days."
The opening was again a vaunt of his high authority as a seer, one who knew the knowledge of Shaddai. Then, with ambiguous forms of speech covering the indistinctness of his outlook, he spoke of one whom he saw far away, in imagination, not reality, a personage bright and powerful, who should rise star-like out of Jacob, bearing the sceptre of Israel, who should smite through the corners of Moab and break down the sons of tumult. Over Edom and Seir he should triumph, and his dominion should extend to the city which had become the last refuge of a hostile people. Of spiritual power and right there is not a trace in this prediction. It is unquestionably the military vigour of Israel gathered up into the headship of some powerful king Balaam sees on the horizon of his field of view. But he anticipates with no uncertainty that Moab shall be attacked and broken, and that the victorious leader shall even penetrate to the fastnesses of Edom and reduce them. A people like Israel, with so great vitality, would not be content to have jealous enemies upon its very borders, and Balak is urged to regard them with more hatred and fear than he has yet shown.
The view that this prophecy "finds its preliminary fulfilment in David, in whom the kingdom was established, and by whose victories the power of Moab and Edom was broken, but its final and complete fulfilment only in Christ," is supported by the unanimous belief of the Jews, and has been adopted by the Christian Church. Yet it must be allowed that the victories of David did not break the power of Moab and Edom, for these peoples are found again and again, after his time, in hostile attitude to Israel. And it is not to the purpose to say that in Christ the kingdom reaches perfection, that He destroys the enemies of Israel. Nor is there an argument for the Messianic reference worth considering in the fact that the pseudo-Messiah in the reign of Hadrian styled himself Bar-cochba, son of the star. A pretender to Messiah-ship might snatch at any title likely to secure for him popular support; his choice of a name proves only the common belief of the Jews, and that was very ignorant, very far from spiritual. There is indeed more force in the notion that the star by which the wise men of the East were guided to Bethlehem is somehow related to this prophecy. Yet that also is too imaginative. The oracle of Balaam refers to the virility and prospective dominance of Israel, as a nation favoured by the Almighty and destined to be strong in battle. The range of the prediction is not nearly wide enough for any true anticipation of a Messiah gaining universal sway by virtue of redeeming love. It is becoming more and more necessary to set aside those interpretations which identify the Saviour of the world with one who smites and breaks down and destroys, who wields a sceptre after the manner of Oriental despots.
In Balaams vision small nations with which he happens to be acquainted bulk largely-the Kenites, Amalek, Moab, and Edom. To him the Amalekites appear as having once been "the first of the nations." We may explain, as before, that he had been impressed on some occasion by what he had seen of their force and the royal state of their king. The Kenites, dwelling either among the cliffs of Engedi or the mountains of Galilee, were a very small tribe; and the Amalekites, as well as the people of Moab and Edom, were of little account in the development of human history. At the same time the prophecy looks in one direction to a power destined to become very great, when it speaks of the ships of Chittim. The course of empire is seen to be westward. Asshur, or Assyria, and Eber-the whole Abrahamic race, perhaps, including Israel-are threatened by this rising power, the nearest point of which is Cyprus in the Great Sea. Balaam is, we may say, a political prophet: to class him among those who testified of Christ is to exalt far too much his inspiration and read more into his oracles than they naturally contain. There is no deep problem in the narrative regarding him-as, for instance, how a man false at heart could in any sense enter into those gracious purposes of God for the human race which were fulfilled by Christ.
Balaam, we are told, "rose up and returned to his own place"; and from this it would seem that with bitterness in his heart he betook himself to Pethor. If he did so, vainly hoping still that Israel would appeal to him, he soon returned to give Balak and the Midianites advice of the most nefarious kind. We learn from Num_31:16, that through his counsel the Midianite women caused the children of Israel to commit trespass against Jehovah in the matter of Peor. The statement is a link between chapters 24 and 25. Vainly had Balaam as a diviner matched himself against the God of Israel. Resenting his defeat, he sought and found another way which the customs of his own people in their obscure idolatrous rites too readily suggested. The moral law of Jehovah and the comparative purity of the Israelites as His people kept them separate from the other nations, gave them dignity and vigour. To break down this defence would make them like the rest, would withdraw them from the favour of their God and even defeat His purposes. The scheme was one which only the vilest craft could have conceived; and it shows us too plainly the real character of Balaam. He must have known the power of the allurements which he now advised as the means of attack on those he could not touch with his maledictions nor gain by his soothsaying. In the shadow of this scheme of his we see the diviner and all his tribe, and indeed the whole morality of the region, at their very worst.
The tribes were still in the plain of Jordan; and we may suppose that the victorious troops had returned from the campaign against Bashan, when a band of Midianites, professing the utmost friendliness, gradually introduced themselves into the camp. Then began the temptation to which the Midianitish women, some of them of high rank, willingly devoted themselves. It was to impurity and idolatry, to degradation of manhood in body and soul, to abjuration at once of faith and of all that makes individual and social life. The orgies with which the Midianites were familiar belonged to the dark side of a nature-cultus which carried the distinction between male and female into religious symbolism, and made abject prostration of life before the Divinity a crowning act of worship. Surviving still, the same practices are in India and elsewhere the most dreadful and inveterate barriers which the Gospel and Christian civilisation encounter. The Israelites were assailed unexpectedly, it would appear, and in a time of comparative inaction. Possibly, also, the camp was composed to some extent of men whose families were still in Kadesh waiting the conquest of the land of Canaan to cross the border. But the fact need not be concealed that the polygamy which prevailed among the Hebrews was an element in their danger. That had not been forbidden by the law; it was even countenanced by the example of Moses. The custom, indeed, was one which at the stage of development Israel had reached implied some progress; for there are conditions even worse than polygamy against which it was a protest and safeguard. But like every other custom falling short of the ideal of the family, it was one of great peril; and now disaster came. The Midianites brought their sacrifices and slew them; the festival of Baalpeor was proclaimed. "The people did eat and bowed down to their gods." It was a transgression which demanded swift and terrible judgment. The chief men of the tribes who had joined in the abominable rites were taken and "hanged up before the Lord against the sun"; the "judges of Israel" were commanded to slay "every one his men that were joined unto Baalpeor."
The narrative of the "Priests Code," beginning at Num_25:6, and going on to the close of the chapter, adds details of the sin and its punishment. Assuming that the row of stakes with their ghastly burden is in full view, and the dead bodies of those slain by the executioners are lying about the camp, this narrative shows the people gathered at the tent of meeting, many of them in tears. There is a plague, too, which is rapidly spreading and carrying off the transgressors. In the midst of the sorrow and wailing, when the chief men should have been bowed down in repentance, one of the princes of Simeon is seen leading by the hand his Midianitish paramour, herself a chiefs daughter. In the very sight of Moses and the people the guilty persons enter a tent. Then Phinehas, son of Eleazar the priest, following them, inflicts with a javelin the punishment of death. It is a daring but a true deed; and for it Phinehas and his seed after him are promised the "covenant of peace," even the "covenant of an everlasting priesthood." His swift stroke has vindicated the honour of God, and "made an atonement for the children of Israel." An act like this, when the elemental laws of morality are imperilled and a whole people needs a swift and impressive lesson, is a tribute to God which He will reward and remember. True, one of the priestly house should keep aloof from death. But the emergency demands immediate action, and he who is bold enough to strike at once is the true friend of men and of God.
The question may be put, whether this is not justice of too rude and ready a kind to be praised in the name of religion. To some it may seem that the honour of God could not be served by the deed attributed to Phinehas; that he acted in passion rather than in the calm deliberation without which justice cannot be dealt out by man to man. Would not this excuse the passionate action of a crowd, impatient of the forms of law, that hurries an offender to the nearest tree or lamp-post? And the answer cannot be that Israel was so peculiarly under covenant to God that its necessity would exonerate a deed otherwise illegal. We must face the whole problem alike of personal and of united action for the vindication of righteousness in times of widespread license.
It is not necessary now to slay an offender in order clearly and emphatically to condemn his crime. In that respect modern circumstances differ from those we are discussing. Upon Israel, as it was at the time of this tragedy, no impression could have been made deep and swift enough for the occasion otherwise than by the act of Phinehas. But for an offender of the same rank now, there is a punishment as stern as death, and on the popular mind it produces a far greater effect-publicity, and the reprobation of all who love their fellowmen and God. The act of Phinehas was not assassination; a similar act now would be, and it would have to be dealt with as a crime. The stroke now is inflicted by public accusation, which results in public trial and public condemnation. From the time to which the narrative refers, on to our own day, social conditions have been passing through many phases. Occasionally there have been circumstances in which the swift judgment of righteous indignation was justifiable, though it did seem like assassination. And in no case has such action been more excusable than when the purity of family life has been invaded, while the law of the land would not interfere. We do not greatly wonder that in France the avenging of infidelity is condoned when the sufferer snatches a justice otherwise unattainable. That is not indeed to be praised, but the imperfection of law is a partial apology. The higher the standard of public morality the less needful is this venture on the Divine right to kill. And certainly it is not private revenge that is ever to be sought, but the vindication of the elemental righteousness on which the well-being, of humanity depends. Phinehas had no private revenge to seek. It was the public good.
It is confidently affirmed by Wellhausen that the "Priestly Code" makes the cultus the principal thing, and this, he says, implies retrogression from the earlier idea. The passage we are considering, like many others ascribed to the "Priests Code," makes something else than the cultus the principal thing. We are told that in the teaching of this code "the bond between cultus and sensuality is severed; no danger can arise of an admixture of impure, immoral elements, a danger which was always present in Hebrew antiquity." But here the danger is admitted, the cultus is entirely out of sight, and the sin of sensuality is conspicuous. When Phinehas intervenes, moreover, it is not in harmony with any statute or principle laid down in the "Priests Code"-rather, indeed, against its general spirit, which would prohibit an Aaronite from a deed of blood. According to the whole tenor of the law the priesthood had its duties, carefully prescribed, by doing which faithfulness was to be shown. Here an act of spontaneous zeal, done not "on the positive command of a will outside," but on the impulse arising out of a fresh occasion, receives the approval of Jehovah, and. the "covenant of an everlasting priesthood" is confirmed for the sake of it. Was Phinehas in any sense carrying out statutory instructions for atonement on behalf of Israel when he inflicted the punishment of death on Zimri and his paramour? To identify the "Priestly Code" with "cultus legislation," and that with theocracy, and then declare the cultus to have become a "pedagogic instrument of discipline," "estranged from the heart," is to make large demands on our inattention.
In the closing verses of the chapter another question of a moral nature is involved. It is recorded that after the events we have considered Jehovah spake unto Moses, saying, "Vex the Midianites, and smite them; for they vex you with their wiles, wherewith they have beguiled you in the matter of Peor, and in the matter of Cozbi, the daughter of the prince of Midian, their sister, which was slain on the day of the plague in the matter of Peor." Now is it for the sake of themselves and their own safety the Israelites are to smite Midian? Is retaliation commanded? Does God set enmity between the one people and the other, and so doing make confession that Israel has no duty of forgiveness, no mission to convert and save?
There is difficulty in pronouncing judgment as to the point of view taken by the narrator. Some will maintain that the historian here, whoever he was, had no higher conception of the command than that it was one which sanctioned revenge. And there is nothing on the face of the narrative which can be brought forward to disprove the charge. Yet it must be remembered that the history proceeds on the theocratic conception of Israels place and destiny. To the writer Israel is of less account in itself than as a people rescued from Egypt and called to nationality in order to serve Jehovah. The whole tenor of the "Priests Code" narrative, as well as of the other, bears this out. There is no patriotic zeal in the narrow sense, -"My country right or wrong." Scarcely a passage can be pointed to implying such a sentiment, such a drift of thought. The underlying idea in the whole story is the sacredness of morality, not of Israel; and the suppression or extinction of this tribe of Midianites with their obscene idolatry is Gods will, not Israels. Too plain, indeed, is it that the Israelites would have preferred to leave Midian and other tribes of the same low moral best unmolested, free to pursue their own ends.
And Jehovah is not revengeful, but just. The vindication of morality at the time the Book of Numbers deals with, and long afterwards, could only be through the suppression of those who were identified with dangerous forms of vice. The forces at command in Israel were not equal to the task of converting; and what could be achieved was commanded-opposition, enmity; if need were, exterminating war. The better people has a certain spiritual capacity, but not enough to make it fit for what may be called moral missionary work. It would suffer more than it would gain if it entered on any kind of intercourse with Midian with the view of raising the standard of thought and life. All that can be expected meanwhile is that the Israelites shall be at issue with a people so degraded; they are to be against the Midianites, keep them from power in the world, subject them by the sword.
Our judgment, then, is that the narrative sustains a true theocracy in this sense, exhibits Israel as a unique phenomenon in human history, not impossible, -there lies the clear veracity of the Bible accounts, -but playing a part such as the times allowed, such as the world required. From a passage like that now before us, and the sequel, the war with Midian, which some have regarded as a blot on the pages of Scripture, an argument for its inspiration may be drawn. We find here no ethical anachronisms, no impracticable ideas of charity and pardon. There is a sane and strenuous moral aim, not out of keeping with the state of things in the world of that time, yet showing the rule and presenting the will of a God who makes Israel a protesting people. The Hebrews are men, not angels; men of the old world, not Christians-true! Who could have received this history if it had represented them as Christians, and shown us God giving them commands fit for the Church of today? They are called to a higher morality than that of Egypt, for theirs is to be spiritual; higher than that of Chaldea or of Canaan, for Chaldea is shrouded in superstition, Canaan in obscene idolatry. They can do something; and what they can do Jehovah commands them to do. And He is not an imperfect God because His prophet does not give from the first a perfect Christian law, a redeeming gospel. He is the "I Am." Let the whole course of Old Testament development be traced, and the sanity and coherency of the theocratic idea as it is presented in law and prophecy, psalm and parable, cannot fail to convince any just and frank inquirer.
The end of Balaams life may be glanced at before the pages close that refer to his career. In Num_31:8, it is stated that in the battle which went against the Midianites Balaam was slain. We do not know whether he was so maddened by his disappointment as to take the sword against Jehovah and Israel, or whether he only joined the army of Midian in his capacity of augur. F. W. Robertson imagines "the insane frenzy with which he would rush into the field, and finding all go against him, and that lost for which he had bartered heaven, after having died a thousand worse than deaths, find death at last upon the spears of the Israelites." It is of course possible to imagine that he became the victim of his own insane passion. But Balaam never had a profound nature, was never more than within sight of the spiritual world. He appears as the calculating, ambitious man, who would reckon his chances to the last, and with coolness, and what he believed to be sagacity, decide on the next thing to attempt. But his penetration failed him, as at a certain point it fails all men of his kind. He ventured too far, and could not draw back to safety.
The death he died was almost too honourable for this false prophet, unless, indeed, he fell fleeing like a coward from the battle. One who had recognised the power of a higher faith than his country professed, and saw a nation on the way to the vigour that faith inspired, who in personal spleen and envy set in operation a scheme of the very worst sort to ruin Israel, was not an enemy worth the edge of the sword. Let us suppose that a Hebrew soldier found him in flight, and with a passing stroke brought him to the ground. There is no tragedy in such a death; it is too ignominious. Whatever Balaam was in his boyhood, whatever he might have been when the cry escaped him, "Let me die the death of the righteous," selfish craft had brought him below the level of the manhood of the time. Balak with his pathetic faith in cursing and incantation now seems a prince beside the augur. For Balaam, though he knew Jehovah after a manner, had no religion, had only the envy of the religion of others. He came on the stage with an air that almost deceived Balak and has deceived many. He leaves it without one to lament him. Or shall we rather suppose that even for him, in Pethor beyond the Euphrates, a wife or child waited and prayed to Sutekh and, when the tidings of his death were brought, fell into inconsolable weeping? Over the worst they think and do men draw the veil to hide it from some eyes. And Balaam, a poor, mean tool of the basest cravings, may have had one to believe in him, one to love him. He reminds us of Absalom in his character and actions-Absalom, a man void of religion and morals; and for him the father he had dethroned and dishonoured wept bitterly in the chamber over the gate of Mahanaim, "My son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!" So may some woman in Pethor have wailed for Balaam fallen under the spear of a Hebrew warrior.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v1 Num_24:1. To seek for enchantments. See Notes on Num_23:3;…
CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES
Num_24:1. To seek for enchantments. See Notes on Num_23:3; Num_23:23.
Read full note →
He set his face toward the wilderness, i.e., towards the plains of Moab, where the Israelites were encamped.
Num_24:2. Saw Israel abiding, &c. Keil and Del.: “He saw Israel encamping according to its tribes.”
The Spirit of God came upon him. “The impression made upon him by the sight of the tribes of Israel, served as the subjective preparation for the reception of the Spirit of God to inspire him. Of both the earlier utterances it is stated that ‘Jehovah put a word into his mouth’ (Num_23:5; Num_23:16); but of this third it is affirmed that ‘the Spirit of God came over him.’ The former were communicated to him, where he went out for a Divine revelation, without his being thrown into an ecstatic state; he heard the voice of God within him telling him what he was to say. But this time, like the prophets in their prophesyings, he was placed by the Spirit of God in a state of ecstatic sight; so that, with his eyes closed as in clairvoyance, he saw the substance of the revelation from God with his inward mental eye, which had been opened by the Spirit of God.”—Keil and Del.
Num_24:3. Whose eyes are open. Margin: “Who had his eyes shut, but now opened.” Dr. A. Clarke takes the latter view: “I believe the original שׁתם, shethum, should be translated shut, not open; for in the next verse, where the opening of the eyes is mentioned, a widely different word is used כַלה, galah, which signifies to open or reveal. At first the eyes of Balaam were shut, and so closely too that he could not see the angel who withstood him, till God opened his eyes; nor could he see the gracious intentions of God towards Israel, till the eyes of his understanding were opened by the power of the Divine Spirit”.
שְׁתֻם הָעַיִן, “with closed eye. שָׁתַם does not mean to open, a meaning in support of which only one passage of the Mishnah can be adduced, but to close, like סָתַם in Dan_8:26, and שָׂתַם in Lam_3:8, with the שׁ softened into ס or שׂ ‘Balaam describes himself as the man with closed eye with reference to his state of ecstasy, in which the closing of the outer senses went hand in hand with the opening of the inner’ (Hengstenberg). The cessation of all perception by means of the outer senses, so far as self-conscious reflection is concerned, was a feature that was common to both the vision and the dream, the two forms in which the prophetic gift manifested itself (Num_12:6), and followed from the very nature of the inward intuition. In the case of prophets whose spiritual life was far advanced, inspiration might take place without any closing of the outward senses. But upon men like Balaam, whose inner religious life was still very impure and undeveloped, the Spirit of God could only operate by closing their outward senses to impressions from the lower earthly world, and raising them up to visions of the higher and spiritual world”—Keil and Del.
Fuerst however renders שְׁתֻם הָעַיִן, “opened of eye, i.e., with opened eye.” So also the Speaker’s Comm. et al.
Num_24:4. Falling, &c. Omit the “into a trance” of the A.V. Keil and Del. translate, “Falling down and with opened eyes.” Balaam fell beneath the power of the Spirit of God, who came upon him (comp. 1Sa_19:24). In this way the eyes of his spirit were opened.
Num_24:7. He shall pour the water, &c. Or, “Water will flow out of his buckets.” Or, “He shall stream with water out of his buckets.” An image of great prosperity; an abundant supply of water being essential to fertility and prosperity in the burning East. “The nation is personified as a man carrying two pails overflowing with water.”
His seed, i.e., posterity.
“By many waters,” a metaphor indicative of rich blessings, particularly in this place, that of a numerous posterity.
Agag, a title common to all the Amalekite kings, as Pharaoh was to those of Egypt. “The reason for mentioning the king of the Amalekites was, that he was selected as the impersonation of the enmity of the world against the kingdom of God, which culminated in the kings of the heathen; the Amalekites having been the first heathen tribe that attacked the Israelites on their journey to Canaan (Exo_17:8)”—Keil and Del.
His king.… his kingdom. “The king of Israel, whose greatness was celebrated by Balaam, was neither the Messiah exclusively, nor the earthly kingdom without the Messiah, but the kingdom of Israel that was established by David, and was exalted in the Messiah into an everlasting kingdom, the enemies of which would all be made its footstool (Psalms 2, 110).”—Ibid.
Num_24:8. See Num_23:22.
Num_24:9. See Num_23:24.
Num_24:11. Jehovah hath kept thee back from honour. “A bitter and impious sarcasm.”—A. Clarke, LL.D.
Num_24:14. Advertise thee. Keil and Del.: “ ‘Tell thee advisedly.’ … An announcement which includes advice.”
Num_24:17. A Star, &c. “In all the typical language of Scripture stars are symbols of lordship and authority, ecclesiastical or civil. Thus a star is the symbol of the highest dominion of all: ‘There shall come a Star out of Jacob;’ and the actual birth of Him whom Balaam prophesied of here, is announced by a star (Mat_2:2; cf. Isa_14:12).”—R. C. Trench, D.D.
A Sceptre, &c. (comp. Gen_49:10).
The corners of Moab. Rather, “the two sides of Moab,” “equivalent to Moab on both sides, from one end to the other.”
Destroy all the children of Sheth. Speaker’s Comm.: “Overthrow the sons of tumult.” Keil and Del.: “ ‘Destroy all the sons of confusion,’ by which the Moabites are to be understood as being men of wild, warlike confusion.”
Num_24:18. Edom shall be a possession, &c. “Whilst Edom falls, Israel will acquire power” (comp. 2Sa_8:14; 1Ch_18:11-13; Oba_1:17 sqq.
Num_24:19. He that shall have dominion, i.e., the ruler foretold as Star and Sceptre. “The Star and Sceptre of the prophecy, like the ‘Sceptre’ and ‘Lawgiver’ of Gen_49:10, point naturally rather to a line of princes than to an individual; or rather are emblems of the kingdom of Israel generally. Thus the victories of David and his successors, generation after generation, over Edom and Moab, are unquestionably recurring and progressive accomplishments of what Balaam foretold; but after all of them the prophecy yet reaches forward to some further and culminating accomplishment; and that too in ‘the latter days’ (Num_24:14), the ordinary prophetic designation for the time of the Messiah (cf. Dan_10:14).
“To a Christian, the connection between the Star and Sceptre of Balaam, and the Star of the King of the Jews, which the wise men saw (Mat_2:2), is self-evident. As they were ‘wise men from the east,’ so was Balaam also a ‘wise man from the east’ (cf. Num_23:7); and the tradition that they were, if not descendants, yet fellow countrymen, of Balaam, and occupied in pursuits kindred to his, is probable enough.”—Speaker’s Comm.
Destroy him that remaineth, &c. “The phrase tersely describes a conqueror who first defeats his enemies in battle, and then hunts out the fugitives till he has cut off all of every place (cf. 1Ki_11:16).”—Ibid.
Num_24:20. Amalek was the first, &c., i.e., pre-eminent amongst the states or nations which Balaam then had in view of his mind’s eye. The sense given by the marginal rendering is doubtful.
Num_24:21. The Kenites. “A tribe or nation whose history is strangely interwoven with that of the chosen people. Their origin is hidden from us. But we may fairly infer that they were a branch of the larger nation of Midian—from the fact that Jethro, the father of Moses’s wife, who in the records of Exodus (see Num_2:15-16; Num_4:19, &c.), is represented as dwelling in the land of Midian, and as priest or prince of that nation, is in the narrative of Judges (Num_1:16; Num_4:11), as distinctly said to have been a Kenite. As Midianites, they were therefore descended immediately from Abraham by his wife Keturah, and in this relationship and their connexion with Moses we find the key to their continued alliance with Israel.”—Bible Dict.
Num_24:22. The Kenite. Heb.: Kain. The Speaker’s Comm. says that Kain is “the name of the Kenites abode.” Keil and Del.: “Kain, the tribe-father, is used poetically for the Kenite, the tribe of which he was the founder.” And Fuerst regards it as the name of the tribe. A more faithful rendering of this verse is, “For Kain shall not be destroyed until Asshur shall carry him away captive.” It is a promise of long-continued safety to the Kenites.
Num_24:23. Alas, who shall live, &c. “The words, ‘Woe, who will live,’ point to the fearfulness of the following judgment, which went deep to the heart of the seer, because it would fall upon the sons of his own people. The meaning is, ‘Who will preserve his life in the universal catastrophe that is coming!’ (Hengstenberg.)”—Keil and Del.
Num_24:24. Chittim, “i.e. Cyprus, the nearest of the western islands, the only one visible from Palestine, and so the representative to Balaam and to Israel of all those unknown western regions across the Mediterranean Sea, from which were at length to come the conquerors of the mighty empires of the East (cf. Isa_23:1; Isa_23:12; Jer_2:10).”—Speaker’s Comm.
Eber, “i.e., not as Vulg. and LXX, ‘the Hebrews,’ but generally the descendants of Shem.”—Ibid.
He also, “i.e., the conqueror of Asshur and Eber, who should come across the sea.”—Ibid.
BALAAM’S THIRD PARABLE: THE GLORY OF THE PEOPLE OF GOD
(Num_24:1-9)
This paragraph contains two main divisions:
I. The preparation of the prophet to declare the divine will (Num_24:1-4).
1. Balaam renounces the search for auguries. “And when Balaam saw that it pleased the Lord to bless Israel, he went not, as at other times, to seek for enchantments.” The sacrifices were offered as at former times, but Balaam goes no more apart to look for auguries. He seems to have despaired of accomplishing the desire of Balak by any exercise of his art.
2. He beholds the encampment of Israel. “He set his face toward the wilderness. And Balaam lifted up his eyes, and he saw Israel encamping according to their tribes.” He seems to have gazed on the imposing spectacle beneath him, and to have allowed it freely to influence him. Its order, unity, vastness, and might, seem to have deeply impressed him. And the impression produced by that sight “served as the subjective preparation for the reception of the Spirit of God to inspire him.”
3. He is inspired by the Holy Spirit. “And the Spirit of God came upon him” (see Critical and Explanatory Notes on Num_24:2). He had, as Attersoll remarks, “the Holy Spirit, but not the spirit of holiness; for wheresoever He worketh He is holy, but He doth not always work holiness and sanctification, which evermore accompany salvation.” Balaam was inspired to utter the Divine message; but his heart was perverse and corrupt, &c.
4. He hears Divine words and sees Divine visions. “And he took up his parable, and said, Balaam the son of Beor hath said, and the man with closed eye hath said: he hath said which heard the words of God, which saw the vision of the Almighty, falling down and with opened eyes” (see Critical and Explanatory Notes on Num_24:3-4). The senses of Balaam now seem to be closed to external impressions, and, for the time being, the Spirit of God has the mastery of his nature, and by voice and by vision reveals the will of God to him. Thus the Lord prepared him for the declaration of His holy will. Do not these words of Balaam display his egotism and pride in his own privileges and power? Keil and Del. hold that they do not. “This introduction to his prophecy is not an utterance of bossting vanity; but, as Calvin correctly observes, ‘the whole preface has no other tendency than to prove that he was a true prophet of God, and had received the blessing which he uttered from a celestial oracle.’ ” We are unable to take this view of his preface. To us it “savours very much of pride and vain glory, taking all the praise of this prophecy to himself, and magnifying himself as one of the cabinet-council of heaven. Paul speaks with humility of his visions and revelations (2Co_12:1); but Balaam speaks of his with pride.” (a)
II. The declaration by the prophet of Israel’s glory (Num_24:5-9).
The blessing here pronounced is in its substance very similar to those in the preceding chapter. Balaam declares—
1. Their beautiful appearance (Num_24:5-6). Here are three ideas
(1) Beauty. The beauty of order. “How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob; thy tabernacles, O Israel!” (b) And the beauty of culture and fertility. “As the valleys are spread forth, as gardens by the river’s side.” To the mind’s eye of the seer, the dwellings of Israel in Canaan spread themselves abroad with the loveliness of fertile valleys, and even as gardens along the banks of a river, “which are still more lovely than the grassy and flowery valleys” (comp. Deu_8:7-8). (c)
(2) Fragrance. “As the trees of lign aloes, which the Lord hath planted.” “The aloe, imported from China and the far distant east, furnished to the ancients one of the most fragrant and precious spices (cf. Psa_45:8), ‘All thy garments smell of myrrh, aloes, and cassia’ (Pro_7:17).’ ” So the reputation of Israel should be fragrant. Their character and condition should produce a delightful impression upon their neighbours.
(3) Majesty. “As cedar trees beside the waters.” “The noblest of trees branching forth in the fairest of situations; an image of majestic beauty.” The beauty of Israel is set forth in a somewhat similar manner in Hos_14:5; Hos_14:7. “The righteous is more excellent than his neighbour.” “The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold.” The truly godly man is beautiful in his principles and spirit, in his character and conduct. “The beauty of the Lord our God is upon” him.
2. Their prosperous condition. Two aspects of prosperity are probably presented by the prophet:—
(1) A fertile soil. “He shall pour the water out of his buckets” (see Critical and Explanatory Notes).
(2) A numerous posterity. “His seed shall be in many waters.” Abundant and unfailing prosperity and increase are thus proclaimed as the portion of Israel. And very remarkable was their prosperity at all times when they were faithful to the Lord; and their increase was wonderful.
3. Their exalted position. “And his king shall be higher than Agag, and his kingdom shall be exalted” (see Critical and Explanatory Notes). The glories of the kingdom of Israel were to far exceed those of their heathen neighbours. We may perhaps find the fulfilment of this prediction in the prosperity and power of the kingdom during the latter part of the reign of David and the greater part of that of his successor. But its most splendid fulfilment is to be looked for in the spiritual kingdom of the Messiah.
4. Their conquering power. This is exhibited in several aspects—
(1) Their great strength. This is seen in what God had done for them. “God leads him forth out of Egypt.” And in their present condition. “He hath as it were the strength of a wild bull.” The people were strong because God was with them as their leader, &c. (see on chap Num_23:22).
(2) Their great conquests. “He shall eat up the nations his enemies, and break their bones, and pierce them through with his arrows.” The words point to the complete victory of Israel over their enemies, and their enrichment by means of such conquests. (d)
(3) Their great security. “He couched, he lay down as a lion, and as a great lion: who shall stir him up?” “They were to overcome their foes thoroughly, that none of them would venture to rise up against them again.” The prophet’s words present a striking picture of assured security. Who shall dare to arouse a sleeping lion? During a great part of the reign of David, and during that of Solomon, Israel was thus secure. When His people are faithful to Him, God guarantees their safety. “The work of righteousness shall be peace,” &c. (Isa_32:17-18). (e).
(4) Their great influence, as a blessing to their friends, and as a bane to their enemies. “Blessed is he that blesseth thee, and cursed is he that curseth thee.” For this cause, let Balak and all their enemies take warning. God makes His people’s cause His own. “He that toucheth you toucheth the apple of His eye.” “Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me.” “Saul, Saul, why persecutes thou Me?”
Here is encouragement to the people of God and to their friends. Here is warning to their enemies.
ILLUSTRATIONS
(a) From first to last one thing appears uppermost in this history—Balaam’s self; the honour of Balaam as a true prophet—therefore he will not lie; the wealth of Balaam—therefore the Israelites must be sacrificed. Nay more, even in this sublimest vision his egotism breaks out. In the sight of God’s Israel he cries, “Let me die the death of the righteous:” in anticipation of the glories of the Eternal Advent, “I shall behold Him, but not nigh.” He sees the vision of a Kingdom, a Church, a chosen people, a triumph of righteousness. In such anticipations, the nobler prophets broke out into strains in which their own personality was forgotten. Moses, when he thought that God would destroy His people, prays in agony—“Yet now, if I hou wilt forgive their sin; and if not, blot me, I pray Thee, out of Thy book.” Paul speaks in impassioned words—“I have continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh, who are Israelites.” But Balaam’s chief feeling seems to be, “How will all this advance me? And the magnificence of the prophecy is thus marred by a chord of melancholy and diseased egotism. Not for one moment—even in those moments when uninspired men gladly forget themselves; men who have devoted themselves to a monarchy, or dreamed of a republic in sublime self-abnegation—can Balaam forget himself in God’s cause.—F. W. Robertson, M.A.
(b) A church is not a load of bricks, remember: it is a house builded together. A church is not a bundle of cuttings in the gardener’s band: it is a vine, of which we are the branches. The true church is an organised whole; and life true spiritual life, wherever it is paramount in the Church, without rules and rubrics, is quite sure to create order and arrangement. Order without life reminds us of the rows of graves in a cemetery, all numbered and entered in the register: order with life reminds us of the long lines of fruit trees in Italy, festooned with fruitful vines. Sunday-school teachers, bear ye the banner of the folded lamb; sick visitors, follow the ensign of the open hand; preachers, rally to the token of the uplifted brazen serpent; and all of you, according to your sacred calling, gather to the name of Jesus, armed for the war.—C. H. Spurgeon.
(c) One flower is very sweet. I smell its perfume. But I walk into some vast conservatories, into some gentleman’s garden, acres in extent, and there are beds of flowers, the blue and scarlet, and yellow. I see the verbena, the calceolaria, and the geranium, and many others, all in order, and in ranks Oh, how glorious this is! Those undulating lawns, those well-trimmed hedges, those trees so daintily kept, all growing in such luxuriance. One flower is sweet, but a garden! a garden! who can tell how sweet this is! So, one glorified saint is one of God’s flowers, but a glorious Church is Christ’s garden.—Ibid.
(d) Every age produces a new crop of heretics and infidels. Just as the current of the times may run, so doth the stream of infidelity change its direction. We have lived long enough, some of us, to see three or four species of atheists and deists rise and die, for they are short-lived, an ephemeral generation. We have seen the Church attacked by weapons borrowed from geology, ethnology, and anatomy, and then from the schools of criticism fierce warriors have issued, but she survives all her antagonists. She has been as ailed from almost every quarter, but the fears that tarry in the Church to-day are blown to the wind to-morrow; yea, the Church has been enriched by the attacks, for her divines have set to work to study the points that were dubious, to strengthen the walls that seemed a little weak, and so her towers have been strengthened, and her bulwarks consolidated.—Ibid.
(e) As temporal and earthly governments become more secular, restricting their province to the physical well-being and the external relationships of mankind, there will be felt, amongst all who live a life intellectual and spiritual, the deeper need for the existence of a society and communion more truly corresponding to the higher and proper social nature of man than is possible in monarchies or republics, guilds or clubs. There is no danger of the world learning to do without the Church, or of the Church ceasing to exert a mighty influence over the world. The human rules and customs and creeds of the Churches may be modified; but the Church itself must remain: “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” Sooner shall the flames of love sink into the ashes of oblivion, and the stream of human thought pause in its eternal flow, than the Church of Christ shall cease to engage the warmest affections, to attract and employ the highest intelligence, and to enlist in her service and consecrate with her blessing the noblest energies of man.—J. R. Thomson, M.A.
THE BLESSEDNESS OF THE PEOPLE OF GOD
(Num_24:5)
We had thought of going to the New Testament for a text, and taking one of Paul’s splendid and comprehensive addresses; but we recollected how much more powerful the confessions of an adversary are than the testimony of a friend. Christianity has in every age gained more from the reluctant tributes of homage extorted from the lips of enemies than from the loftiest efforts of its friends. The admissions of infidels in favour of the happiness and security of a religious life, and the regrets of worldly and irreligious men, say more on behalf of the real value of the Gospel to perishing man than all the labours of divines and all the boasted learning of the schools.
Besides, we have another advantage in the text. The testimony of Balaam will weigh more with many men than that of Moses, or Isaiah, or Paul. Paul gained great advantage with the philosophers of Athens by quoting their own authorities—“As certain also of your own poets have said.” And here we address intelligent and worldly men in the words of one of their own number—“As one of your own prophets hath said.” Balaam was a man of unquestionable genius, whose convictions were in favour of religion, as yours may be; but his heart was against it. He was a lover of this present world; he was quite enchanted with the smiles and flatteries of royalty, and had an open heart and an oily palm to receive the base bribes which the world could bestow. He was quite bent upon rising in the world, determined that nothing should stop him; he had no small opinion of his own pretentions, his genius, his knowledge, his acquaintance with Divine things, of which, as a practised worldling, he knew the full marketable value; and is in fact quite eloquent in portraying his own exalted advantages,—“The man whose eyes are open hath said,” &c. Then he went as far as ever he could in opposing conscience—the voice of the Angel—the drawn sword—God. He was bent upon the thing from first to last: to curse he came; to curse he was determined. When God forbade him to curse by his prophecies, he cursed by his counsels; and actually died in arms against the Church of God. Now, this is the man from whom you are to receive a lecture on the advantages of religion. Mark the blessedness of the righteous as it appears to the eye of worldly and irreligious men. In proof of this happiness we appeal—
I. To the reluctant testimony of the men of this world. They express—
1. Their envy of the happiness of the righteous. “Balaam saw that it pleased the Lord to bless Israel.” He came prepossessed against them; yet broke out in their favour,—“How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob,” &c. An acknowledgment that they have nothing to compare with the privileges of the people of God. They secretly bend to a religion of more comfortable promise.
2. The utter futility of all opposition against the righteous. “Blessed is he that blesseth thee, and cursed is he that curseth thee.”
II. To the nature of the blessings which religion brings.
1. The anxiety it relieves. Doubt and uncertainty, fear and guilt; the disorder and restlessness of spirit.
2. The blessings it reveals. The counsels of Deity laid open; the scheme of redemption unveiled; pardon and peace; certainty of Divine favour; guidance of Divine providence, &c.
3. The progressive advancement in holiness and devotion. Moral triumphs over self, the world, and sin. They “shall be higher than Agag.”
4. The exalted objects of hope it reveals. “There shall come a Star,” &c.
III. To the actual experience of good men in every age. They have proved that religion gilds prosperity—soothes adversity—softens death, &c.
IV. To the avowed design of Divine dispensations.
This is to bless men. Act_3:25-26.—Samuel Thodey.
BALAK’S ANGER AND BALAAM’S APOLOGY
(Num_24:10-14)
I. The anger of Balak.
“And Balak’s anger was kindled against Balaam, and he smote his hands together,” &c. See here—
1. His bitter disappointment. “Balak said unto Balaam, I called thee to curse mine enemies, and, behold, thou hast altogether blessed them these three times.” All his efforts and hopes had ended in this. His distinguished embassies and tempting offers to the prophet, his numerous victims and repeated sacrifices to God, his earnest expectations of ultimately having the Israelites cursed, have issued in a triple declaration of their rich and exalted blessedness. Intense and deep was his mortification.
2. His severe rebuke of Balaam. “Therefore now flee thou to thy place: I thought to promote thee unto great honour,” &c. What a humiliation for a man of Balaam’s genius and gifts and “proud pretensions,” to be thus addressed! What a reversal of his cherished purposes and desires as to the issue of this enterprise! Yet, surely Balaam deserved this rebuke. He had pitifully humiliated himself long before Balak uttered his scornful and angry rebuke.
3. His impious reflection against God. “Lo, the Lord hath kept thee back from honour.” In these words “the irony with which Balak scoffs at Balaam’s confidence in Jehovah is unmistakable;” and their profanity is great.
II. The apology of Balaam.
1. His vaunted honesty. “And Balaam said unto Balak, Spake I not also to thy messengers which thou sentest unto me, saying, If Balak would give me,” &c. This statement was true in the letter, but utterly false in spirit. Balaam’s whole line of conduct was calculated to encourage in Balak the belief that he would probably succeed in cursing Israel. Balaam’s boast of his honesty implies a consciousness of his weakness, if not of his failure in that quality. “Brave men do not vaunt their courage, nor honourable men their honesty, nor do the truly noble boast of high birth. All who understand the human heart perceive a secret sense of weakness in these loud boasts of immaculate purity.” (a)
2. The impotence of man when opposed to God. “If Balak would give me his house full of silver and gold, I cannot go beyond the commandment of the Lord, to do good or bad of mine own mind.” “He hath blessed; and I cannot reverse it.” Sennacherib would have destroyed Jerusalem, but the Lord said unto him, “I will put My hook in thy nose, and My bridle in thy lips, and I will turn thee back by the way which thou comest.” Satan himself in his hostility against the people of God cannot go beyond the permission of God, as we see from Job_1:12; Job_2:6. “Surely the wrath of man shall praise Thee; the remainder of wrath shalt Thou restrain.”
3. The sovereignty of God. Balak and Balaam could not frustrate His purposes. His supremacy is real and effectual. Quaintly and truly says Trapp, “God lets out the tedder to wicked men for a time, and then calls them back with shame enough to their task; lets them have the ball on the foot till they come almost to the goal, and then defeats them of their great hopes; as he did this sinful couple. Balak had not his will, nor Balaam his wages; God fooled them both, pulling the morsel out of their mouths, that they had well-nigh devoured.” “The Lord reigneth.”
Before Balaam takes his departure from Balak he declares unto him still further the blessedness of Israel and their relations in the future to neighbouring nations. “And now, behold, I go unto my people; come, I will advertise thee,” &c. Some expositors are of opinion that this refers to the diabolical counsel of Balaam spoken of in Num_31:16; and Rev_2:14. We reject this opinion for three reasons:—
(1) No such counsel is recorded or even further referred to here.
(2) The statement of the prophet in this verse is directly opposed to this opinion. He advertises Balak what Israel would do to the Moabites, not what the Moabites should do to Israel.
(3) The advertisement he is about to make to Balak points on to the distant future. The events were to take place “in the latter days,” or “at the end of the days,” an expression which cannot possibly apply to transactions which took place almost immediately afterward.
III. The lessons to be deduced from this part of the history.
1. That human nature is deeply selfish. The selfishness of Balaam has been conspicuous throughout; and now that of Balak is clearly revealed. Formerly, when he hoped to gain his ends by means of Balaam’s powers, he was lavish in his courtesies and compliments to him; but now he sees that this hope was vain, he utters to him words of scornful and stinging rebuke. (b)
2. That evil enterprises have painful issues. This enterprise has brought to Balak loss, bitter disappointment, and sore annoyance; and to Balaam disappointment equally bitter, painful humiliation, and heavy guilt. God frustrates the designs of his enemies. Even when in the beginning evil courses seem pleasant and prosperous, the end thereof will be wretched and perhaps ruinous. “There is a way that seemeth right,” &c. (Pro_14:12). (c)
3. That sin is utterly impolitic. Balaam brought upon himself the scorn of Balak, guilt of conscience, and the anger of God, for “the wages of unrighteousness,” which he failed to obtain. Sin is extreme folly. The sinner is the greatest fool. (d)
4. That worldliness is utterly incompatible with obedience to God. Balaam tried to harmonize them, and miserably failed in the attempt. He succeeded in neither his worldly nor his religious aims. He did not obtain “the rewards of divination;” he incurred the righteous anger of the Lord God. “Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”
ILLUSTRATIONS
(a) We observe here perfect veracity with utter want of truth. Balaam was veracious. He will not deceive Balak. And yet there was utter truthlessness of heart. Balaam will not utter what is not true; but he will blind himself so that he may not see the truth, and so speak a lie, believing it to be the truth. He will only speak the tiling he feels; but he is not careful to feel all that is true. He goes to another place, where the whole truth may not force itself upon his mind—to a hill where he shall not see the whole of Israel: from hill to hill for the chance of getting to a place where the truth may disappear. But there stands the stubborn fact—Israel is blessed; and he will look at the fact in every way, to see if he cannot get it into a position where it shall be seen no longer. Ostrich like!
Such a character is not so uncommon as, perhaps, we think. There is many a lucrative business which involves misery and wrong to those who are employed in it The man would be too benevolent to put the gold in his purse if he knew of the misery. But he takes care not to know. There is many a dishonourable thing done at an election, and the principal takes care not to inquire. Many an oppression is exercised on a tenantry, and the landlord receives his rent, and asks no questions. Or there is some situation which depends upon the holding of certain religions opinions, and the candidate has a suspicion that if he were to examine, he could not conscientiously profess these opinions, and perchance he takes care not to examine.
There are men who would not play false, and yet would wrongly win. There are men who would not lie, and yet who would bribe a poor man to support a cause which he believes in his soul to be false. There are men who would resent at the sword’s point the charge of dishonour, who would yet for selfish gratification entice the weak into sin, and damn body and soul in hell. There are men who would be shocked at being called traitors, who in time of war will yet make a fortune by selling arms to their country’s foes. There are men respectable and respected, who give liberally, and support religious societies, and go to church, and would not take God’s name in vain, who have made wealth, in some trade of opium or spirits, out of the wreck of innumerable human lives. Balaam is one of the accursed spirits now, but he did no more than these are doing.—F. W. Robertson, M. A.
(4) Remember with yourself how gloriously Balaam was welcomed and entertained when he came, and lay it to these words now. Is not the case much altered? So ever was it, and ever will it be in this false world. Men have their drifts and ends, when they give grace and countenance to men; they shoot at a mark, which if they may hit by your means, you shall be a white son still, and all shall be well while you serve their purposes. But if once you fail, and prefer conscience and honesty before their desire, truth before falsehood, and God before the devil; then hands be smitten together, the foot stamps, the brow frowns, the countenance and heart are changed. Great things were intended to us in favour and love, but now all is lost, we must fly to our place, and be packing. And who hath kept us from honour but God? The fault must be laid upon Him. This to many falleth out most unjustly; but here to Balaam it was due, whose heart was tainted with desire of wicked gain, and so lost both God and his gain. An example to worldly minds if God have any portion in them.—Babington.
Was there ever a man that was more moral and cultured than Lord Chesterfield? and was there ever a man that was more exquisitely selfish than he? Men whose tendencies incline them to the world, come to see that if they act from motives of economy, it is best for them to go through life with such and such graces and proprieties. They are persuaded that it is the most profitable way to go through life. On that ground they are moral; but that leaves oat some of the essential elements of character. It is not conscience that controls them; it is not faith; it is not hope; it is not spiritual purity; it is not aspiration; it is not rectitude in any shape; it is only a refined form of selfishness. A man may be a thoroughly moral man outwardly, and a thoroughly immoral man inwardly.—H. W. Beecher.
(c) It is ill with thee, sinner, because thy joys all hang upon a thread. Let life’s thread be cut, and where are thy merriments? Thy dainty music and thy costly cups, the mirth that flashes from thy wanton eye, and the jollity of thy thoughtless soul, where will these be when death, with bony hand, shall come and touch thy heart, and make it cease its beating? It is ill with you, because when these joys are over you have no more to come. You have one bright chapter in the story, but ah! the never-ending chapter, it is woe, woe, woe, from the beginning to the end: the woe of death, and after death the judgment, and after judgment the woe of condemnation, and then that woe that rolleth onward for ever—eternal woe, never coming to a pause, never knowing an alleviation—C. H. Spurgeon.
(d) Be not like the foolish drunkard who, staggering home one night, saw his candle lit for him. “Two candles,” said he, for his drunkenness made him see double; “I will blow out one;” and, as he blew it out, in a moment he was in the dark Many a man sees double through the drunkenness of sin—he thinks he has one life to sow his wild oats in, and then the last part of life in which to turn to God: so, like a fool, he blows out the only candle that he has, and in the dark he will have to lie down forever.—Ibid.
BALAAM’S FOURTH PARABLE: THE STAR AND THE SCEPTRE OF ISRAEL
(Num_24:15-19)
The introduction to this prophecy (Num_24:15-16) corresponds with that which the seer used before (Num_24:3-4), and which we have already noticed.
The predictions recorded in Num_24:17-19 were partially fulfilled in the reign of David (comp. 2Sa_8:2; 2Sa_8:14; 1Ki_11:15-16; Psa_60:8). But it is historically certain that they were not fully accomplished in the reign of David or any of his successors. The Star that shall come out of Jacob, and the Sceptre that shall rise out of Israel, as Canon Liddon observes, “is something more than an anticipation of the reign of David: it manifestly points to the glory and power of a Higher Royalty.” (a)
It appears to us quite certain that the prophecy applies to Christ and His Kingdom. It sets before us—
I. The glory of the Messiah as a King.
“There shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel.” Attersoll thus interprets the symbol of the Star: “He is called by this name—First, because He is the fountain of all salvation and comfort; Secondly, to teach that all men by nature walk in darkness, and in the shadow of death; Thirdly, because He will give those that are His, the light of knowledge in this life, and the light of perfect glory in the life to come.” We are not sure that the figure warrants all this. But our Lord spake of Himself as “The bright and morning Star” (Rev_22:16), and He is frequently spoken of in the Scriptures as the great Light for the moral darkness of the world (Luk_1:78-79; Luk_2:32; Joh_1:4-9; Joh_8:12; 2Pe_1:19). (b)
But the principal idea seems to be the glory of Christ as the Sovereign of His people. He is, as M. Stuart (on Rev_22:16) says, “a King all resplendent and glorious, like to the morning star (comp. 2Sa_21:17; Isa_14:12; Num_24:17; Dan_12:3). It is the splendour and beauty of the morning star which makes it here an object of comparison with the splendour of the King of Zion.” His royal glory is not material, but moral. It consists in such things as these—
1. The benevolence and sublimity of the objects for which He reigns. He reigns to save and bless men, &c.
2. The righteousness of His laws. These are “holy and just and good.”
3. The wisdom of His methods. He governs not by force or coercion, but by persuasion and inspiration.
4. The character and privileges of His subjects. They are upright and holy in character. They have the exalted privileges of sons of God here, and shall have eternal blessedness and glory hereafter. The glory of this King is set forth in language of splendid eloquence and power in Psalms 77.
II. The extent of the Messiah’s conquests.
1. He shall vanquish all His enemies. “He shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the sons of confusion; … and shall destroy him that remaineth of the city” “Edom and Moab are named by Balaam, as they are also by the prophets (of., e.g., Isa_11:14), not for their own sake merely, but as representatives of the heathen nations (goyeem, cf. Num_24:8), who were hostile to the theocracy. As Jacob then figures as a constant type of the Kingdom of Messiah in the prophets, so too do Edom and Moab of the enemies of that Kingdom; and in the threatened ruin of Edom and Moab is indicated the eventual destruction of all that resist the Kingdom of God in its power.” But how will the King destroy the rebellious foes of His Kingdom? May we not reply, by transforming them into loyal subjects. An enemy is never so completely and gloriously destroyed as when he is converted into a true friend. But if any will not be vanquished by the kindness of the King, they will be broken by His power. “Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron,” &c. (Psa_2:8-12). (c)
2. He shall take to Himself all the possessions of His vanquished enemies. “And Edom shall be a possession, Seir also shall be a possession for his enemies.” All treasures and possessions shall surely be ultimately surrendered to Christ the King. The possessors of wealth and of power, the sons of science and the sons of song, the gifted and the beautiful, all will lay their treasures at His feet (comp. Psa_72:10-11; Psa_72:15).
III. The prosperity of the Messiah’s subjects.
“And Israel shall do valiantly.” “Whilst Edom falls, Israel will acquire power.” The Church of the living God, supported from on high, has bravely repelled the assaults of all its enemies, and has come forth from every conflict, not only victorious, but with increased courage and strength for future battles.
When Christ shall again appear, and every eye shall see Him, how shall we behold Him?—with joy as our Saviour and King?—or, how? (d)
ILLUSTRATIONS
(a) Upon whom did the seer look when from the summit of Peor he beheld afar a mysterious personage, and gave as His heraldry the sceptre and the star? This can be none other than He who arose splendid in the midst of universal night—a night of ignorance; a night of guilt—as “a light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of His people Israel;” this can be none other than He by whose coming the shadows of ceremonial institutions were dispersed, and who gave to the world the “means of grace and the hope of glory;” this can be none other than He whose setting was in blood, but that blood the purifier of a polluted earth, the purchase of such irradiations from the heaven which is above as shall finally deepen into a sky without a cloud, a day without a night; this can be none other than He who has been invested with all power in heaven and earth, who must reign till He hath put all His enemies under His feet, and whose dominion is to be established upon the wreck of all human sovereignty; and this is He—we know Him, though spoken of in parables, and shadowed by mystic imagery; He came out of Jacob, He rose out of Israel; for “to the Jews as concerning the flesh Christ came who is over all, God blessed for ever.” And if it were Christ’s day upon which Abraham rejoicingly gazed when looking from the summit of Moriah down the long perspective of many generations, it was Christ’s day which was beheld by Balaam, when from Peor’s top he discerned, amid the mighty darkness of futurity, a single luminary, the harbinger of morning. If it were Christ of whom the dying Jacob foretold when he spoke of the sceptre departing from Judah, that Shiloh might appear; it was of Christ that Balaam pronounced when he predicted that out of the very people whose sovereignty was then to be destroyed, should arise a sceptre before which even Moab must bow; and Balaam might or might not be aware who the Being was of whom he said, “I shall see Him, but not now; I shall behold Him, but not nigh.” But we who live in the dawning of that day for which prophets and righteous men longed—we who see advances already made towards the glorious consummation when Jesus as “King of kings and Lord of lords” shall reign triumphant over every nation and tribe and tongue,—we know the Personage whose bright emblazonry was shown to the seer on the vast gloom of future time, and we fall before the “one Mediator between God and man” as the “Star that should come out of Jacob, and the Sceptre that should rise out of Israel.”—Henry Melville, B.D.
(b) Are there reasons to be given why a star should be selected when the Saviour is to be figuratively described? We reply at once—that everything which has to do with light may be fitly taken as an image of Christ. There is nothing which so fitly represents the moral condition of the world when Christ appeared on earth, as darkness. “Darkness covered the earth, and gross darkness the people;” and since Christ came to diffuse the knowledge of truth—in other words, to scatter this darkness—His office cannot be better represented than when he is exhibited under figures derived from the nature and the agency of light. But yet you may say, why describe Him as a star—a star which shines with comparatively faint lustre, and which does little towards radiating a benighted creation? Why not rather take the sun as His emblem—the sun which “cometh forth in his strength as a bridegroom from his chamber;” before which the shadows of the night immediately flee, and which pours lavishly its glorious radiance over earth, sea, and sky? Certainly it would seem at first sight, as though the sun were a more appropriate emblem of Christ than a star; and accordingly, whilst you may often hear Christians speaking of their Saviour as the “Sun of righteousness,” you will hardly ever hear them speak of Him as the bright and morning star. They have indeed scriptural warrant in calling Him the “Sun of righteousness,” seeing that the words occur in the prophecy of Malachi, and evidently are used of the Redeemer. But this is the single passage in which the emblem of the Sun is employed; whilst that of the star is not of unfrequent occurrence. And if you examine attentively the passage in Malachi, you will find cause to think that it refers specially to a yet future time: for the prophet has just been speaking of that day of the Lord which seems in scripture to denote the second advent of Christ; and it is after describing the fearful desolation which that day will bring upon the wicked, that he is commissioned to say for the comfort of the godly—“But unto you that fear My name, shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in His wings” The title—“Sun of righteousness,” as thus given to Christ, would appear to mark with how much fuller and more glorious manifestations the Saviour will show Himself upon His return to this earth, than are vouchsafed to us under the present dispensation. He will be a sun to His Church throughout the millennial and heavenly states; but He is only as a star till those states shall come. The night is yet upon us and around us, though that night may be far spent, and the day may be at hand. “We see only through a glass darkly,” as we can “know but in part.” Still it is no longer the starless night which it was ere the Redeemer brought life and immortality to light by His gospel. A Star—a morning Star has crossed the horizon, and a tempest-tossed world, in danger of everlasting shipwreck, may steer itself by the light of that Star to the haven where it would be, and where there is to be no more night, though no more sun. And thus, if an emblem is to be found which shall at one and the same time pourtray the Saviour as the source of moral illumination to the world, and yet show that this illumination is that of the dawn, rather than that of the noon-tide, such an emblem must be a star—a morning star, rather than that of the great luminary of the heavens. Christianity, as set up in the world is but in its twilight; the night is still unbroken over a vast portion of our globe; and even where revelation has been received and rejoiced in, we must rather speak of streaks like those on the eastern sky, whose gold and purple prophecy of morning, rather than those rich full lustres which flood creation when the sun has reached the zenith. On every account, therefore—on account of what He is to the world, and on account of what (as yet, at least) He is not—is our Redeemer aptly figured by the emblem which He applied to Himself—the emblem of our text—the emblem of the bright and morning star.—Ibid.
(c) The sign of the Son of Man is yet to be seen in the heavens, where it was beheld by Balaam, from the summit of Peor. I know not what that sign shall be; perhaps again the star—fearful meteor!—like that which hung over the fated Jerusalem, boding its destruction; perhaps again the sceptre—brilliant constellation!—burning with majesty and betokening the extinction of all meaner royalty; perhaps the Cross as it appeared to the Roman’s eye, when he was taught to know the God of battles, and to place Christianity upon the throne of the Cæsars. But whatever the sign, the Being whose emblazonry it exhibits, shall come to deal out a long delayed vengeance on tribes that have refused to walk in His light and submit to His rule. “Associate yourselves, O ye people,” saith Isaiah, “and ye shall be broken in pieces; and give ear all ye of far countries; gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces.” Yes! Edom, and Moab, and Seir, and Sheth, literally the foes of Israel in earlier days, and figuratively those enemies of the Church who shall league for its overthrow at the time of the end—against you shall that Mighty One arise, whose type in the person of David trampled down the nations who first bore your names. And, therefore, do we feel that the future was indeed giving up its secrets to Balaam, as he stood upon Peor, with Israel encamped in the valley beneath. We place ourselves at his side. What seeth he? Dim and mystic things are coming up to his view; a lonely yet a splendid star is rising out of Jacob, and from Israel is proceeding a sceptre, but it looks not like that which a mortal king wields. What mean these hieroglyphics? Whose is this strange yet beautiful heraldry? The answer is easy. Yonder star is the image of Christ, the enlightener of the world; and yonder sceptre is His, for the whole world shall do Him homage. Yes, you say, but ere Christ can shine upon the nations and reign gloriously over them, there is to be battle, and tumult, and earthquake, and destruction. Prophecy is express on this, that there will be a great banding of the powers of earth against “the Lord and His Christ,” and these powers must be beaten down ere the reign of righteousness can begin. Beholdest thou, O Seer, aught in the distance which seems to tell thee of foes met and overthrown by Him who hath for His sign the sceptre and the star? We pause for our answer, that we may be certified that it is indeed the Christ on whom the seer looks; and we feel that the prediction is complete when the prophet exclaims, “He shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Sheth. And Edom shall be a possession; Seir also shall be a possession for his enemies.”—Ibid.
(d) It has been said by some commentators, that the words of our text have reference to his own final doom, as though Balaam was made aware that he should be banished from the presence of the Being whose coming he was commissioned to predict—“I shall see Him, but not now; I shall behold Him, but not nigh.” He shall be compelled to look on the Mediator; every eye shall see Him; but in place of being allowed to approach Him, he shall be amongst those who will be bidden to depart. Oh! behold Him now by faith as “the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world.” Then, when He shall come in power and great majesty, you shall behold Him, not at a distance, as a stranger, but nigh to you as a deliverer, an advocate, a friend. The “Star” shall light up “the valley of the shadow of death;” the “Sceptre” shall be extended to you in token of favour and acceptance; though as with a rod of iron He breaks in pieces the hosts of the wicked.—Ibid.
CHRIST THE STAR SPOKEN OF BY BALAAM
(Num_24:15-17)
It has pleased God on various occasions to make known His will to persons of a very unworthy character; and to show that His ways and thoughts are not regulated by the vain maxims of human wisdom. He proclaimed to Ahaz the conception of our Emmanuel in the womb of a virgin. To Nebuchadnezzar He revealed the successive destruction of the four great monarchies, and the erection of the Messiah’s kingdom on the ruin of them all. Thus, in the passage before us, we are informed that He declared to Balaam not only His purposes respecting Israel and the nations that surrounded them, but the advent of that glorious Person, who, as a star should enlighten, and as a prince should govern, the whole world.
I. The introduction to the prophecy.
1. It seems very strongly to characterize the person who delivered it. When prophecies have been delivered by pious men, they have either been introduced with a plain declaration, “Thus saith the Lord;” or the prefatory observations have been calculated to exalt and glorify God. But Balaam’s prediction is ushered in with a pompous exhibition of his own attainments, intended, as it should seem, to wrest from Balak that respect and honour which he had failed to procure by his preceding prophecies.
2. It shows us how much knowledge we may possess, while yet we are utterly destitute of converting grace. The most highly favoured of God’s servants, from the beginning of the world, had not delivered a clearer prophecy of Christ than that which was uttered by Balaam on this occasion. Yet where shall we find a baser character than Balaam’s? Having considerable knowledge of the true God, he still continues to use enchantments as a magician. He was so covetous that he preferred “the wages of unrighteousness” to every consideration, either of duty to God or of love to man (2Pe_2:15-16). His hypocrisy was conspicuous from first to last; for in the midst of all his high professions of regard to the will and word of God, he laboured to the utmost to counteract the designs of God and to reverse His decrees. More murderous purposes never were entertained in the heart of man; for it was his most earnest desire to curse all the people of God, and to consign them over to destruction by the sword of their enemies. His last act especially was truly diabolical: when he found he could not prevail to destroy their bodies, he taught their enemies how to tempt them and to destroy their souls (Rev_2:14). After comparing his character with his professions and attainments in divine knowledge, what shall we say? Let us never value ourselves on any discoveries of divine truth, unless we have suitable affections and a correspondent practice (1Co_13:1-3; Mat_7:22-23).
II. The prophecy itself.
1. In its primary sense it must be understood in reference to David. The immediate intention of Balaam was to inform Balak what the Israelites should “do to his people in the latter days.” Accordingly he declares that one, like a star for brightness, should arise from among the Jews at a distant period, to sway the Jewish sceptre, and to destroy the Kingdoms of Edom and Moab. This was fulfilled in David (2Sa_8:2; 2Sa_8:14; Psa_60:8; 1Ki_11:15-16).
2. But there can be no doubt of its ultimately referring to Christ Himself. He is called in Scripture “the Daystar,” “the bright and morning star;” nor did ever any one arise with splendour comparable to His. He too sat upon the throne of His father David, and exercised unlimited dominion. The children of Edom and Moab may be justly considered as representing the enemies of His Church and People. These He subdues and will finally destroy. “He must reign till He hath put all enemies under His feet.” … HIM then did Balaam see, as Abraham also had seen four hundred years before; but not, alas! with Abraham’s joyful hope.
Improvement.
1. Should not WE then rejoice who have seen this prophecy accomplished? The star is risen, &c. We have only to yield ourselves up to Jesus, and we shall enjoy all the peace and glory of His Kingdom. Let us improve our privileges: let us pray that this “Daystar may arise in our hearts:” and let this Monarch so captivate our souls, as to lead us to a willing and unreserved obedience.
2. Should we not be thankful too that we have One engaged to vanquish all our enemies? This is the work and office of the Lord Jesus; nor will He ever fail in the execution of it. The Promised Land is before us, and in vain shall our enemies conspire against us. “Be strong and very courageous.” Let the weakest rejoice in a confident expectation of victory; for “God is not a man, that He should lie; neither the son of man, that He should repent.”—C. Simeon, M.A.
BALAAM’S FINAL PARABLES: NATIONAL REVOLUTIONS
(Num_24:20-24)
These prophetic parables teach—
I. That national revolutions exhibit the instability of earthly greatness and temporal power.
See this in the destruction of the Amalekites, which was commenced under Saul and completed under Hezekiah (1 Samuel 15; 1Sa_27:8; 1Sa_30:1-19; 1Ch_4:43). The Kenites, too, though for a long time secure, were at length oppressed and carried into captivity by the Assyrians. Assyria and Eber also, descendants of Shem, were conquered by powers from the (to Balaam) unknown western regions. And finally these western powers “shall perish for ever.” The greatest and mightiest empires of ancient days have passed away. All earthly things are transient. (a)
II. That national revolutions manifest the principles of Divine retribution.
In the revolutions predicted by Balaam we have clear and striking illustrations of the great truth that the Divine retribution corresponds to human character and conduct. The Amalekites were a warlike people; and by battles they were destroyed. “They that take the sword shall perish with the sword.” Again, we see that empires obtained by conquest shall be lost by conquest. By force the Assyrian empire had chiefly been formed, and by force it passed away. We have another illustration of this retributive law in the history of the Kenites. They had been kind to Israel (Exodus 18); Moses had promised them that they should share in the goodness of God to Israel (chap Num_10:32); Balaam here predicts for them long continued safety; and, as a matter of fact, they shared the fortunes of the Israelites until the captivity of the ten tribes. As v. Hofmann observes: “Kain, which had left its inaccessible mountain home in Horeb, enclosed as it was by the desert, to join a people who were only wandering in search of a home, by that very act really placed its nest upon a still safer rock.” They had aided Israel, and in turn, they were aided by Israel. In the revolutions of history the kindnesses which have been shown to the cause and people of God are remembered and recompensed by Him. “Whosoever shall give you a cup of water to drink in My Name, because ye belong to Christ, verily I say unto you, he shall not lose his reward.” Thus these historical revolutions teach us that, “With what measure we mete, it shall be measured to us again”; and, “whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap,” &c. (b)
III. That national revolutions are ordered by God.
“God doeth this” (Num_24:23). “Whoever are the instruments, He is the supreme director.” “The Lord bringeth low, and lifteth up,” &c. (1Sa_2:7-8). “That bringeth the princes to nothing; He maketh the judges of the earth as vanity,” &c. (Isa_40:23-24). “Thus saith the Lord God; Remove the diadem, and take off the crown,” &c. (Eze_21:26-27). (c)
Learn—
1. The great duty and interest of nations to seek for and to embody truth and righteousness in their governments, institutions, &c. Pro_14:34; Pro_25:5; Pro_29:14; Isa_60:12.
2. The duty and interest of all men to set their “affections on things above, not on things on the earth.” The latter are mutable and transient, the former are immutable and permanent. Truth, holiness, love, are abiding things; seek after these. (d)
ILLUSTRATIONS
(a) Earthly inheritances are but of brief continuance. The possession of them is limited and uncertain. To every one, they are but at most for term of life. As one of the kings of Spain answered to one of his courtiers, who, thinking to please his master, wished that kings were immortal: “If that had been, said he, “I should never have reigned.”—Leighton.
All earthly things last and endure but for a season; men are mortal, riches are uncertain, favour is vanity, honour is changeable, treasures are transitory, pleasures are unstable, profits are corruptible, friends are fading, and oftentimes turn to be enemies: only the treasures of heaven, the favour of God, the pleasures of eternal glory, the riches of the world to come, are immortal, and never decay.—Attersoll.
(b) God’s rewards and God’s punishments are all natural. Distinguish between arbitrary and natural. Death is an arbitrary punishment for forgery: it might be changed for transportation. It is not naturally connected. It depends upon the will of the law-maker. But trembling nerves are the direct and natural results of intemperance. They are in the order of nature the results of wrong-doing. The man reaps what he has sown. Similarly in rewards. If God gave riches in return for humbleness, that would be an arbitrary connection. He did give such a reward to Solomon But when He gives Life Eternal, meaning by Life Eternal not duration of existence, but heavenly quality of existence, it is all natural. The seed sown in the ground contains in itself the future harvest. The harvest is but the development of the germ of life in the seed. A holy act strengthens the inward holiness. It is a seed of life growing into more life. “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he reap.” He that sows much, thereby becomes more conformed to God than he was before—in heart and spirit. That is his reward and harvest. And just as among the apostles, there was one whose spirit, attuned to love, made him emphatically the disciple whom Jesus loved, so shall there be some who, by previous discipline of the Holy Ghost, shall have more of His mind, and understand more of His love, and drink deeper of His joy than others. They that have sowed bountifully.—F. W. Robertson, M.A.
For another illustration on this point, see p. 89.
(c) God increaseth the nations and destroyeth them. He enlargeth the nations and straiteneth them again. We see only the intermediate agents, we are prone to forget that God is the Creator and Controller as well of the moral as of physical volcanoes, and, consequently, are led to imagine, in the day of panic, that sovereignty is engulfed in confusion, and that the garments of battle are the shroud of government. It is thus that the devoutest of us may not unfrequently alarm ourselves into temporary Atheism, and hasten for refuge to the mud-fortresses of mechanical power, when we should fly straight to the pavilion of God. “The Lord reigneth,” &c. His throne is established of old; He is from everlasting. Kings are His servants, princes are His menials, the universe in His footstool, and heaven itself but a flash of His benignant eye.
We shall have but a shallow knowledge of history if we study it merely in the faint light reflected by victorious thrones, or by the troubled glare of oft-recurring battles. God is the central fact in all history. Growing nations are but his expanding smile, dwindling empires are but His darkening frown. Nebuchadnezzar was only the menial servant of the Most High when he built the “great Babylon” which he idolized, and all the conquerors of proud Chaldea, from Cyrus to Tamerlane, were the hirelings of the Infinite King. The Ptolemies and the Pharaohs of Egypt held their lease of power from the Most High: and the pompous march of the Cæsars was but as the dance of the ephemera over the summer stream. “He bringeth the princes to nothing,” &c. (Isa_40:23-24). Can it be right, or wise, to ignore His existence when we open the archives of history? Can he have a true conception of the magnitude and grandeur of the landscape who has examined it only by the feeble glimmer of a wasting rushlight? Foolish man! Even an atom would not reveal its beauties in such a mocking light; how much less, then, the mountain, wood, and stream of nature’s palaces. No, no! The sun must reveal it. And so with history: let the Sun of heaven blaze upon it, and every pinnacle becomes a glorified purpose—every want kindles into sublime significance—Joseph Parker, D.D.
(d) Oh, that I could pour in upon the young the majesty and sanctity of living for the invisible; that is to say, for honour, and truth, and fidelity! Oh, that I could make you feel how essentially brittle, how friable, how perishable, are all material sources of strength! God is the centre of life, and spiritual realities are the only things that will endure. Stone and iron, and silver and gold, and timber, and cities, and nations, and outward things, are but pictures, painted soon to fade away; while truth and love, and fidelity, and purity, shall last for ever and for ever.—H. W. Beecher.
DEATH, THE CROWN OF LIFE
(Num_24:23)
“Alas, who shall live when God doeth this?”
Our text may be considered either as a plaint, a sigh, or a song—a dirge winding to a march. There are, in reality, three questions interlinked in this passage. It is a question of studious curiosity. What kind of a race will then inhabit the earth! Men are naturally inquisitive to know who are to be their successors. Why not? They are to be the heirs in turn of our heritage; the tenants who are to move in as we move out; to enjoy our repairs, and to do, in turn, their own repairing, for those who shall follow them.
Who are they? The question deepens into a sigh. Here we go! just as we begin to take in the meaning of things about us; scarce sooner found than lost. Death! what is it? It must be a mystery full of meaning. It seems as natural as to be born. Has Heaven hid the happiness of death, that man may dare to live? And what is life? It is not so much one grand event as a conjunction of grand events. All are more or less alive to the activities that surround them. All are more or less sensitive to the links that unite us to coming time.
The future is full of suggestion. The poet loves to forecast it for its own sake, and fill the atmosphere with sunshine, or with shade, as suits his fancy best. The poet is an artist too. He paints for us the landscape of the future, and interprets to our strange surprise the distant scenes embodied there. The philosopher listens eagerly for hints that shall confirm his airy schemes and idle speculations. The statesman is zealously intent on discovering the wedge that shall cleave the knots of craggy policies. The saint is anxious to learn of God and Heaven, and solve the awful mystery of our being.
But what of that which is to transpire long after all these are past? What will go on here when I am gone? Some one will tread the path that I am treading! Some one will saunter in the grove where I now linger!… Some one will cry out with unutterable longing, as we now cry, “Alas, who shall live when God doeth this?”
We are baffled at the grave. We put our eyes close to the bars, but we cannot see. Death is the crown of life; and yet it is not the triumph of man over time, but of time over man.… Do lasting slumbers hold us? Is there no more of us when we are gone? Oh! the melancholy ring of those words—“When I am gone!” I admit it is a solemn thing to die. It is a dread passage; and what may happen after it? There is an eternity to this side the grave; the world shall be moving on when I am gone—and shall I then be put out for ever? The emphasis is on this wise—this world as it is to be. Where are those who, in the times past, have been dreaming of rapid propulsion as they plodded slowly on? Where are those whose genius had almost wrested from nature the longed-for secret, but died without the sight? Know they now of swift-going ships and dashing railway trains that traverse mountain and valley like things of life? Where are those who dreamed of messages borne on the wings of the wind? Do they read the swift-flying signals from telegraph wires, leaving the winds lagging languidly behind? Verily, what hath God wrought! Yet these are but the meagre preliminaries to what shall be. When the reduplicated forces of the earth shall be put under command; when man shall sit in plumed victory over the opposing energies of nature; when the sword shall be beaten into a ploughshare, and the spear into a pruning hook; when health shall mantle the cheek, and happiness shall festoon the fireside; when man shall keep faith with his fellow-man, and worship and adore his Maker. “Alas, who shall live when God doeth this?” Shall I live then? The thought gladdens, but it maddens as well. The scepticism that would console me with the thought that death is but a momentary pang; that I shall sleep in death’s dateless night; that all these struggles shall have come to their rest; ah! this scepticism is but a miserable comforter after all. I cry out and complain with all the sadness of my rational nature. I am full of longing to know when this world shall have been finished; then, where shall I be?
When geology shall cease to tamper with the rock; when disease shall be no longer necessary; when Death shall lie on his death-bed; “Alas! who shall live when God doeth this?” The Great Omnipotent does not weary. Every age becomes impatient; but His doings, as well as His revelation, assure us that with Him “a thousand years are as one day.” … When we have fought our brave round, the Great Captain will order us to the rear and bring up fresh recruits. But what of the battle? Shall we know nothing of its sequel? “Alas! who shall live when God doeth this?” It is a question of sublime importance to us.
It is voiced in another shape—“If a man die, shall he live again?” God has provided a way by which His people may be released, and yet view this earth in all its perfect beauty and glory. The resurrection solves this mighty problem. All who labour shall see the reward of their labour. Every husband man whose time is due to toil shall be gladdened by the sight of the harvest. The sower shall be partaker of the fruit. “I heard a voice from heaven,” &c. (Rev_14:13). God works in the shadow of time. Even while we sleep he toils on; His agencies are ever on the alert.
Presently time shall have halted from its confused scramble, and God’s finished workmanship shall have been taken from the loom, and the tapestry shall be revealed in all its beauty and perfectibility—the pattern will be complete. Then shall we learn that when we die we do not die out; that death is not death; that to die is not to die, but to blossom into life. We say good night to earth, but not good-bye. And all this we shall know when sin has perished; when death is dead; when tears are dried; when earth is immortal—we may then be alive, and never die again. Blessed reality close at hand! Shall we, every one, live when God doeth this?—H. S. Carpenter, D.D. (Abridged from The Christian World Pulpit)
THE PARTING OF BALAAM AND BALAK
(Num_24:25)
Instead of “Balaam returned to his place,” it is better to translate, “turned towards his place.” “That he really returned home is not implied in the words themselves; and the question, whether he did so, must be determined from other circumstances. In the further course of the history, we learn that Balaam went to the Midianites, and advised them to seduce the Israelites to unfaithfulness to Jehovah, by tempting them to join in the worship of Peor (Num_31:16). He was still with them at the time when the Israelites engaged in the war of vengeance against that people, and was slain by the Israelites along with the five princes of Midian (Num_31:8; Jos_13:22). At the time when he fell into the hands of the Israelites, he no doubt made a full communication to the Israelitish general, or to Phinehas, who accompanied the army as priest, concerning his blessings and prophecies, probably in the hope of saving his life, though he failed to accomplish his end.” Such is the opinion of Keil and Del. Hengstenberg, however, suggests “that after Balaam’s departure from Balak, he took his way into the camp of the Israelites, and there made known his prophecies to Moses, or to the elders of Israel, in the hope of obtaining from them the reward which Balak had withheld, and that it was not till after his failure to obtain full satisfaction to his ambition and covetousness here that he went to the Midianites, to avenge himself upon the Israelites, by the proposals that he made to them.”
I. Balaam and Balak parted, having utterly failed in their designs.
Balak had not obtained what he desired. His repeated sacrifices to Jehovah, his tempting offers of large rewards and splendid honours to Balaam, and all his other efforts, had proved fruitless and vain: Israel was not cursed but repeatedly and richly blessed. Balaam, too, had not obtained what he so eagerly longed for. He had found himself utterly unable to curse the chosen people, and had not gained “the rewards of divination.” The coveted wealth and honours, for which he had risked and dared so much, he had not secured. The prophet and the king were both bitterly disappointed and vexed; and during all their plottings and endeavours to curse them, the Israelites were peacefully and securely encamped in the neighbouring plains.
Learn: the devices and deeds of the wicked against the cause and people of God are ever foiled by Him. He that keepeth Israel can neither be surprised, nor circumvented, nor overpowered (Psalms 131). (a)
II. They parted with characters considerably modified by their association with each other.
The solicitations and temptations of Balak had influenced the character of Balaam; and the character and conduct of Balaam had exercised no slight influence upon Balak. What was the result of these influences? We know that the character of Balaam had sadly deteriorated since the first embassage from Balak had visited him; he had also incurred the wrath of God by reason of his sins; and he went forward to deeper and more diabolical wickedness, and to a doom of appalling darkness. And it is impossible to conclude that Balak was not injured by the influence of Balaam. His heinous designs had been encouraged, his hopes allowed and then blighted, and his temper irritated and embittered by the seer. They had mutually influenced each other for evil; they parted worse men than they were when first they met.
Learn: that in our associations with our fellowmen we are ever exerting a most important influence upon their character and destiny. We meet and part; but in our intercourse we have contributed something to the development of each other’s character either for good or for evil. We shall never be the same beings as we should have been if we had never met. (b)
III. They parted, but not for ever.
Balaam and Balak will meet again. They will both see Him of whom Balaam prophesied, “They shall see Him, but not now: they shall behold Him, but not nigh.” “Behold, He cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see Him.” Then, if not before, these two who parted upon Peor will meet again; and then each of them will receive the justretribution of his character and conduct.
Learn.—That those who have been associated in this present life will meet again in the great hereafter. Tempter and tempted, oppressor and oppressed, companions in evil designs and deeds, and companions in noble aims and enterprises, all will meet again.
Let the thought of that future meeting have its due weight in regulating our present associations. (c)
ILLUSTRATIONS
(a) Sooner would God forget some planets that He had hurled into the firmament than forget the feeblest of His saints. “Behold, I have graven thee on the palms of My hands, thy walls are continually before Me.” “The very hairs of your head are numbered.” “As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about His people.” God has pledged His power on our behalf. He has sworn by His existence that we are dear to Him through the infinite merits of His Son. Who shall tell the limits of our security? If God keeps all worlds in motion—if the eyes of the universe are directed to Him for help—if all things are under His benignant control, we may content ourselves in the plenitude of our safety. Say not, brother, that thy solitude is hidden from God, or that in the time of affliction. He will forget thee; perish the thought! The mother may forget her sucking child; but God will hold thee in everlasting remembrance; for “the Lord taketh pleasure in His people” (Psa_149:4). God looks at the individual, not at the aggregate. The Christian cannot be lost in the world’s crowd. The Koh-i-noor may be taken for a piece of valueless glass, but the Christian gem cannot be mistaken of God. They who love God shall be accounted jewels in “that day.” Each is a part of the whole, and unity must be perfected in heaven.—Joseph Parker, D.D.
(b) No human being can come into this world without increasing or diminishing the sum total of human happiness, not only of the present, but of every subsequent age of humanity. No one can detach himself from this connection. There is no sequestered spot in the universe, no dark niche along the disk of non-existence, to which he can retreat from his relations to others, where he can withdraw the influence of his existence upon the moral destiny of the world. Everywhere his presence or absence will be felt. Everywhere he will have companions, who will be better or worse for his influence.
It is an old saying, and one of fearful and fathomless import, that we are here forming characters for eternity. Forming characters!—whose? our own? or others? Both; and in that momentous fact lie the peril and responsibility of our existence. Who is sufficient for the thought! thousands of my fellow-beings will yearly, and till years shall end, enter eternity with characters differing from those they would have carried thither had I never lived. The sunlight of that world will reveal my finger-marks in their primary formations, and in all their successive strata of thought and life. And they too will form other characters for eternity, until the influence of my existence shall be diffused through all the future generations of this world, and through all that shall be future to a certain point in the world to come. As the little silvery, circular ripple, set in motion by the falling pebble, expands from its inch of radius to the whole compass of the pool; so there is not a child, not an infant Moses placed, however softly, in his bulrush ark upon the sea of time, whose existence does not stir a ripple, gyrating outwards and on, until it shall have moved across and spanned the whole ocean of God’s eternity, stirring even the river of life, and the fountains at which His tall angels drink.—Elihu Burritt.
(c) It is said that among the high Alps at certain seasons the traveller is told to proceed very quietly, for on the steep slopes overhead the snow bangs so evenly balanced that the sound of a voice or the report of a gun may destroy the equilibrium, and bring down an immense avalanche, that will overwhelm everything in ruin in its downward course. And so about our way there may be a soul in the very crisis of its moral history, trembling between life and death, and a mere touch or shadow may determine its destiny. A young lady who was deeply impressed with the truth, and was ready, under a conviction of sin, to ask, “What must I do to be saved?” had all her solemn impressions dissipated by the unseemly jesting and laughter of a member of the Church by her side as she passed out of the sanctuary. Her irreverent and worldly spirit cast a shadow on that young lady “not far from the kingdom of God.” How important that we should always and everywhere walk worthy of our high calling as Christians! Let us remember that we are always casting the shadow of our real life upon some one; that somebody is following us as John followed Peter into the sepulchre. Happy if, when all the influences of life flow back and meet at the judgment, we can lift up clean hands and spotless robes, and say, “I am free from the blood of all men!” Happy then, to hear even one soul saying to us out of the great multitude, that, following the shadow of our Christian life and devotion, he found Jesus and heaven.—Dr. Storr.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 In Balaam we have a man who, while his…
Num 24:1
In Balaam we have a man who, while his audacity and superstition are monstrous, still has a strong fear of Almighty God upon him, a determination not to disobey Him openly, a hope that at last he may be found on God’s side. But it was with him as it is with others who deceive themselves and perform a juggler’s trick with their own soul. First they wish to have their own way in life and then have it blessed by God as if it were His way. Next they cease to think it impossible to elude or deceive even God. We see here a man beseeching God to allow him to do what He had twice and thrice forbidden him to do. God punished him by letting him take his own course. And it is after his example that all will be lost who from a high standing fall into wickedness. Take these three points:—
Read full note →
I. If Balaam was lost, it was through himself that he was lost. God gave him both an earnest desire to be saved and the knowledge how to be saved. Yet he is a lost man already when he comes before us. He was lost because he did not follow out his wish into action, and because he did not use the knowledge which he had.
II. What was the means he took for his own destruction, when he had both the wish and the knowledge to be saved? Exactly that which offers itself to us as very natural—an attempt to combine the service of God and the service of the world. He wished to stand well with the Lord God, but he also wished to have a brilliant alliance with and a strong influence over one of the principal personages of his time.
III. Even the disobedient prophet prophesied of Christ; even the disobedient boy serves Christ’s will. Both do it without meaning it; therefore they have no reward. But they cannot choose but serve Him one way or another.
Archbishop Benson, Boy Life: Sundays in Wellington College, p. 204.
Reference: Num 24:1.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. v., p. 237.
Num 24:3
I. Balaam was a man whose eye was open in his day. He was a man of splendid natural genius. We puzzle over the definition of genius; but perhaps it is only the open eye, the power to see things simply as they are. In every sphere of man’s intellectual activity the man of genius is the seer.
II. Balaam’s is at the same time a character of singular perplexity. He had both the open eye and the itching palm. He had power to see realities, while his heart lusted after vanities, and this condition is far from rare. Splendid endowments are often mated with moral narrowness or feebleness. On the lower level of Balaam’s life he was base and grovelling; but when God took possession of his genius, he yielded it readily, and then he was true as steel to the vision. But the sensual nature was really master. It dragged the eagle-eyed spirit down. Faint, trembling, before the vision, he soon dropped to his congenial earth again, and finally he buried his splendid genius in the pit.
Notice: (1) The only word which a man says with power is truth. "The word that God also saith, that shall stand." (2) Balaam saw with his open eye that the man who stands with God stands absolutely beyond reach of harm. (3) There was a third thing that Balaam saw: the man whom God blesses is blessed; the man whom God curses is cursed, absolutely and for ever.
J. Baldwin Brown, The Sunday Afternoon, pp. 370, 378.
Num 24:9
I. These were the words of the Eastern sage, as he looked down from the mountain height upon the camp of Israel, abiding among the groves of the lowland according to their tribes in order, discipline, and unity. Before a people so organised he saw well none of the nations round could stand. He likens them not to the locust swarm, the sea-flood, nor the forest fire, but to the most peaceful and most fruitful sight in nature or in art. They are spread forth like the watercourses which carry verdure and fertility as they flow. Their God-given mission may be stern, but it will be beneficent. They will be terrible in war; but they will be wealthy, prosperous, civilised, and civilising in peace.
II. The transformation thus wrought in less than two generations in those who had been the wretched slaves of Egypt was plainly owing to their forty years of freedom, but of freedom under a stern military education, of freedom chastened by discipline and organised by law. No nation of those days enjoyed a freedom comparable to that of the old Jews. They were the only constitutional people of the East. The burdensomeness of Moses’ law, ere it was overlaid in later days by rabbinical scrupulosity, has been much exaggerated. Little seemed to have been demanded of the Jews save those simple ten commandments which we still hold to be necessary for all civilised society.
III. And their obedience was, after all, a moral obedience, the obedience of free hearts and wills. Without their moral discipline they would have broken up, scattered, or perished, or at least remained as settlers or as slaves among the Arab tribes. With that moral discipline they held together and continued one people till the last; they couched, they lay down as a lion, and none dared rouse them up.
C. Kingsley, Discipline, and Other Sermons, p. 1.
Reference: Num 24:10-19.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. ii., p. 439.
Num 24:11
Balaam, it need hardly be said was a very eminent, he was even an extraordinary, man. He lived largely among the wild race of the Midianites, but he had gifts and powers which, so far as we know, were entirely unshared by those among whom he dwelt.
I. (1) He was a careful observer of contemporary events; he was a man of trained political sagacity. (2) He was in possession of a truth which, quite apart from its awful and intrinsic value, gave purpose and meaning to a human life: he believed in one God. (3) He was endowed in a high degree with the gift of supernatural prophecy. Of this gift his closing words to Balak afford one remarkable specimen. His prediction of the star and sceptre that were to arise out of Jacob is not fully satisfied by the conquests of David, of Omri, of John Hyrcanus; it points to the spiritual empire of Jesus Christ. Balaam was in one age what Melchisedek had been in another, and Job in a third—an organ of truth beyond the frontiers of the kingdom of truth.
II. With gifts like these, Balaam was naturally a person of great public consideration. Balak, the king of Moab, seems to have looked upon him as a very powerful wizard. Balak’s view of Balaam illustrates the way in which in all ages statesmen are apt to look upon religion and its representatives. They see in it only one of the great forces which modify or control human life, and they desire, by whatever means, to enlist it on the side of the policy or the government which they for the moment represent.
III. The real character of Balaam was a very mixed one. On the one hand, he was a man with a clear idea of duty, based on a certain knowledge of God; on the other, we find that his notion of duty was clearly not what he could discover to be God’s will, but only what God would not allow him to ignore. It was a minimising rule of duty.
IV. There are two or three considerations which the history suggests: (1) The ministry of grace and truth to others maybe quite independent of the personal character of the minister. (2) It is possible to know a great deal about truth, to make sacrifices for it, to be kept back from honour out of deference to its requirements, and yet to be at heart disloyal to it. (3) The only true safeguard against such a fate as Balaam’s is the love of God.
H. P. Liddon, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxiii., p. 241.
References: Num 24:11-13.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. x., p. 158. Num 24:15-24.—J. Monro Gibson, The Mosaic Era, p. 305. Num 24:15-25.—Expositor, 2nd series, vol. v., p. 341. Num 24:17.—Expositor, 3rd series, vol. v., p. 166; J. G. Murphy, The Book of Daniel, p. 18; H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No. 1664. Num 25:6-8.—J. M. Neale, Sermons in Sackville College, vol. i., p. 258. Num 25:11.—J. G. Rogers, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxi., p. 1. Num 25:12.—Parker, vol. iv., p. 60. Num 25:12, Num 25:13.—T. Arnold, Sermons, vol. vi., p. 49. Num 25:13.—G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 411
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 Balaam (continued)
Balaam (continued)
1-9. Balaam's Third Utterance.
Read full note →
1. To seek for enchantments] lit. 'to meet omens': see on Num_23:3. Toward the wilderness] i.e. towards the plain where the Israelites were encamped: see Num_21:20; Num_22:1.
2. The spirit of God came upon him] cp. 1Sa_19:20. The following utterances are introduced in a more solemn manner (see Num_24:3-4, Num_24:15-16), and are prophetic of the future.
3. Hath said] The English here is too commonplace to represent the original, which is in a very lofty and impassioned strain. 'Oracle of Balaam, son of Beor; oracle of the man whose eyes are opened; oracle of him who hears the words of God, who sees the vision of the Almighty, falling upon his face with his eyes open.' The first word rendered 'opened' is of uncertain meaning. It may mean 'closed,' in which case it implies that Balaam's eyes are closed to earthly sights but open to the heavenly. Or it may refer to his previous condition. Hitherto scales have been upon his eyes, but now he sees the vision of the Almighty.
4. Falling into a trance] rather, 'falling upon his face.' There is no word in the original corresponding to the words 'into a trance.' He falls to the ground, overpowered by the Spirit of God that comes upon him: cp. 1Sa_19:24; Eze_1:28; Dan_8:17-18; Act_9:4; Rev_1:17.
6. The images in this and the next v. are those of fruitfulness and vigour. The lign (i.e. the wood) aloe is a large spreading tree much prized for its aromatic qualities (Pro_7:17; Son_4:14), and the cedar is the king of trees (1Ki_4:33; Psa_104:16): cp. Psa_1:3; Eze_31:3 to Eze_5:7 He shall pour the water] better, 'water shall flow from his (i.e. Israel's) buckets, and his seed (i.e. his posterity) shall be in abundance of water.' Israel will always flourish. The literal and the metaphorical are here combined: cp. Gen_49:22, Gen_49:25; Deu_33:13, and see on Lev_26:4; Agag] the dynastic name of the Amalekite kings: cp. 1Sa_15:32. The kingdom of Israel will surpass that of Amalek.
8. See on Num_23:2. The subject of the second half of the v. is Israel, who is compared to a ravening lion, the king of beasts.
9. Blessed is he, etc.] cp. Gen_12:8; Gen_27:29.
10-14. Balak in anger dismisses Balaam, who before departing predicts the destruction of Moab and other nations by Israel.
15-24. Balaam's Fourth Utterance: a prediction of the dominion of Israel and the downfall of Moab, Edom, Amalek, and Asshur.
17. I shall see him, etc.] This should be rendered 'I see him' (i.e. the Israel of the future, and specially the Star who is to rise among them) '.. I behold him.. A Star is risen out of Jacob..' To the eye of Balaam, in his spiritual ecstasy, the future stands out as the present. A Star] A common symbol of a brilliant ruler: cp. Isa_14:12; Isa_9:2; Mat_24:29; Rev_22:16 and the expression 'hosts of heaven.' For the sceptre as the symbol of authority see Gen_49:10; Psa_110:2. This prediction refers in the first place to David, who 'smote Moab and Edom' (2Sa_8:2, 2Sa_8:14, cp. Psa_60:8.), but applies also to 'David's greater Son.' From early times the Jewish commentators have interpreted the prophecy as Messianic. The name Barcochba (i.e. 'Son of a star') was assumed by one who claimed to be the Messiah, not long after the time of our Lord, taking the title no doubt from this prophecy of Balaam. Christians will see in the words of Balaam a prophecy of Jesus, the true Messiah, the King of kings and Lord of lords. He Himself, and not the star which was seen at His birth (Mat_2:2), is the fulfilment of the prediction. Children of Sheth] RV 'the children of tumult,' as in the parallel passage Jer_48:45, where another word from the same root is used.
18. Seir] the name given to the land of the Edomites: see Gen_36:8-9; Deu_2:4. His enemies] the enemies of Israel, or rather of the Buler here spoken of. The fulfilment of this prophecy is recorded in 2Sa_8:14. Cp. also Isa_63:1-4, and see on Num_20:8, Num_20:9.
20. First of the nations] probably in rank; but see on Exo_17:8. The next clause reads 'but his end (shall come) to destruction': cp. Exo_17:14, Exo_17:16, and for the fulfilment of the prediction see 1Sa_14:48; 1Sa_15:7-8; 1Sa_30:17; 2Sa_8:12; 1Ch_4:43.
21. The Kenites] Unlike the tribes previously mentioned the Kenites were always friendly to the Israelites, and consequently the words of Balaam foretelling their destruction are more of sympathy than of threatening. Hobab, the father-in-law of Moses, was a Kenite, and his descendants settled alongside the tribe of Judah in the S. of Canaan (Jdg_1:16; Jdg_4:11): see also 1Sa_15:6; 1Sa_30:26, 1Sa_30:29; 1Ch_2:55. Of their subsequent history nothing is known. See on Num_24:22. Thy nest] The Heb. word for nest is ken, so that there is here a play upon the name of this tribe.
22. The rendering is doubtful. We may translate, 'Nevertheless the Kenite shall be wasted. How long? Asshur (i.e. Assyria) shall carry thee away captive.' Or, 'But the Kenite shall not be wasted until Asshur shall carry thee (i.e. Israel) away captive.'
24. Chittim] the dwellers in Cyprus or in the islands of the Mediterranean generally. They are said to have emigrated from Phœnicia. In Gen_10:4 the Chittim are said to be descended from Javan, the ancestor of the Ionian (i.e. the Greek) races. In Dan_11:30 the 'ships of Kittim 'are those of the Romans, so that Chittim may be a general designation of the Western races, and Balaam's words a prediction of the overthrow of the Eastern monarchies (Asshur = the Assyrians or Persians, and Eber = the Hebrews or Syrians) by the empires of the West. He also] most probably the conquering nation, the Chittim. It may, however, refer to Asshur or Eber.
These last prophecies of Balaam, on Amalek, the Kenites, the Chittim, Asshur, and Eber, have all the appearance of being an appendix, and are supposed by many to be a later addition to the original prophecies regarding Israel.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv4, 17, 20, 24 falling into
falling into
i.e. prostrated by the prophetic impulse. See, 1Sa 19:24; Eze 1:23; Dan 8:18; 2Co 12:2-4; Rev 1:10; Rev 1:17.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv1, 15 A Third Blessing
A Third Blessing
v. 1. And when Balaam saw that it pleased the Lord to bless Israel, this conviction having rather been forced upon him by his double experience, he went not, as at other times, as upon the two previous occasions, to seek for enchantments, to look for auguries or omens after the manner of heathen soothsayers, but he set his face toward the wilderness, toward the fields where the children of Israel were encamped, for he could overlook the entire host.
Read full note →
v. 2. And Balaam lifted up his eyes, and he saw Israel abiding in his tents according to their tribes, he was near enough to distinguish the various groups as they were arranged in camps about the Tabernacle; and the Spirit of God came upon him, for the Lord now threw him into a state of ecstasy and used him as His instrument of prophecy. And Balaam also, feeling the uselessness of restraint, yielded the more readily, although it cannot be said that his heart was in his task.
v. 3. And he took up his parable, his prophetic utterance, and said, Balaam, the son of Beor, hath said, and the man whose eyes are open hath said;
v. 4. he hath said which heard the words of God, which saw the vision of the Almighty, falling into a trance, but having his eyes open. It was a Revelation of God which came to Balaam by the Spirit of God. His mind was closed to all external influences, and he sank to the ground, overwhelmed with the ecstasy of the manner of communication which came to him.
v. 5. How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and thy tabernacles, O Israel!
v. 6. As the valleys are they spread forth, as gardens by the river’s side, as the trees of lignaloes which the Lord hath planted, and as cedar-trees beside the waters. The seer beholds not only the habitations of Israel as desirable places to live, but also the land as being most pleasant, for the conception of the aloe-trees breathing out their fragrance, and of the cedar-trees standing in their strength by the watercourses, leads us away from the ordinary beauties of nature to a conception which properly pictures the delights of the spiritual Israel of all ages.
v. 7. He shall pour the water out of his buckets, for they would overflow with moisture, and his seed shall be in many waters, his descendants would find their homes along fruitful streams; and his king shall be higher than Agag, which was the hereditary title of the Amalekite kings, and his kingdom shall be exalted. Above all the enmity of the world as represented by the kingdoms of the heathen, the people of the Lord would be secure in their relation to Jehovah, blessed with prosperity and glory.
v. 8. God brought him (Israel) forth out of Egypt; he hath, as it were, the strength of an unicorn, of the wild ox, which was noted for its fierceness; he shall eat up the nations, his enemies, devour them in his great wrath and power, and shall break their bones, utterly crush them, and pierce them through with his arrows, or, break their arrows, their weapons of warfare, to pieces.
v. 9. He couched, he lay down as a lion and as a great lion; who shall stir him up? Cf Gen 49:9. Blessed is he that blesseth thee, and cursed is he that curseth thee. This last contained a warning to Balak, for it intimated that the blessing of Abraham and Isaac, Gen 12:3; Gen 27:29, had been laid upon the entire nation of Israel, and there was danger in being the enemy of such a people.
v. 10. And Balak’s anger was kindled against Balaam, and he smote his hands together, as an expression of his disappointment and disgust; and Balak said unto Balaam, I called thee to curse mine enemies, and, behold, thou hast altogether blessed them. these three times.
v. 11. Therefore now flee thou to thy place, go back home as quickly as possible; I thought to promote thee unto great honor; but, lo, the Lord hath kept thee back from honor. Here the irony with which Balak derided the dependence of Balaam. upon Jehovah is plainly shown. Since Balaam’s power of divination was not strong enough to overcome the opposition of Jehovah, he must take the consequences.
v. 12. And Balaam said unto Balak, Spake I not also to thy messengers which thou sentest unto me, saying,
v. 13. If Balak would give me his house full of silver and gold, I cannot go-beyond the commandment of the Lord, to do either good or bad of mine own mind; but what the Lord saith, that will I speak? Cf Num 22:18.
v. 14. And now, behold, I go unto my people, the breach between him and? Balak was made; come, therefore, and I will advertise, teach, thee what this people-shall do to thy people in the latter days. All restraint was now removed from Balaam; he wanted to teach and at the same time advise Balak as to his conduct toward the invaders and their overwhelming strength.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 15, 17, 18, 20, 21, 23, 25 as at the other times
as at the other times
"like he did the previous times"
Read full note →
translationWords
Balaam
Yahweh
bless
Israel
sorcerer
desert
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 10, 14, 15, 17, 21, 23, 24, 25 24:1-2 Unlike previously (23:3, 15), Balaam did not resort…
24:1-2 Unlike previously (23:3, 15), Balaam did not resort to divination this time. He already knew that auguries and omens could not harm Israel (23:23), so he quit looking for them. Instead, Balaam was directly inspired by the Spirit of God.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.