Today, I am reading and commenting on  Numbers 22-24.

The first thing which struck me today was that Balak did not need to confront the Israelites.  At the time Balak chose to send for Balaam, the Israelites were camped by the Jordan river across from Jericho.  Now, in his defense, he was afraid that such a large group of people would consume all of the available resources, leaving Balak’s people to starve.  As I thought about it some more, I believe that Balak knew the Israelites planned to cross the Jordan, but was afraid that they would strip the land before they did so.  Balak did not know of the power of the God whom the Israelites worshiped and so was unaware that, unlike any other nomadic army in history, the Israelites did not need to live off of the land.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.