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

When Balak’s messengers give Balaam the message that they will pay him handsomely to curse the Israelites, Balaam asks them to spend the night while he consults with God as to what he should do.  God tells Balaam that he must not curse the Israelites.  So, Balaam sends the messengers on their way.  When Balak sends them back, Balaam tells them he can do nothing beyond what God commands.  So far, so good, but then he tells them to stay the night while he sees what else God will tell him.  Notice how this is rather similar to what he did the first time.  If it were not for the story of the angel and Balaam’s donkey I would not think anything of it.  So, what was going on here?  Balaam knew what God had told him regarding the people Balak wanted him to curse, but he was looking for some wiggle room.  Balaam was looking for some way to give Balak what he wanted so that he could get what he wanted: some of the wealth Balak was offering.  We often face the temptation to do similarly.  God has revealed His will to us on a subject, but we don’t like the answer.  So we ask the question another way, hoping God will give us a different answer.

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

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.

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

I am starting a new job tomorrow which may make this more difficult to keep up to date.  Fortunately, I am several days ahead, hopefully far enough to give me time to adjust to my new schedule without missing any days for this blog.

The story of Balaam and his donkey has always confused me.  The reason I am confused is that I do not understand why God was angry with Balaam for accompanying Balak’s messengers.  As we read here, when Balak’s first set of messengers arrived Balaam consulted God, and when God told him not to go with them, he sent them on their way.   When the second set of messengers arrived Balaam told them he could do nothing beyond what God commanded him to do, but invited them to spend the night.  This second time God told him to go with Balak’s messengers.  Then, when Balaam set out, God sent an angel with a sword to oppose him.  The standard interpretation is that God intended for the angel to slay Balaam, but the intervention of Balaam’s donkey changed His mind.  Suppose instead that God planned for the donkey to avoid the angel waiting in Balaam’s path.  Perhaps God sent the angel to remind Balaam to only say what God directed him to say.  Interestingly enough, the lesson does not appear to have “stuck”, the way I read the account about the third time Balaam offered sacrifices provided by Balak, he intended to bypass requesting God’s inspiration and was just going to say something which would please Balak, except God intervened and did not give him that option.

I also find Balak’s actions curious.  Despite Balaam telling Balak that he could only speak what God told him to speak, Balak took Balaam to two other locations to curse the Israelites after Balaam blessed them from the first location.  I can think of two possible explanations.  The first being that he thought that perhaps he could trick God into not realizing that it was the Israelites when seen from a different perspective.  The other being that Balak thought that Balaam appealed to local gods in order to curse and that if he took Balaam to another place, Balaam could appeal to a different god in order to curse the Israelites.  Actually, I can think of a third possibility, perhaps Balak thought that if he could take Balaam to the right place, he could curse the Israelites without God knowing what he was doing.  Whatever Balak was thinking, he clearly thought that he could find a way around God’s will.

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

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

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

I think we need to spend more time thinking about what happened when Balak’s second set of messengers went to Balaam.  The second time, God told Balaam to go with them.  Yet, God was angry with Balaam and sent an angel to kill him for going with them.  What is going on here? Why did God get angry for Balaam doing what He had told him to do? So, when Balak’s first messengers arrived, Balaam consulted with God and told Him that Balak wanted him to curse some people.  God told Balaam that the people Balak wanted cursed had been blessed and could not be cursed.  It would have been one thing for Balaam to inquire of God for the second messengers if God had merely told him not to go with the first messengers.  But that was not what God had told Balaam.  God had told Balaam that the people Balak wanted cursed were blessed.  Balaam knew why God did not want him to respond to Balak’s summons.  We need to learn to recognize the difference between when God says “No” and when He says “Wait.: