Tag Archives: Numbers 22-24

Daily Bible Study

February 21, 2024 Bible Study — Don’t Ask God What He Wants You to Do When You Already Know the Answer

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.

Daily Bible Study

February 21, 2023 Bible Study — Balak Felt Threatened By The Israelites Because He Did Not Understand God’s Power

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.

Daily Bible Study

February 21, 2022 Bible Study — Making Sense of The Story Of Balaam

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.

Daily Bible Study

February 21, 2021 Bible Study Recognizing When God Has Given Us His Final Answer

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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.:

Daily Bible Study

February 21, 2019 Bible Study — Listen To God The First Time

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.

When Balak’s messengers first came to Balaam, he consulted God and was told that he could not curse the Israelites because God had blessed them.  When Balak’s second set of messengers arrived, Balaam went to God again and God told him to go with them.  Yet, the account tells us that God was angry with Balaam for going.  God’s answer the first time was definitive.  The people whom Balak wanted cursed had been blessed by God.  Balak was not seeking a way to live in peace with the people of Israel, he was seeking a way to destroy them.  When God has made it clear that something is outside of His will we should not seek to find a way around that.

I want to circle back to the idea I wrote about earlier in the year that Abraham was part of a tradition which passed on the stories which came from Noah.  There are several theories about where Balaam came from, but the sources which make the most sense to me put it not far from Haran, the city where Abraham’s father died.  This suggests to me that Balaam was part of a tradition which passed down some of the same stories which we find in Genesis.  Balaam is yet more evidence that the Israelites were not the only people worshiping God.  Throughout the Old Testament we see hints and signs of those who followed similar teachings to the Israelites.  Hints and signs which suggest that the practices and stories of the Bible may have influenced the cultures and religions around the Israelites rather than the other way around as many secular scholars suggest.

Daily Bible Study

February 21, 2018 Bible Study — I Can Only Do What The Lord Tells Me

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.

    There are two theories about where Balaam was from. The first is that he was from somewhere near the Euphrates (the NLT says exactly that, but there is significant ambiguity about the correct translation of the original Hebrew). If that was the case, he would likely have come from the same area as Abraham’s family, which would suggest he was part of the same religious tradition which eventually resulted in Judaism. The problem with Balaam being from near the Euphrates is that it would have taken several days to weeks for Balak’s messengers to get to him and several weeks for him to return with them. The other possibility is that Balaam was from an area a day or two’s journey north of where the Israelites encountered him. There is a certain logic to this closer location. In addition, there was an archaeological discovery of a wall “painted” with sayings from a “Book of Balaam” on a wall of a house in a town which would fit this alternate origin for Balaam. The only problem is that the wall is from several centuries after this story (and thus might have been something created because of this story). In this latter case, we discover one of several biblical indications that some of the people in the area worshiped the same God as the Israelites.

    No matter where Balaam was from there is a theme going throughout the message he gave in response to Balak’s prompting. This theme develops through the messages which Balaam gives to Balak. In the first message Balaam says, “how can I curse those whom God has not cursed? How can I condemn those whom the Lord has not condemned?” We should give careful thought to these two questions considering that Jesus died to bring redemption to everyone. Let us not curse nor condemn those whom Jesus has called our neighbor. In his second message, Balaam tells us that God does not lie, nor does He change His mind. No curse can touch those whom God has named His own, no magic has any power against them. I could go on and follow how this theme develops in the next two messages, but I need to wrap this up. However, I wanted to remind myself and you that we should live by something Balaam said in this passage: “I can do only what the Lord tells me” That is a basic principle which should guide us day in and day out.

Daily Bible Study

February 21, 2017 Bible Study — What Did Balaam Do Wrong?

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.

    It is easy to understand why Balak was overwhelmed by the numbers of the people of Israel when they showed up on the doorstep of the land he controlled. The largest city in the world at the time had about 100,000 people and here was an encampment of over 1,000,000 people, or 10x the size of the largest city in the world at the time. Having seen what they did to the other peoples they had encountered, Balak knew that he could not take them on militarily and was sure that they would strip the land bare if he allowed them to pass through his territory.

    Reading this passage it is easy to miss what Balaam did wrong. When God told him to send Balak’s messengers away the first time, he did so. However, the first sign of what he did wrong is how he responded to the second set of messengers. He told them that he could not do anything beyond the command of God, but he followed that up by telling them to spend the night while he tried to convince God to let him do something which would lead them to pay him (I will admit to doing a little reading between the lines here). The suspicion that Balaam was looking for a loophole is confirmed by the angel from whom he was only saved by the actions of his donkey the following day. Even after that confrontation and warning, Balaam still tried three times to find a way to curse the people of Israel. The third time he even tried to bypass going to God, since he knew that the message God gave him directly was not going to have any wiggle room he could turn into at least the appearance of a curse so that Balak would pay him. How often do we try to find wiggle room to do what we know is wrong?

Daily Bible Study

February 21, 2016 Bible Study — Saying Only What God Tells Us To Say

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading. I had been using One Year Bible Online, but it was time for a change.

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

    The next king who found himself in the path of the Israelites tried a different approach to that taken by the previous two. He sent messengers to summon Balaam. We do not really know much about Balaam, but he was clearly a prophet of some kind with a reputation for getting results. Anyway, the story is that when Balak’s representatives first came to Balaam, Balaam asked God what he should do and God told him not to go with them. When Balak sent a second group of messengers, Balaam once again asked God what he should do. This time God told him to go with them, but only say what God told him to say. However, when Balaam set out, God sent an angel to kill him. Balaam only escaped with his life because of his faithful donkey.

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    The passage tells us that God sent the angel because He was angry with Balaam for going with Balak’s messengers (the similarities between the two names in this story has caused me no end of confusion when listening to sermons on this passage, especially in my childhood days). This always struck me as unfair, since God had told him to go with them. There is however a lesson for us to learn here. If we persist in asking God for something, He may grant us what we asked for, but that does not mean He wanted that for us. That being said, I do not believe that God intended for the angel to kill Balaam. Instead, the angel was intended to remind Balaam that he must only say what God tells him to say. That is an important lesson for us. We must strive in all we say and do to only say or do those things which God tells us to say or do.