40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Episode 147 (Numbers 22:1-38)

Episode Date: January 10, 2019

We are introduced to a strange character named Balaam. Out of fear of their numbers, king Balak summons Balaam to curse Israel. Balaam asks God twice if he should go. God is angry and sends an angel to stand in Balaam's way. Balaam's life is saved by his talking donkey. It's a very odd and funny passage, Chad and Daniel discuss it all. Have a listen! 1517 Podcast Network Donate

Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 Minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 Podcast Network podcast. You can go over to 1517.org slash podcast. and check out all the things that are going on over there you can also while you're there if you want to support the podcast the blog the events academy with all the with an insane amount of students getting free education over there all the things that go on over 15 17 and christ hold fast you can uh you can become a supporter because it's all made possible by people who are partnering up so you can go to the donate page you can become a monthly supporter of any amount all of it helps

and if you have done that and you are a supporter thank you very much uh you do make all this stuff possible chad how's it going man it's going good i've had a fun morning i've been uh diving into this kind of crazy character named balaam that we're about to get to and discovered a few things i didn't know already so oh i'm primed and ready yeah well uh balaam is there is definitely some kind of weird numbers sideshow that goes on. Surprising things about Balaam is how often he comes up in the rest of the Bible, too. I was doing a word search just on his name. And, of course, he features prominently in the chapters we're about to cover

in Numbers, but he comes up again in Deuteronomy, in Joshua, in Nehemiah, in Micah, and then two places in the New Testament. I mean, it's pretty unusual that this character who kind of comes out of nowhere continues to be talked about all the way to the book of Revelation. I mean, so that kind of tells you how significant he becomes in the ongoing story of the Scriptures. Yeah, and not in an overwhelmingly positive way.

No, I mean, there is a certain ambiguity about him, which is fascinating, which we'll get to in a minute. But, yeah, most of the time he's like, you don't want your son to grow up to be like Balaam. Yeah, it's sort of a bummer of a guy that when you think about being penned and marked in, you know, the most read book of all time, he doesn't have a great showing. No, he does not. Yeah, especially when you get to the New Testament when in 2 Peter talks about him or in the letters to the seven churches in Revelation. Yeah, Balaam is certainly not a model to emulate. he is like

he becomes one of those one of those characters we'll talk about Hitler or Mussolini or whoever it might be the bad guy they kind of become the stock characters representing evil

and Balaam kind of becomes that in the scriptural story yeah I've thought about things like that with Pilate who gets to be one of two people mentioned in the creed it's it's mary who of course is mentioned in a very positive way uh and then pilot who like all he's famous for these words suffered under pontius pilate and then for centuries the church confesses

that there he was there and he was in charge just what a bummer yeah yeah i i could be wrong on this but i'm thinking it's in jesus christ superstar there's a scene you know with a scene in a play where Pilate's wife, the dream that she had that troubled her so much, was that in the dream she heard throughout the centuries the confession of the creed suffered under Pontius Pilate. Yeah, I did. Yeah, it's not a—yeah, what do you think about it? Every day, or certainly every Sunday for centuries in churches around the world,

your name is invoked as the one under whom the Messiah suffered. Yeah. Not a great legacy. Yeah, you become renowned as persecutor of God. That's a bummer. Yeah, not the reputation you want. All right, so let's get back here to where the story all begins. So we're in Numbers 22, and the story of Balaam takes us through three chapters.

It's chapter 22, 23, and 24 are all about Balaam. and and the basic story is if you don't remember it is that uh balaam is hired as a prophet or seer to come curse israel and the beginning of the story is how the moabite king tries to hire him and and eventually gets him there and then the rest of the the rest of the account is circles around four different oracles that balaam delivers kind of these poetic i don't know what you'd call them, something like poetic, sermonic speeches, I guess, oracles, I guess is the technical term for it, where he talks about Israel just as they are and Israel as they will be. And as we'll see when we get to the last chapter, the last oracle, he even prophesies the rise of a star

out of Jacob, which traditionally has been interpreted as a messianic prophecy. So it's one of those weird ironies that you have in the bible where this guy who ends up with that bad rap we've been talking about also is the one who utters a prophecy about the messiah so god does indeed work in in mysterious ways so that's kind of the uh the the overall picture that we're gonna gonna be looking at now i will say one thing about balaam before we get into the biblical story and this is one of the things i was looking at this morning i knew in the back of my mind that there had been an archaeological discovery that in some way featured balaam but i couldn't remember the details so i was looking at that this morning if you're interested you can uh you can check it

out check it out for yourself the gist of it is that in 1967 there was an archaeological dig going on at a place in modern-day Jordan. And they discovered a plastered wall, which probably was part of some sort of pagan temple complex at one point. The walls collapsed due to probably to an earthquake. But there's a multitude, and by multitude, I mean like hundreds of fragments that are still there on the wall that they were able to piece back together. The original ink was in black and some of the letters were in red, which is kind of funny because we still do that in our Bibles today, you know, the words of Christ in red. So I don't know if these were like some of the words of Balaam were in red and the others were in black. I don't know. But I guess that

tradition goes way back. Anyway, enough of the inscription remains to where the story is kind of pieced together to where on the wall of this temple there was this long uh oracle prophecy by a guy named balaam son of beor which is the exact language we have here in the book of numbers who was a prophet who was a seer and he had this vision of an upcoming famine that was inflicted upon the peoples of that region uh by one of the one of the pagan deities and it was of course there's some dispute as to exactly how everything is to be translated to piece back together but that's the that's the gist of it and they i think they date the uh date the inscription to around the eighth or ninth uh century uh you can you can read the article for yourself get the dates on

there but anyway it's it's fascinating because uh the name and the father's name and the uh i guess the job of Balaam are all the same, both in the scriptures as well as in this archaeological find. So pretty neat when we can see how, not that it proves a Bible, but there's like this parallel between the scriptural story, this archaeological story. So for those of you who like that kind of stuff, you can check it out. it's interesting to be sort of a a generic prophet seer for hire uh because this guy is isn't prophet in the sense of he's not like overtly you know jewish or something you know this is just a guy that that will tell you what is coming that is interesting and oddly enough

just this morning as we were getting ready for this i in my facebook feed somehow i don't i guess it was a promoted post or something like that this guy pops up who is almost exactly that it was essentially him talking about how he's got this prophetic insight to 2019 and that he would like to come out to your church to give it to you wow and he's putting himself out there for hire to give this sort of like to this prophetic word and i was like and to speak about what is coming and that was ironic because i had some i had balaam kind of thoughts going through my head and i thought look at this guy like uh and then i thought about what we just talked about how in the new testament you're especially told like don't be like that you know and uh i'm like

wow this guy's sort of being just like that uh just like that i guess i guess uh there's still let me speak one can only hope that when this guy comes to visit your church he won't fly or or drive there but we'll we'll ride on his donkey that's right yeah i mean it it's it's one of those nothing new under the sun kind of situations right where uh there's there's always a contemporizing of biblical stories in one way or another that that's a it's a great example of somebody trying to do exactly that uh tell you the future for payment yeah give him the money he'll consult god and tell you what god says i'm sure he fancies himself a samuel but it struck me as a little more balemish more balem yeah exactly well that i mean

that that is kind of what balem was i mean it it's like when you're when you're reading parts the story he actually comes across as a legit guy i mean repeatedly he refers to not just to god but actually to to yahweh i mean he uses the divine name and it even even calls him his god so this is a i mean this is a non-israelite obviously uh who believes in in the true god and also hold i I mean, he's he's got some sort of prophetic gift or at least he's one to whom God speaks in dreams, because, I mean, undoubtedly, this is God speaking to him and and through him. So he's a. I can't think of anybody else in the scriptures that is there's like this. I mean, we we do have we do have occasions elsewhere, actually in Genesis, where God where God speaks to non-Israelites in in a dream. bemelech is one and then uh laban is another one so certainly god can can do that well and pharaoh

as well of course joseph interpreted those dreams so god can speak and reveal himself to non-israelites in dreams it seems it seems like it's i would assume that we would credit this to god but it would seem like that's what happens with pilot's wife yeah i mean and uh It's pretty well known that this is happening, or at least this seems to be happening, in some parts of the world among followers of Islam. I mean, there's a lot of, I mean, when I say a lot, I'm talking about widespread, numerous accounts of Muslims who have had dreams where Christ appears to them and tells them to go to church, basically. And these are not isolated. These happen in lots of different places, and the people actually end up going to church, and many of them become followers of Christ.

So it's not an unprecedented phenomenon for God to speak to non-believers or non-Israelites or those outside the church in such a way that he reveals them his will. It might make some people uncomfortable, but that is the truth. At least biblically speaking, it does happen. So anyway, Balaam is that kind of unusual character. And he enters the story when Israel is still in what we call the Transjordan. That is the area to the east of the Jordan River. and he is uh he's he's he's uh uh hired by or at least he's attempted to be they they attempt to

hire him the uh the king of moab does his name is uh balak or balak however you want to pronounce that uh that name and the the moabite king is is basically living in fear of the israelites uh like many of the peoples around there he's heard what god has done for the israelites and bringing them out of Egypt and giving them victory over the forces that were arrayed against them. And so verse 3 says that Moab was in great fear because of the Israelites, because they were numerous. And it says Moab was in dread of the sons of Israel. So they're living in fear because of this enemy, even though there's no evidence whatsoever that Israel intended to attack them. Israel was interested in passing over the Jordan River to go to the promised land.

But they're afraid of the Israelites And so And they don't think that they'll be able to defeat them Militarily Unless they're weakened Well the Israelites did just defeat two Two kings back to back Yeah

One of the giant og right Yeah I mean like if there was some Force of people That like you know Took out I don't know They took out Canada and Mexico and they were like well they haven't expressly said they were coming for us but

there's cause for concern yeah yeah exactly they're uh they're on they're close they're on their way and chances are what's going to happen to our to our uh the people around us is going to happen to us too so yeah i mean i think rationally the fear is is justified But what's interesting, though, is the tactic that is pursued by the Moabites, rather than allying themselves with other peoples around there to form a greater force by which they can attack and hopefully defeat Israel. Instead, they take a religious approach. so they uh they send messengers who lived a long way off and they the messengers say uh that you know this this people they came out of egypt they're covering the whole land they're living opposite us and then in verse six it says now therefore please come and curse this people

for me since they are too mighty for me perhaps i may be able to defeat them and drive them out of the land because i know that he whom you bless he's talking to balaam here he whom you bless is blessed and he whom you curse is cursed uh so that's the that's the basic message that they deliver to to balaam hey basically we know that you're a real powerful seer and we have an issue here with these israelites and so what we want you to do is come and do what you do best because hey whatever you the blessing you you utter is going to be a blessing and the curse that you But it was going to be it's going to be a curse. So they show up the first time. There are two trips. They show up the first time and they give this message message to to Balaam.

And basically Balaam tells them, OK, let me sleep on it. You stay here. And in the morning, I'm going to come back and I'll bring back to you whatever word the Lord said to me. And so they all went to bed. And that night, it says that God came to Balaam. you know god has this way of starting conversations with a question he does it all the way back in in eden you know adam where are you and this in this case god says to balaam who are these men with you and balaam answers him and he says well you know balak the king of moab uh sent these messengers and here's what they had to say and god responds to balaam and says don't go with him you shall not curse the people because they are blessed.

So that's God's first response. Basically a big fat, no, don't go with them. Don't say anything. Don't even attempt to curse them because listen, they're blessed and there's nothing you're going to be able to do. That's going to,

that's going to alter that blessing. So, I mean, so far everything we're hearing about Balaam is, is, is good because what he does is he gets up in the morning. He goes back to these, to these representatives and he tells them to go home he says go back to your land because

the lord and that's that is in hebrew that is yahweh that is the divine name because the lord has refused to let me go with you so uh yeah first attempt was uh was a failure so these these guys go back to the king of moab and they tell them well they edit the uh they edit the story a bit it's interesting because they don't say everything that balan told them they don't say that god appeared to bail him and he said this and told us this and and uh then sent us home instead all they tell the king is balaam refused to come with us it's the kind of they they they simplify the response perhaps they didn't want to make the king angry but the moabite king is not going to take no for an answer because he sent some leaders this time originally sent messengers now he sends

leaders more of them in fact and more distinguished than the others that he sent so he's he's upping the ante now he's sending his his top guys and they come to balaam and they say this time more or less the same thing let nothing hinder you from coming and then here's the here's the real kicker verse 17 he says for i will indeed this is the moabite king speaking through the messengers for i will indeed honor you richly and i will do whatever you say to me please come then and curse this people for me and again so far balaam is uh is is looking like a good guy because listen to his answer this is verse 18 though balak were to give me his house full of silver and gold i could not do anything either small or great contrary to the command of the lord my god

i mean that's that's phenomenal i mean you could you could like you could alter the name you know put instead of balak put in somebody else's name or some other group or whatever it might be and put that in the mouth of a pastor today or a believer today to be like hey that's that's a very faithful pious uh god-fearing uh child of god right that sounds like some luther here i stand i can do no other talk yeah right yeah offer me whatever you want i mean you can Give me your whole house full of silver and gold, but it's not going to change anything. So that's the offer. That's the response.

And it's a repeat of the first time. He says, well, all right, let me sleep on it. You stay here tonight, and I'm going to find out what God says to me. So same thing, verse 20, God came to Balaam at night. And he gives a different response this time. This is pretty fascinating. He says to Balaam, if the men have come to call you, rise up and go with them. But only the word which I speak to you shall you do.

All right. So God seemed to be saying, the men have come, so I want you to go with them. But here's the kicker. You only tell them what I tell you. All right. So what happens? well this time malem gets up in the morning and he and he gets ready to go he puts a saddle on his donkey and he heads out with the leaders of moab and then we have this surprising verse

verse 22 but god was angry because he was going and and the angel of the lord took his stand in the way as an adversary against him now he was riding on his donkey and his two servants were were with him so this is kind of interesting because on the one hand god in the dream says uh go but only speak the word that i tell you to and then like a verse later it says god was angry because he was going and the lord's angel stood in his way what do you think's going on there yeah i'll be i'll be completely honest like i mean the typical interpretation of this this event is that god was upset that that balaam asked inquired a second time that he asked him the same thing uh which he had already given his answer to

as if god was you know going to change his mind uh you know maybe it's you know hey apparently you know god doesn't like it if you strike the rock two times he doesn't like it if you ask if you should go curse the people two times uh i suppose that's me unless you got something better i guess that's the best interpretation in my mind i am just like this doesn't make any sense that is complete honesty yeah i'll just be completely honest i i mean i guess that interpretation it's sort of it's speculative and you're you're saying like you know here's why god is upset maybe it is it doesn't say that that's why he's upset so we couldn't know for sure uh but other than that yeah i just don't i just don't know what's going on here no and i i

i'll admit the same thing it uh it is a bit jarring i mean these are verse 20 and then verse 22 so there's one like one verse in between where god says if the men have come to call you rise up and go with them but god was angry because he was going so yeah it's uh it's kind of a kind of a jarring jarring adjunct position so i'm sure somebody out there has completely figured it out they'll be able to yeah sure to help us out yeah i mean i i guess you know if you go with that interpretation like if it is true that balaam is sort of dropping hints that he that like that he could be bribed into this or whatever um and i mean god of course knows this and that he's irritated about it and that balaam would then go to him a second time and say you know hey you know

should i go do this thing these guys have come and god is essentially at that point saying you know like do what you want to do and we'll and we'll see what happens like i already said no and now you can like come up against me and then we'll see who wins uh i suppose that that could all that could all work you know that god like balob does want to do it uh or he wants he's willing to do it if he can get something out of it and god knows it and he's not happy about it i suppose that that's all that's all true because god would obviously know that but uh but it's not explicit in the text no yeah i think that and i think that you've kind of put the uh uh the point well there there's there's something that you have to kind of extrapolate from this there's

nothing that's explicit in the text as to why there's this sudden shift so whatever it was we'll just kind of have to leave that for now i suppose whatever it was god was angry because he was going and we enter into one of the uh in my opinion one of the funniest stories in the bible I mean, there's a lot of humor in the scriptures, but it's pretty hard to beat this particular story. I mean, this this whole thing has been arranged, has been written, I think, anyway, as a comedy. I mean, if you look at the details in this story and the contrast between the donkey and Balaam, I don't think there's any other way that you can read it. I've even heard this story described as a kind of a biblical burlesque, sort of poking fun and the biblical way of making us laugh at the stupidity of those who rebel against the will of God. So however you want to describe it, it certainly is funny.

Because what happens is three different times as Balaam is riding his donkey along, the donkey, as donkeys are wont to do, stubbornly goes his own way, follows his own will. Because he sees this angel of the Lord standing in front of him, not just standing there, but he's got a drawn sword in his hand. it seemed like the angels in the bible are always packing like they are like they've always got a always got a sword they've always got a weapon ready ready to go so the first time the donkey turns off into a field and balaam hits the donkey to get her back uh in in the way she's supposed to be going and the second time they're by these uh these vineyards and there's a wall on either side of them i i presume in in this day and time it would have been a uh a rock wall of some sort and they're and they're so the donkey's walking along and she again sees the angel of the lord

and this time she smashes balaam's leg foot against the wall so he hits her again by now i'm sure he's he's thoroughly embarrassed because of his recalcitrant donkey who just won't listen to what he has to say which is part of the humor here and then finally the third time the donkey sees the angel she just lays down she just won't go any any further she lays down into balaam so balaam by now of course he's furious and he takes his stick and he starts beating on the donkey so this whole thing uh is is funny for a number of reasons but now it's about to get the the whole the humor of it is about to be revealed to us because verse 28 it says that god opened the mouth of the donkey and she speaks to balaam she says what have i done to you that you have struck

me these three times now that's funny a donkey talking but i think it's even funnier that balaam actually responds yeah i mean it's one thing to hear a donkey talk but rather than just standing there dumbfounded unable to speak Balaam actually engages in dialogue with this donkey so yeah he says a response in answer because you've made a mockery of me if there had been a sword in my hand I would have killed you by now and the donkey responds am I not your donkey on which you've ridden all your life to this day have I ever been accustomed to do so to you and balaam answers well no and at that point god opens the eyes of balaam and he too sees the angel of lord standing there with his drawn sword and then to kind of wrap up the story well there's

more to it we'll so we'll we'll stop there for a second okay so there's a lot of there's a lot of a lot of irony that's built into this. One is you kind of got to picture the scene. This professional prophet has been hired because his word is powerful, right? Whoever

he blesses is blessed. Whoever he curses is cursed. And yet, he can't even, by his word, control his own donkey. Yeah. And he's supposed to go and he's a seer, right?

he's a seer who can't see yeah yeah exactly yeah he's blind right his donkey can see what he is blind to yeah this is not this is not good for your uh there if you i mean and you assume that he's is he with these guys i mean the guys just go with them is he by himself has he got these guys with them i mean like are they are they like bearing witness to this scene where, you know, they're like, maybe we should hire the donkey. Yeah, I'm assuming they're observing this, which is probably why he's so angry. Well, verse 29, he says, because you made a mockery of me, right?

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, how embarrassing. You know, the guy can't control his donkey. He's wandering off into the field, smashing his leg, and just lays down in the way. This prophet has got some issues. So, yeah, and once everybody observes what's going on, then maybe they were thinking, we hired the wrong person. Let's see if the donkey will do the cursing for us.

So, yeah, I mean, there's a lot of irony that's built into this. His word is ineffective against a donkey. So if he tries to curse Israel, you have a fat chance of that happening. And he's supposed to be a seer, but he's blind. In fact, he can't even see as well as his own donkey can see, not just physically, but even in the spiritual realm. And then there's just the added humor of, you know, a donkey talking and engaging in conversation with a prophet. So let's pick up the story. This is when the angel of the Lord begins to speak.

And the angel says to him, why have you struck your donkey these three times? behold i have come out as an adversary because your way was contrary to me so whatever was going on with balaam maybe it was in his plan uh his intention uh we don't know but whatever was going on with him he was he was not planning on doing the lord's will no matter what contrary to what he may have told the messengers and verse 33 it says the donkey saw me this is the angel of the lord speaking the donkey saw me and turned aside for me these three times if she had not turned aside i would surely have killed you just now and let her live so after hearing all this balaam responds he says i have sinned because i did not know that you were standing in

the way against me. Now then, if it is displeasing to you, I will turn back, which is probably the smartest thing that Balaam has said so far. Listen, if you don't want me to go, I'll go home. He realizes at this point that his neck is on the line. He is not in the safest of situations. So turning back sounds probably like a pretty good option at this point but the angel says to him uh go with the men but you shall speak only the word which i shall tell you now the more that we look at this and the more i hear kind of how the angel is responding to him the more i wonder if the reason that there is that shift between god saying go and then god being angry because he was going was because there was something going on in balaam's mind that god knew about that he was not

happy with like he was going to go but he had this sort of sinister plot that he was considering whereby he was going to say what he wanted to say rather than what god had given him to say or say what the king wants to hear yes say what the what the politician wants uh wants to hear so uh he offers to go back the angel says to no go and speak only lord which i tell you so that's what that's what balan does he uh he goes along with the leaders at malak and sent and then uh verse 36 he arrives there at first the king is uh is is upset uh he says listen i i urgently sent to you to get here so why didn't you come uh am i really unable to honor you so this is the king who's basically mad because he feels like he's been dishonored by this prophet because he had

to send people twice to get him to come and balaam basically just ignores ignores his anger which is probably the best uh best approach to take he says look i'm here now right i'm standing in front of you so am i able to speak anything at all he asked the word that god puts in my mouth that i shall speak so uh that's his that's his response to his response to the king you know i was i was thinking about uh think about this whole story this morning and uh you know one of the things that struck me is uh you know that if we apply this today there's always going to be those who stand in opposition to Israel, right? And by Israel, I mean the people of God.

So I'm not talking about a nation. I'm talking about the church, the new Israel. There's always going to be those who stand in opposition to it, who are, for one reason or another, afraid, afraid of the church, maybe afraid because of the influence of the church or the message of the church or whatever it might be. So they're in one way or another, they're living they're living in fear and they're they're willing to resort to just about anything to to weaken the church. And I've seen this happen where very often it seems like there's sort of a chicken little approach that even Christians will voice, like the sky is falling, like, oh, things are so terrible for the church, being attacked on all sides, and all doom and gloom, and the end is near, and the sky is falling, and other sorts of what we call catastrophizing, where everything is just a terrible catastrophe.

And stories like this, I think, are essential for listening to in times like that, because they point to the fact that, listen, it doesn't matter what kind of powerful leaders might be against the people of God, who they might hire to attempt to work harm against the people of God, even if those who are hired intend to do evil against the people. It really doesn't matter, because in the end, the people of God are God's people. They're his church, and nothing and no one is going to be able to go against them, to do them any kind of significant, lasting harm, because they're safe in Christ. They're safe in the one who's made them his own. Yeah, so you're not strictly speaking of the Palestine-Israel conflict. yeah i know no i don't think i'm talking about that at all yeah no you know whatever that whatever the conflict might be against uh the powers of evil that uh the spiritual forces in the heavenly realms that paul talks about well they can't

work any ultimate harm to the church because the like christ says the gates of hell itself can't prevail against it well that this is this goes to i've heard it said before that the church has only ever grown uh even even if it appears like it's you know people will say that you know the church attendance is down and this sort of stuff but when you're talking about the church uh and those who have come before us those who have died uh the church only ever has only ever had members added to it yeah that's a great way to put it yeah so yeah after you had baptisms continue to happen and uh and people are continue to be brought in and so you might say that oh our our church is shrinking or something like this but the church has has only ever grown since

its inception yeah yeah the body of christ isn't isn't losing fingers or toes or arms it continues to expand exactly and that's 40 minutes well we've got uh we've got more with Balaam, this is not, it'd be real weird if that was just the end of the story. Yeah, it would be. Yeah, we got two more chapters to go, so hang in there. Tune in again. It's weird enough even with all three

of them, so don't worry. Don't think oh man, wow, what a weird excursion. It's not quite that weird. We got a little more to talk about. We will get to it next week. We'll see you then, Chad. Alright, see you then. Thanks. We'll be right back.