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The children of Israel have been touring through the land of Midian for the past 40 years and now the children of Israel are preparing to emigrate to the Promised Land. Edom (which located in the southern region of the modern country of Jordan) has no interest in engaging with Israel in any way because they were scared of them.
The children of Israel would have preferred to have permission from the Edomite and the Moabites to go through their territories, as they could traverse in comfortable valleys, but since they said no, the children of Israel traveled through the Great Rift Valley, skirting the territories of Edom, Moab, Ammon, through mountains.
Once they reached the border between the country of Moab and the land of the Amorites, they weren’t able to skirt about anymore because at this point, they would have had to continue on by boat through the Dead Sea and that was not an option. They had no choice but to go through the territory of the Amorite king Sihon.
God instructed the children of Israel to respect the territorial borders of Edom and Moab, but when the Amorite kings Sihon and Og threatened to kill the children of Israel, God gave the children of Israel permission to defend themselves in war and wipe them out, because the Amorites were under God’s ban. They were not under God’s protection as Edom, Moab and Ammon were.
The Moabites had no idea that God respected their territorial boundaries. The Moabites worshipped pagan gods by this point and had no idea that God had given that land to them and was not going to allow the children of Israel to take their land war. The Moabites were scared to lose their territory to the Israelites so you can understand why they were so defensive.
When the Israelites utterly wiped out the kings Sihon and Og, this scared the nation of Moab even more as they recalled how this rag-tag group of escapes from Egypt, were able to defeat the Amorite kings Sihon and Og in battle where they had failed.
This is why Balak, the king of Moab went looking for a spiritual way to defeat the Israelites as he knew he could not beat them militarily. He sought out the most famous prophet he could find, who was Balaam, the son of Beor.
Balak sent emissaries to Balaam to hire him, but Balaam declined with a half truth. He told them that God said no, but Balaam didn’t say why God said no, which was that God had already said that He will not allow Balaam to cruse Israel. If Balaam had disclosed to the emissaries from the beginning that God would not curse Israel, that would have been the end of the conversation. But by only giving the emissaries half of the reason, Balaam was dragging them along because he wanted something from them. He was scheming on how to get his cake and eat it too.
God is not dumb, He knows who Balaam is and what Balaam wanted. Balaam’s job was to bless and curse people for money. He knows that Balaam withheld information from the emissaries of Moab, because He knew that Balaam coveted money, fame and fortune. Balaam’s refusal to be forthright with anyone was his downfall.
God told Balaam not to go, but then later permits him to continue his trip. Why is God appearing to be inconsistent? Because He knows that Balaam wants to curse Israel because he wants the generous payout from Moab for the job.
God also knew that Balaam will have to pay a lot of his own money up front to travel all the way from Aram to Moab, because Balak will not pay him until he successfully curses Israel but Balaam already knows that God has prohibited him from cursing Israel. Balaam knows that if he doesn’t curse, he won’t get paid, but he has deceived himself and decided to go to Moab anyway.
During all this time, Balaam is trying to figure out how he is going to get paid for this anyway.
The donkey opened her mouth and spoke
This entire saga with the female donkey carrying Balaam towards Moab is broken into three separate events. Each time, the female donkey (the jenny) saves Balaam’s life and she is beaten by Balaam each time she saves him. At the last time, Balaam threatens to kill the jenny, but once his eyes are opened, he realizes that if the jenny had not saved him, he would be the one who was killed, not her. To him much is given, much is required and God requires more of men than of animals yet, in this case, the stubborn jenny was the smart one.
Balaam continued to speak half-truths to the emissaries. The donkey, who doesn’t have the gift of speech or the IQ of a human being, knows the truth and speaks the truth, while Balaam, who should have been smarter than the donkey, compounds lies on top of lies.
An animal is smart enough to avoid a man with a sword, but Balaam was not. A person actually thinking in his right mind, would have instantly turned around and returned to their home when he saw the angel with the sword.
Normally, when angels appear to human beings, the first thing they say is “Don’t be afraid.” This angel does not say that because he has been sent to scare Balaam straight.
Balaam’s greed blinded him to a lot of things, and put him in a position of not acting in his right mind.
Balaam’s lies lead to his destruction
Just as a half-truth is a lie, half-obedience is disobedience. Balaam was a disobedient liar. The fact that God was still willing to speak with him, shows how patient and forgiving God is.
When Balaam finally reaches Balak, he still doesn’t tell him the whole truth about what is going on. Balaam is still trying to manipulate Balak and God so he can get the money he covets.
Balak’s goal in calling for Balaam to curse the Israelites is to weaken the people Israel so he could go to war against them and kill them.
After three times, Balaam realizes that Balak’s desire for Israel’s death is against God’s desire to give Israel life.
When Balaam asked that his end be like Jacob’s, we see that later the children of Israel were killed off and taken away by foreign armies including the Assyrians and the Babylonians. Israel were subjugated as a punishment for their sexual misconduct and greed. Balaam was also killed by a foreign army, for the same reason, because of sexual misconduct and greed. Balaam didn’t realize that he was actually proclaiming a curse on himself rather than a blessing.
“He took up his discourse and said, “The oracle of Balaam the son of Beor, And the oracle of the man whose eye is opened,
The oracle of him who hears the words of God, And knows the knowledge of the Most High, Who sees the vision of the Almighty, Falling down, yet having his eyes uncovered.
“I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near; A star shall come forth from Jacob, A scepter shall rise from Israel, And shall crush through the forehead of Moab, and tear down all the sons of Seth.”
Numbers 24:15–17 NASB
Balaam had no way of knowing how far in the future this prophesy (or any of his prophesies) would come to fruition. We only know in hindsight that they these events didn’t occur for over 1000 years. God doesn’t look at time as we do.
Every human being on earth is a descendant of Seth, the son of Adam and Eve. The “star” that comes forth from Jacob is the Messiah Yeshua and Balaam is prophesying that ever descendant of Seth will bow down to the Messiah Yeshua. Those who refuse to accept the kingship of Messiah Yeshua will not survive.
May God grant us many years, but not too many
King Solomon said that we are as grass, we are here for a brief time and then we are gone. It is a blessing that God doesn’t grant human beings a 1000 average lifespan on earth.
Imagine if you were born 1,000 years ago, in the year 1021, and you were still alive today and remembered all your years. Can you imagine the stresses you’d have in your life now? You would have watched your children murder each other then die. Then your grandchildren, would murder each other. You would witness your ancestors, your friends come and go. They got their rest but you were still here, as a witness to it all. Where is your emotional and mental state at the end of that 1000 years? I’d say you’d be very depressed.
All those people you loved, that you struggled through life with, all of them passed away. They murdered each other, stole from each other, abused and tortured each other with drugs, poisons and alcohol. Nations going to war with each other for the fun of it, inventing new, ways to kill each other for money and power. How many chemicals can we invent to kill a lot of people? How many bacteria and viruses can we concoct to kill more people? Let’s just spread it around! And you had to bear witness all of that evil?
If you have to watch history repeat itself over and over again, you would be extraordinary depressed. God has to watch all this every day. God know we can’t handle that, I couldn’t handle that. It would be too overwhelming to live a 1,000 years on this earth.
Your end of days, my end of days, will occur either at the moment of our death, when we fall asleep or at the End of Days when we bear witness to the return of our Messiah.
At the resurrection, you will learn the history of what happened to the earth after your rest. You will learn about the things that God did.
If you read two different history books, written about the same event but each other was biased for his own nation, the books would give you the opposite view of that time of history.
Rebellion without truth is like spring in a bleak, arid desert.
Khalil Gibran
The more the people rebel, the stronger their oppression becomes. The more the people rebel, the more laws that are created to try to quench their rebellion but the spirit of rebellion responds with more rebellion and then more laws come, and there’s a cycle of rebellion and destruction which isn’t quenched easily.
The only thing that stops a rebellion is a massive shock.
How did God stop the rebellion that came from the sins of Baal Peor? God called for all the leaders of the rebellion to be hanged publicly, but even that didn’t stop the rebellion. Seeing 24,000 die in a plague didn’t stop the rebellion.
What finally stopped the rebellion was when Phineas took his spear and stabbed through an Israelite leader and his Midianite lover in the act.
Book of Micah: People suffer when the leaders are evil
The book of Micah is the source of today’s haftarah (parallel reading). Through Micah, God rebukes Israel’s screwed up leadership. The leaders of Israel, from the greatest to the lowliest are a mess. And the people suffered as a consequence of the evil actions and intentions of their leaders.
Just as Balak’s offerings didn’t cause God to change His mind about Israel, killing a few goats and putting then on an altar when we screw up doesn’t work with God, does it? No. Where there is no repentance, there is no forgiveness or reconciliation with God. They were just spilling blood for their own amusement and entertainment and wasted God’s time.
In Micah 6:3-9, we see that making offerings without a humble spirit behind them are just a waste of blood and a waste of God’s time. When a wise man is corrected, he rejoices because he knows God loves him. When a foolish man is corrected, he curses God because he doesn’t love God. If we are wise, we should be the same way and appreciate it when God corrects us.
The correcting rod that Balak and Balaam tried to inflict on Israel was brought back upon them in a profound way.
Balak and Balaam’s seven rams and seven bulls did not help them win points with God because their hearts and their actions were so evil and reprehensible. Balaam had some favor with God until his intentions and actions turned to evil.
Summary: Tammy