The Story of Balaam (Numbers 22 - 24)

The Story of Balaam and Why He Is So Confusing

All right. So again, tonight we're looking at Numbers chapters 22 through 24, which covers the story of Balaam. How many of you are familiar with Balaam and who he is? Okay. How many of you say Balaam was a good guy, a prophet of God, a good guy.

How many of you say, no, he was a bad, a bad guy. Yeah. I mean, most people remember this story when they hear Balaam, they think of, yeah, that's the, that's the story with the talking donkey, right?

That's the part that people remember. So like Jonah and the whale, it's just what you remember about it. You're not likely to forget. But even apart from that, the story of Balaam is, it's a really interesting account.

And honestly, it is a little confusing. So in order to get the big picture of what's happening, you really have to compare chapters 22 through 24 with other sections of the Bible that mentioned him. So Balaam is a compelling figure, an important one.

He's mentioned over 60 times in the Bible and not just here in Numbers. He's mentioned in Deuteronomy, Joshua, Nehemiah, Micah, second, Peter, Jude revelation. So he's mentioned, he's mentioned a lot and even in the new Testament.

So here's the thing about Balaam. It's very strange because just reading these chapters, you might get the impression that yeah, he is a prophet of God. He knows the Lord. He's talking to the Lord. He's the prophet of God, but that's not really the case.

The Bible, at least later on, will portray him as a false prophet. And yet his prophecies here are true. So that, that's a little confusing. So what's happening? He's hired to place a curse on the children of Israel, but God does not allow him to do that.

Instead, the Lord puts a prophecy of blessing in his mouth. So the scripture overall is very clear and I'm just giving the overview up front. But the Bible is very clear. Balaam is a bad guy. Joshua 13 verse 22 calls him a soothsayer.

What's another term for a soothsayer? Sorcerer, right? He practices divination or today people just call it witchcraft. What makes it difficult is he also seems to know the Lord. One verse he calls him, you know, my, my Lord.

Well, so it's like, which, which is it? And he even utters a prophecy about the Messiah, but make no mistake about it. He has bad intentions. I think at best you could say maybe he started out and this is at best, I'm not even sure about this, but at best he might've started out as a true prophet, but became a traitor or an apostate, kind of like the old Testament equivalent of Judas Iscariot.

Uh, he knows what's right and he is willing, although it doesn't work out, but he is willing. It seems to do evil if he gets paid, but God doesn't allow him to do that. But he seems, that seems to be his motivation.

He's willing to do whatever it is for money. Okay. So he's a, he's a sorcerer for hire in a sense. Uh, and second Peter chapter two, we see this reference to Balaam. Uh, second Peter two speaks about false teachers in the church.

Peter says they have a heart trained in covetous practices. They are accursed children. They are forsaken the right way and gone astray following the way of Balaam, the son of Beor who loved the wages of unrighteousness.

So Peter makes it very clear. Balaam is, is bad. He's kind of like the picture or a prototype of a false teacher. And then Peter says this, but he was rebuked for his iniquity. A dumb donkey speaking with a man's voice restrained the madness of the prophet.

So not only is he a false prophet, Peter says he's mad. He's, he's insane. He's crazy. And the fact that he's having a conversation with a donkey and he acts like it's normal. He doesn't even seem surprised that the donkey is talking to him.

It's, it's strange. Uh, indeed. It's very ironic. The whole thing with the donkey because Balaam is supposed to be a seer. Remember Samuel, the prophet, he's also called a seer. A seer is supposed to understand spiritual things and even be able to see visions and see spiritual things.

But Balaam doesn't see the angel of the Lord. The donkey does. So the donkey is seeing more than the seer. Balaam is supposed to be a prophet. And yet here is this donkey making more sense than Balaam.

So I'm sure there's a lesson to be learned there as well. But I just want to kind of go through this story a little bit and give you that overview because if you're not familiar with this account, once you start reading it, it would be a little confusing.

Uh, even for those of you who know the story of Balaam, I'll just speak for myself. I always found this to be one of those old Testament stories that, yeah, it makes it kind of scratch your head exactly who he is and, and what's happening.

Balak Hires Balaam to Curse Israel

So we're in Numbers chapter 22. We'll start there. The children of Israel are, they're on the move. They've just defeated the Amorites and the surrounding nations are starting to hear about their, their victory and the surrounding nations are concerned, right?

They figure, okay, we're next. They defeated them. Now they're coming for us. So Balak, king of the Moabites, he tries to hire Balaam to curse the children of Israel because he doesn't think that he can defeat them in battle.

And Balaam has this reputation, whatever Balaam says comes to pass. So if he can get Balaam to curse the children of Israel, then he can defeat them. And Hey, problem solved. So let's begin Numbers chapter 22, starting in verse one says, then the children of Israel moved and camped, camped in the plains of Moab on the side of the Jordan across from Jericho.

Now Balak, son of Zippor, saw all that Israel had done to the Amorites and Moab was exceedingly afraid of the people because they were so many. And Moab was sick with dread because of the children of Israel.

So Moab said to the elders of Midian, they make this alliance. Now this company will lick up everything around us as an ox licks up the grass of the field. And Balak, the son of Zippor, was king of the Moabites at that time.

Then he sent messengers to Balaam, the son of Beor, at Pethor, which is near the river and the land, the sons of his people. And to call him saying, look, a people has come out of Egypt. See, they cover the face of the earth and they're settling next to me.

Therefore, please come at once and curse this people for me, for they are too mighty for me. Perhaps I shall be able to defeat them and drive them out of the land. For I know that he whom you bless is blessed and he whom you curse is cursed.

So the elders of Moab and the elders of Midian departed with the diviner's fee in their hand. And they came to Balaam and spoke to him or spoke to him the words of Balak. And he said to them, lodge here tonight, and I will bring back word to you as the Lord speaks to me.

So the princes of Moab stayed with Balaam. Then God came to Balaam and said, who are these men with you? So Balaam said to God, Balak, the son of Zipporah, king of Moab has sent to me saying, look, a people has come out of Egypt.

They cover the face of the earth. Come now, curse them for me. Perhaps I shall be able to overpower them and drive them out. And then verse 12, we'll stop here. And God said to Balaam, you shall not go with them.

You shall not curse the people for they are blessed. So now we kind of see the problem. Why is God speaking? If Balaam is a false prophet, if Balaam is a bad guy, if he's a pagan, why is God speaking to him?

Right? This is really out of the ordinary. So God is speaking to Balaam. And at this point, if you didn't know better, you would assume, right? I think it would be a logical assumption that yeah, he's a prophet.

Of God. God is speaking to him. Yes. You can't help, but be reminded of where God said to Abraham, I will bless those that bless you. And I will curse those that curse you. Hmm. A lesson for all time about the nation of Israel, folks.

Yeah. Careful how you feel about.

Israel. Cursing the children of Israel. Bad idea. Right. But it's almost universally recognized that Balaam is not an Israelite. He is not a descendant of Abraham. In chapter 31, uh, it says that Balaam, the son of Beor at Pethor, um, basically Pethor is in Mesopotamia.

So that's modern day Iraq. That's a, that's a long ways away. Everyone agrees that he's not an Israelite, so he's not a true prophet of God. However, uh, to some degree, I mean, he knows the one true God and God speaking to him.

So that, that just makes it also unusual. Skip down to verse 18 says, then Balaam answered and said to the servants of Balak, because remember they're trying to pay him curse, curse the people. And he says, though Balak were to give me his house full of silver and gold, I could not go beyond the word of the Lord, my God, to do less or more.

You notice that statement, the Lord, my God. So Balaam tells the messenger, um, Hey, tell the King, um, I don't, I don't have permission to do. I, I can only do what God tells me to do. So what do they do?

They go back and tell Balak, Balak sends more people, more important people and other delegation to try to convince him. And they basically say, Hey, name your price, whatever you want. Balak is the King.

He will give you whatever you want. As long as you curse the people, uh, Balaam should have just rejected that. But he, he's like, well, let me go back to God and see what he says again. That kind of tells you that, that his heart isn't, isn't right.

So he tells Balak's men verse 19. Now, therefore, please, you also stay here tonight that I may know what more the Lord will say to me. I mean, maybe God will give me permission now. No verse 20. And God came to Balaam at night and said, if the men come to call you rise and go with them, but only the word, which I speak to you that you shall do.

So Balaam rose in the morning, saddled his donkey and went with the princes of verse 22. Then God's anger was aroused because he went, right? What, what's your reaction to that? Confusion, right? Why, why are you confused?

Okay. God. Yeah. Everyone reacts the same way. God says, seems to say, yeah. Okay. You can go with them. And then he does. And then God's angry. What's the deal there? Well, you're not, can God be sarcastic?

So here's the thing. Wow. Does God want him to do the right thing?

You know, it's hard to say for sure. I would point out one thing, uh, God specifically, what does he say? Yeah. If the men come and call you, then you can go. And then it just says the next morning he got up and went.

So that's one thing. Technically he may not have been following the Lord's instructions close enough. Uh, if you've read through Leviticus or have been following along, we know, especially in the old Testament, God expects his orders to be followed to a T.

I think he still probably feels that way. Uh, the God doesn't change, but, uh, especially in the old Testament, he does, he doesn't have any tolerance for people just kind of fudging things. So that's one thing I'd point out that God gave specific instructions and potentially Balaam did not follow them.

Uh, John MacArthur says this about this conundrum. He says, even though God had given Balaam permission to go, he knew that his motive was not right. So that's sort of along the lines of what you're saying.

Thus, the anger of the Lord burned against Balaam because God knew that he was not yet submissive to what he required. I mean, why is Balaam even engaging in this at all? Cause there might be a huge payday.

All right. So now God is against Balaam. Balaam doesn't know that though, at this moment, now you, now you get into the story with the donkey verse 23. So Balaam is riding on his donkey verse 23. Now the donkey saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way with his drawn sword in his hand and the donkey turned aside out of the way and went into the field.

So Balaam struck the donkey to turn her back onto the road. Then the angel of the Lord stood in a narrow path between the vineyards with a wall on this side and a wall on that side. And when the donkey saw the angel of the Lord, she pushed herself against the wall and crushed Balaam's foot against the wall.

So he struck her again. So if you don't like cruelty to animals, you probably don't like the story, I guess. Verse 26, then the angel of the Lord went further and stood in a narrow place where there is no way to turn either to the right hand or to the left.

And when the donkey saw the angel of the Lord, she laid down under Balaam. So Balaam's anger was aroused and he struck the donkey with his staff. Then here's the memorable part. Then the Lord opened the mouth of the donkey and said to Balaam, what have I done to you that you have struck me these three times?

Yeah. And there's no statement of Balaam was astounded or anything. No, Balaam just starts talking to the, to the ass and Balaam said to the donkey, because you have abused me. I wish there were a sword in my hand for now, I would kill you.

Now he doesn't realize what's happening. He doesn't see the angel of the Lord. So the donkey said to Balaam, am I not your donkey? And what you have written ever since I became yours to this day, was I ever disposed to do this to you?

And he said, no. And then the Lord opened Balaam's eyes and he saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way with his drawn sword in his hand and he bowed his head and fell flat on his face. And the angel of the Lord said to him, why have you struck your donkey these three times?

Behold, I have come out to stand against you because your way is perverse before me. And the donkey saw me and turned aside for me these three times. If she had not turned aside for me, surely I would also have killed you by now and let her live.

And Balaam said to the angel of the Lord, I have sinned for I did not know you stood in the way against me. Now, therefore, if it displeases you, I will turn back. Then the angel of the Lord said to Balaam, go with the men, but only the word that I speak to you, that you shall speak.

So Balaam went with the princes of Balaam. And this is another confusing thing. He's like, well, okay, I'm ready to go back. Like God doesn't want him to go. And he said, I'll go back. No go. So.

The whole thing is, yeah, it's a head scratcher. Marcus. Is this the angel of the Lord? Is this a.

Pre-incarnate Christ? Typically we would identify the angel of the Lord as, as the pre-incarnate Christ. I, yeah, I don't capital A in my version. Right. Yeah. I would be inclined to think that does anyone else have any, any thoughts on that?

I think so. Matthew Henry says this about this section. This was a great miracle wrought by the power of God. He who made man speak could, when he pleased, make the ass to speak with man's voice. The ass complained of Balaam's cruelty.

The righteous God does not allow the meanest or weakest to be abused, but they shall be able to speak in their own defense. The angel declared that he should not only be unable to curse Israel, but should be forced to bless them.

This would be more for the glory of God and to his own confusion than if he had turned back. In other words, go, because I'm going to, God says, I'm going to glorify myself in, in this. So chapter 22 ends with Balaam's first prophecy.

Yes. Right.

Good. Yeah. Even.

There's no,.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. And even false prophets and unbelievers and yeah, every knee, every knee will bow. Good, good connection. So chapter 22 ends with Balaam's first prophecy. It says that Balak took Balaam and brought him up to the high places of who?

Baal. Okay. This is a bad, this is a bad thing. Took him up to the high places of Baal that from there, he might observe the extent of the people. And just to kind of throw this in, I think we talked about this several chapters ago.

If you were up on a mountaintop and observing the children of Israel below and how they were encamped specifically to the North and South commentators believe that would have made a cross. If you were to look from now, that wouldn't have had any meaning probably to Balaam, but I just find it interesting.

Balaam’s First and Second Prophecies: Truth Mixed with Idolatry

Right now we're at chapter 23 and we really see the perversity of Balaam. Where is he? Where, where is he going to do this from places of Baal, right? The high places of Baal. So this is a, an idolatrous site of pagan worship.

The purpose of him being there, as we heard is to curse the children of Israel from the high places of Baal. And now he's offering pagan sacrifices, right? That's where he's at. That's what he's doing.

Pagan sacrifices. And yet in verse four, he's speaking to the Lord as if he's offering these sacrifices to God at this site where Baal worship is going on. That's another strange thing. What's he doing?

He's blending truth with error. He's blending idolatry with the true worship of God. This has happened before in the book of Numbers, hasn't it? When has somebody tried to, well, I guess it was Exodus.

When has somebody tried to blend idolatry with the true worship of Jehovah? The most well-known story. Yeah, right, right. The golden calf. That's exactly what they did. In the future, the Northern kingdom of Israel, they will blend true worship with false under Jeroboam.

When you get even beyond that, the Samaritans, that's what they did. They had a lot of truth, but the Samaritans blended it together with error. In the new Testament, the Judaizers were preaching Christ, but it was gospel mixed with the law.

So they were mixing truth with error. And then throughout church history, you've had Roman Catholicism that has blended biblical Christianity with Babylonian pagan idolatry and the worship of the queen of heaven and all of that.

So this is nothing new. This has happened throughout history. And I think this is one of Satan's greatest strategies where he's not fighting against the church or trying to crush the church. He's trying to imitate the true worship.

He's trying to corrupt it from within, blending truth with error. So Balaam, that's what he's doing. High places of Baal, speaking to the true God, but offering pagan sacrifices, doing something, trying to do something wicked.

So with Balaam, while some things about him look right, he knows God, calls him the Lord, my God. And even though he ends up speaking God's word and he ends up blessing the children of Israel, God knows his heart, doesn't he?

And he knows that Balaam's ways are what, what was the word the angel used? Perverse. But God is still able to receive glory even through Balaam, which, which really is amazing. So he's been hired to curse Israel, his first prophecy.

Does, does he curse them? No. What does he do? He opens his mouth and out comes a blessing. Chapter 23, verse 11. He says, what? This is Balaam's response after he hears him bless the children of Israel.

He said, what have you done to me? I took you to curse my enemies. And look, you have blessed them bountifully. Like what kind of, what kind of deal is this? Then Balaam begins his second prophecy. And it's the same thing.

He opens his mouth to curse them and out comes the blessing. Look at Balaam's response in verse 25. Now he says, okay, neither curse them at all, nor bless them. Like I've changed my mind. Just don't say anything.

Like you're making it worse. And then in the third prophecy, it says in chapter 24, if you skip over to chapter 24, verse two, it says that the spirit of God came upon Balaam. Typically, if the spirit of God comes upon someone, I mean, you assume he's doing God's work.

Well, here's the thing. He is doing God's work, but that doesn't make him of God. I mean, here's, who is another Old Testament character that we're pretty sure he ended up lost, that he was lost, died lost, yet the spirit of God did come upon him and God did use him.

Who's, who's that? He was the first King of Israel. There's the hymn, right? Yeah. I mean, I guess you, you never know for sure, but most people think that Saul probably was, well, he didn't, he didn't end well.

We know that, but yeah, the spirit of God came upon him and God used him. So this is just really kind of messy and confusing. It doesn't kind of fit into our box of what we think God would normally do.

In stories like this, you just, you always have to remember that God sometimes works in very unexpected ways. So he offers another blessing and each time they do this, they're moving to a different location.

And I don't know how far it was, but back then they had this thing called henotheism. How many of you know what that is? Henotheism. It's not the worship of chickens. Basically they believed that each area had its own God.

So today that'd be like, there'd be a God of Leverett and a God of Montague and a God of Greenfield. You know, they would have a different bale for each geographical location. So they're moving around from place to place, offering more sacrifices, but none of it makes any difference.

Finally, Balak is, he's just finished with it all. And he tells Balaam, all right, go home, but not before he doesn't leave, before he utters his fourth prophecy, which we'll look at in a moment. This is where he prophesies of, of the coming Christ.

But again, don't get the idea, the idea that he's a good guy or that he's a prophet of God just because the spirit came upon him. And when it says the spirit came upon him, what does that mean? What, what spirit?

Who, who's the spirit? The Holy Spirit, right? So at best, there's an inward struggle going on inside of Balaam. And in the end, he chooses to do the wrong thing. Again, you have to really understand who he is.

You have to go beyond chapters 22 through 24, because in chapter 31, and if you look at that chapter, we don't have to do it, but chapter 31, compared to what the book of revelation says about him, Balaam, because he was unable to curse the children of Israel, he counseled Balak to send pagan women to the Israelites, to seduce them, to worship false gods and to eat things, sacrifice to idols and to commit sexual immorality.

And what was the result of that? That ended up bringing a plague. So in a sense, because he could not curse them with his mouth, he found kind of a way around it. Okay. If you do this and get them to do that, then they'll be cursed.

So in the end, there's nothing good about Balaam. It's been said that God can draw a straight line with a crooked stick. Well, that's what he's doing here. Balaam is a crooked stick. It's also been said that God can cause a donkey to speak.

He can cause a false, even a false prophet to speak the truth, at least at times. So we'll close with numbers 24, 15 through 18. This is Balaam's fourth and final prophecy where he makes an utterance concerning Israel's anointed one.

We've talked about this before, that anointed one means Messiah or Messiah means anointed one. Christ means anointed one. Who was the first one? Because we think, okay, it's Christ, but who was the first anointed one?

Well, we've talked about Aaron was anointed as priest. Of course, we talked about Saul. Saul technically was anointed as king, but the great king of Israel was who? David. Right. David was sort of the prototype of Christ as the anointed of God.

So what Balaam is doing, he is prophesying of both David and Christ. So numbers 15 through 18, we'll look at that in a second. Numbers 24, though 14, look at that. Verse 14, Balaam says to Balak, and now indeed, I am going to my people come and I will advise you what this people that is the Israelites will do to your people in the latter days.

And you could kind of call this poetic justice because Balak hires Balaam to curse the Israelites so he could destroy them. But in the end, Balaam tells Balak that no, one day they are going to destroy you.

So the lesson is no man can curse what God has blessed. And that's still true today, right? God made a promise to them. They can get themselves into a whole lot of trouble, and I think they have throughout history, but you can't curse what God has blessed.

And in 2 Samuel 8, that's exactly what happens. David, God's anointed king, conquers Moab, fulfilling Balaam's prophecy. But of course, this prophecy does point ahead ultimately to Jesus who will destroy his enemies in the latter days.

So let's start reading these verses and we'll close. Numbers 24, starting in verse 15, Balaam speaking. So he took up his oracle and said, the utterance of Balaam, the son of Beor, and the utterance of a man whose eyes are opened.

The utterance of him who hears the words of God. Is all of that true? Yeah, it is. And has knowledge of the most high, who sees the vision of the almighty, who falls down with eyes wide open. He says in verse 17, I see him, but not now.

I behold him, but not near. A star shall come out of Jacob and a scepter shall rise out of Israel. Just about the star. Do you remember when Jesus was born, what did the wise men say? They said, where is he who has been born king of the Jews for we have seen his star, right?

In the east, we have come to worship him. And that's where the scepter comes in. And then Jesus, if you need more proof, Jesus himself confirms that he is the star in revelation 22 verse 16. He says, I am the root and the offspring of David, the bright and morning star.