The gist about Balaam, an odd ‘prophet’ from the Old Testament
But who really was Balaam?
There has been an emphasis on consistent devotion in my local church and just recently, I made it a point to read through my bible.
Why have I done this?
While I am all for in-depth studies that involve keyword research into core biblical tenets, the use of commentaries, lexicons, and cross-references; I also believe that the bible is a unified story that ultimately points to Christ.
It tells of a world created for God’s glory that was corrupted by man’s disobedience, redeemed by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and would ultimately be judged by Him. It is for this reason that I think that while a scholarly evaluation of the text is important, Christians should also be willing to crank up those old bible-in-a-year plans now and then.
Does anyone else read their bibles at 1.5x using a listeners’ bible cos it forces them to focus and not drift and it’s giving tea spillage or am I a carnal infidel that ought to be stoned outside the city gates?
Mehn, we all have to do what we can, these are desperate times and death to social media bruh! You totally fried my braaiiin (tears).
I finally got to the Book of Numbers and encountered this interesting personality, Balaam, son of Beor. I am not entirely sure if I was the only one who always held the view that he was a greedy prophet. I think the view was a little popularized by a somewhat skewed reading of this bible verse:
Jude 1:11
‘Woe to them! They have taken the way of Cain; they have rushed for profit into Balaam’s error; they have been destroyed in Korah’s rebellion.
Could have been just me though hehehehe.
I said all of that to say that I used to hold the wrong view of Balaam until I met him by myself in the book of Numbers.
Some other people know the prophet Balaam to be the poster child for disobedience. This is largely because of the donkey incident.
But who really was Balaam?
I have reason to believe that the term ‘Prophet’ as used in the time of Moses stood for anyone who could commune with Yahweh, bless and curse, foretell the future, and give oracles. This is because Balaam wasn’t an Israelite and he used divination but was still able to commune with the Israelite God Yahweh and receive oracles from Him.
Balaam’s introductory moment in the Israelite story was when Balak, King of the Moabites came to commission him to lay a curse on the Israelites.
To be fair, the development of the knowledge of all things prophetic would show us that while prophets of old had people take care of their needs, it is inconsistent with the prophetic office to make a practice of commissioning prophetic gifts. Additionally, since Balaam’s character in the biblical story eventually evolved into an image of those who use godly gifts and virtues for ungodly gain, if you run a prophetic ministry, you probably want to make sure that you also do not make a habit of commissioning prophetic gifts. Seems like a backdoor to Balaam.
Nevertheless, Balaam was an old testament seer who was privileged to get oracles of Yahweh and had just been commissioned to lay a curse on the people of Israel so that they would be weak, unable to do battle and Moab could defeat them; thereby preventing the Israelites from occupying the land of Moab; which God already promised to the people of Israel.
In light of everything I said about Balaam getting a commission from the King of Moab and evolving to become an image of a false, commission-charging prophet, it is easy to assume that Balaam was a nasty guy, but the truth is he was a pagan, so it wasn’t really out of place for him. Chances are he worshipped Yahweh alongside other gods and divined from them, too.
Balaam told Balak that he would divine and commune with Yahweh to see if a curse could be laid on the Israelites, but he could only say what the Lord had told him and nothing else. An honest pagan prophet I stan!
Balaam consults and he sees that there are no curses to lay on the Israelites and he relays his message to the king. However, Balak would not take no for an answer, so he sent an even bigger delegation with a larger commission for Balaam. Yahweh then instructs Balaam to relent and follow the delegation to the hill upon which Balak thinks Israel would be cursed.
Aaaaand this is what precedes the very popular, very misunderstood donkey scene:
‘Balaam got up in the morning, saddled his donkey and went with the Moabite officials. But God was very angry when he went, and the angel of the Lord stood in the road to oppose him.
Balaam was riding on his donkey, and his two servants were with him. When the donkey saw the angel of the standing in the road with a drawn sword in his hand, it turned off the road into a field. Balaam beat it to get it back on the road.
Then the angel of the stood in a narrow path through the vineyards, with walls on both sides. , it pressed close to the wall, crushing Balaam’s foot against it.
So he beat the donkey again. moved on ahead and stood in a narrow place where there was no room to turn, either to the right or to the left. , it lay down under Balaam, and he was angry and beat it with his staff.
Then the opened the donkey’s mouth, and it said to Balaam, “What have I done to you to make you beat me these three times?” Balaam answered the donkey, “You have made a fool of me! If only I had a sword in my hand, I would kill you right now.”
The donkey said to Balaam, “Am I not your own donkey, which you have always ridden, to this day? Have I been in the habit of doing this to you?” “No,” he said. opened Balaam’s eyes, and he saw the angel of the standing in the road with his sword drawn.
So he bowed low and fell facedown. The angel of the asked him, “Why have you beaten your donkey these three times? I have come here to oppose you because your path is a reckless one before me.
The donkey saw me and turned away from me these three times. If it had not turned away, I would certainly have killed you by now, but I would have spared it.” Balaam said to the angel of the , “I have sinned. I did not realize you were standing in the road to oppose me.
Now if you are displeased, I will go back.” said to Balaam, “Go with the men, but speak only what I tell you.” So Balaam went with Balak’s officials.’
Numbers 22:21–35
Following the ooo-aah moment in response to this were moments of utter confusion. Yahweh told Balaam to go, Balaam went, yet Yahweh was angry, sent an angel to stop Balaam, made Balaam’s donkey speak, then told Balaam to keep going? What is going on?!
It kept getting odder and odder, but I pressed on.
Three divinations, 21 dead cows and rams later, featuring an angry, disappointed King Balak, Balaam sees that there is no divination against Israel and no enchantment against Zion, relays his message to Balak, and goes home.
At this point of the story, I was sighing and sympathizing with Balaam (as a self-proclaimed companion to all who are misunderstood), until I got to Numbers 31 and saw this…
They also killed Balaam son of Beor with the sword.
Numbers 31:8b
Holluuuuuppppaminute! Again, what is going on?!
Now I know there are many things I cannot explain about the Hebrew Bible; Balaam’s very existence being one of them; but he was not a bad guy (tears). Yeah yeah, based on the Israelite code, his paganism was enough reason to put him to death, but I was just getting to see Balaam in a different light… What could he have done?
I read further and found out.
‘“Have you allowed all the women to live?” he asked them. “They were the ones who followed Balaam’s advice and enticed the Israelites to be unfaithful to the Lord in the Peor incident, so that a plague struck the Lord’s people. ‘
Numbers 31:15–16
After divining and seeing that the Lord was really with the children of Israel and that they could not be cursed, he still consulted with the Moabite and Midianite kings and gave counsel to them. One such counsel was that they should get the Moabite women to entice the Israelite men so that they would go against Yahweh’s laws and defile themselves. Yahweh would then curse them by himself and they would be weak and eventually defeated by the Moabites.
Honestly, in light of the ‘new’ info that I got on Balaam, this read as something of a betrayal to me. If you have the privilege of divining with Yahweh, you really shouldn’t be trying to sell out his people. That is just wrong mehn.
So Balaam’s real issue was not that he was a commissioned dibia who was so hell-bent on cursing the children of Israel that God had to get an angel and a donkey to stop him. It is not entirely faithful to the text to use Balaam as a reference for the hot fiery prayers we pour on that okitipupa babalawo who is intent on tying our destinies (International audience, sorry, please find out what this reference means from your Nigerian friends. Use it as an avenue for cultural exchange wink, wink).
Ultimately, Balaam was a prophet who willingly rejected Yahweh for gain. And this is why much later, the apostles had this to say about him:
Jude 1:11
‘Woe to them! They have taken the way of Cain; they have rushed for profit into Balaam’s error; they have been destroyed in Korah’s rebellion.
And this:
Revelation 2:14
‘ Nevertheless, I have a few things against you: There are some among you who hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to entice the Israelites to sin so that they ate food sacrificed to idols and committed sexual immorality. ‘
I hope that in the future, I get to share more of the things that stood out to me from studying my bible and getting to know my God. I invite you to this same community of God-knowers who have faith in and believe the testimony of the man Jesus Christ who was God in the flesh, who died for your sins and was resurrected for the justification of anyone who believes this good news; that it pleased God to punish Jesus for your sins and resurrect him as you, so that the urge to sin against God is no longer irresistible to anyone who believes.
If you need a bit more context, you can start from here
https://www.youtube.com/live/BoeaFTvC5HM?si=ghO8PL9ApPwbGSlG
Love and cheers.
