Hywel George
Balaam is quite the perplexing character. The automatic impression many have on first encountering him is that he isn’t as he seems. A superficial look at the Balaam narrative of Numbers 22–24 leaves us thinking that he is both a villain and a wrong-time-wrong-place decent sort of guy at the same time. However, a serious examination of Numbers, especially alongside other biblical passages, paints a much clearer picture.
A Bumpy Storyline
On first reading Numbers 22–24, the details tug our judgment about Balaam’s character in multiple directions. It is understandable that people find it difficult to reach a conclusion about him with a quick reading. Consider the conundrums posed by the story.
Balaam is introduced as a renowned diviner with power to curse or bless, a suspicious start. We are reassured, however, when the royal scoundrels visit his home and he doesn’t immediately fall in with their wicked intentions for money and prestige but waits overnight to hear from the Lord first. Aha! This seer knows the Living God. The question is, “For better or for worse?”
Things look good when, in the morning, Balaam dismisses the evil diplomats and their plots in apparent submission to the Lord’s command. As if to dispel any doubts about his sincerity, we are told that Balaam stands firm, even to additional convoys of regal pressure and wealthy temptation. Remarkably, Balaam identifies the Lord of Israel and calls him “my God.” Compared with his villainous visitors, Balaam seems a virtuous man confounding their plans.
Balaam again waits to hear from the Lord. This much probably stands against him. He has already been told how to behave but now entertains a change of heart in the living God. Surprisingly, the Lord does change his tune, instructing Balaam to accompany his guests and speak the word he would be given. In a reaction which is ostensibly unfair to Balaam, the Lord is angry the next day because Balaam went with his visitors. Didn’t Balaam merely do as he was told? That the angel of the Lord—whom I understand to be Christ himself—personally opposes Balaam momentarily helps us make up our mind, but the broader context confuses us. If Balaam is a wicked man, what of his apparent piety? But if he is a good guy, what of the Lord’s ire?
Things get all the more bewildering with Balaam’s donkey. She sees her Maker, but Balaam is blind in this regard (a trope in the Pentateuch for characters with poor or wicked judgement).1 The donkey gives Balaam a hard time; Balaam returns in kind, but how was he to know his life was being spared? If anything, he seems to be the kind of fellow that can be reasoned with, even if by a donkey. When Balaam’s eyes are opened to see the angel of the Lord, armed and dangerous, he responds appropriately in prostration. The angel says in his own words that if there is a foolish donkey around here, it is the unseeing Balaam! Balaam admits, “I have sinned,” and offers to turn back. This seems sensible behaviour for a man unwilling to displease the Lord “my God.” Nevertheless, the Lord flips on Balaam again, repeating his instruction to go with the evildoers and speak the word he will be given. What was the episode about the donkey for, if no progress is made in the narrative? Sympathetic readers expect Balaam to proceed with trepidation and uncertainty. Maybe an angel will be round the next corner to threaten his life, only to tell him to carry on!
Reaching his paymaster, Balaam transparently confirms the terms of contract to include that he cannot say anything more than God puts in his mouth. Then, Balaam seems to participate in idol worship before getting to work the next day. What work exactly? Is he there to curse the Lord’s people or bless them (Num 22:6, 12)?
Three times, Balaam makes fourteen sacrifices and waits for the Lord to speak. More than speak, the Lord puts a word in Balaam’s mouth—an unmitigated blessing on the Lord’s people. On the third occasion, Balaam seems to have grasped something and “did not go, as at other times, to seek to use sorcery” (Num 24:1). At this point, the Holy Spirit comes upon him. Balaam’s fourth oracle is also different. It seems to flow unprovoked from his own heart. Balaam admits he knows the Most High and prophesies the coming of Jesus and the overthrow of the enemies of his church.
Interpretive Help
Given careful attention, this narrative alone is indeed sufficient for a firm conclusion about Balaam, but other Scriptures aid in solidifying the assessment. Balaam is outed as the mastermind behind one of Israel’s most terrible calamities (Num 31:16). His damnable advice cost tens of thousands of lives and risked the annihilation of the nation. In response, God appoints Balaam’s demise alongside the accursed kings of Midian (Num 31:1–8). Moses later reveals both that Balaam was hired to curse the Lord’s people and that this is precisely what he intended. Balaam went to curse, but was frustrated in the act (Deut 23:4–5).
The Apostle Peter castigates “Balaam . . . who loved the wages of wickedness” (2 Pet 2:15). Peter exposes at least part of Balaam’s motive as that of a mercenary diviner: he loved money and didn’t mind how dirty it was. Jude 11 corroborates this evaluation, condemning false teachers as falling to Balaam’s error, seeking profit. So, Scripture is unanimous in portraying Balaam as a wicked man and condemning him for seeking to curse the Lord’s people for money.2 The final nail in his coffin is the personal animosity of the Son of God (Rev 2:14; cf. Num 22:22).
Who is Balaam?
Balaam was a professional diviner, a prophesying witch-for-hire. Though he seems initially hard to pin down, Christ has the measure of him immediately. When they first meet face-to-face, the angel of the Lord says that Balaam’s way is “perverse” (Num 22:32).3 This rare word means that Balaam is a manipulative man, forcefully manhandling situations for his own purposes. That’s Balaam. All his machinations are calculated to his own benefit. He has love for neither the living God nor neighbour.
When Balaam was told not to go with Balak’s envoy in Num 22:12, that ought to have been the end of it. Instead, he aimed for a change of heart in the living God, a loophole in his instruction—maybe more money, too. He was set in serpentine ways, and the Lord dealt with him accordingly, permitting him to press on in his folly.
Balaam tries thrice to force the cooperation of his loyal donkey, then she speaks some sense to him. Later, his employer tries thrice to force Balaam’s cooperation, then Balaam the puppet speaks some sense to him! The scenes are mirrored to paint Balaam with big teeth and long ears, in the image of his own donkey.
The donkey scene points out that Balaam is being undone by the curses he intends to carry to Israel. It is not arbitrary that his donkey drives him into a field, crushes his foot against a wall, and lays him in the dust. Balaam comes to curse Israel, but the curse pronounced in Genesis 3 is recapitulated upon his own head. Indeed, some of the key terms from Genesis 3 are repeated in Balaam’s account, and Christ stands as his satan-adversary4 (Num 22:22). As man was driven out of the garden into the field and as the serpent was laid low in dust, so Balaam is driven from his way into a dead-end field and humiliated in the ground. As the serpent was to be crushed and humanity saved by a deliverer’s bruised heel, the crafty prophet who sought to crush Israel with a curse instead has his own heel bruised and is eventually slain.
When Balaam arrives to do his dirty deed, he knows that Christ—the angel of the Lord—has seen through him. Yet he seeks what he can get out of the situation. Balaam dabbles in the darkest means: divination, omens, sorcery—all in attempts to constrain the Lord, curse his people, and get paid. Balaam invokes magic, the ugly opposite to prayer. Instead of asking by faith, he wrangles to discover and control the Lord (Num 23:3). Balaam’s recipe includes altitude, visibility, and faithless sacrifices offered like a spell (Num 22:41; 23:1–2, 13). When the Lord does meet him, Balaam rattles off his list of offerings like a receipt of purchase (Num 23:4)! He is perverse indeed, seeking to wring out his own outcome, to curse the blessed people. His confounding is crowned in these chapters as he beautifully blesses the people he came to curse.
The reversal of Balaam’s attempted curse into blessing upon Israel will be repeated when the ancient serpent of Genesis 3 seeks to destroy the faithful son of Adam only for it to rebound into resurrection and blessing for the people of God. In his incarnation, Christ is driven into the desert (Matt 4), and his heel is crushed as he is crucified, made a curse, and lain in the dust (Ps 22:15; Gal 3:13). Yet as the curse climaxes, it is undone in resurrection and blessing for the world. Balaam intended to curse, only for it to be turned upside-down in blessing as he inadvertently bore God’s curse. Jesus willingly carried the curse in order to secure blessing, and God took the destruction intended by Satan and turned it upside-down into the devil’s destruction and life for his people.
Conclusion
Numbers includes the story of determined, wicked, and uniquely powerful men in league with dark forces and conspiring together against Christ’s people. In the course of the narrative, they are utterly frustrated. Balaam goes to “see” something, but the Lord puts a word in his mouth, and Balaam hardly gets a word in! The dark magic makes no difference at all, and the Spirit has his way. Balaam’s meetings with Christ are embarrassingly abrupt. By the end of the narrative, Balaam and company are shown up as ignorant and foolish donkeys.
What’s more, the Lord’s people are blessed to heaven and back again. All this happens without the people being aware of one bit. Numbers 22–24 describes what is probably the greatest threat to the children of Israel since the exodus, and they are blissfully unaware. The faithfulness of their Shepherd is sufficient to turn every curse on its head and into a blessing for his people. As such, the story of Balaam serves as much as a heavenly encouragement as it does a serious warning.
Hywel George is a pastor in Maesycwmmer, Wales, United Kingdom. He is a graduate from Union School of Theology and lectures Church History in Valleys School of Theology. You can follow him on X/Twitter @_HywelGeorge.
Image: Rembrandt van Rijn, Balaam and the Ass
- See Gen 3:5; 27:1; 30:27; 41:37; Num 33:55; Deut 34:7.[↩]
- See also Josh 13:22; 24:9–10; Neh 13:2; Mic 6:5.[↩]
- יָרַט (yārǎṭ).[↩]
- שָׂטָן.[↩]