Numbers 21 - 22

Numbers — Steve Gregg

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Numbers 23 - 24

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Numbers 21 - 22

NumbersSteve Gregg

In Numbers 21-22, Steve Gregg explores the account of Israel's rebellion and journey to the land of the Canaanites. Gregg reflects on the significance of Moses lifting up a serpent in the wilderness, linking it to Jesus being lifted up on the cross as a symbol of salvation. He also delves into the dynamics between the Moabites, Midianites, and Israelites, highlighting their complex interactions. Gregg examines the intriguing character of Balaam, a diviner who worships Yahweh but also engages in prophetic activities that raise questions about his loyalty.

Transcript

All right, we're turning to Numbers, Chapter 21. This is an interesting story. At least I always found it so from my childhood on.

And a lot of the stuff in Numbers would not have been interesting to me as a child. But this is just a story, I guess because kids like, little boys like snakes. It's a snake story.

One of the major ingredients of horror movies, I guess, is supposed to be snakes. Supposed to be one of the surefire things to make a movie scary is feature snakes. Snakes on a plane, for example.

Well, this is a horror story, but the horrible parts are passed over rather lightly and rather quickly. The real horrible part is that the people rebelled again. A new generation, the generation whose parents had rebelled consistently.

Now they rebel. They don't rebel in the same degree as their parents did, but they murmur and they end up being bad. But not right away.

First of all, the first three verses, we have the first military victory since the defeat of the Nalekites. It says when the king of Arad, the Canaanite, who dwelt in the south, heard that Israel was coming on the road to Atharim, then he fought against Israel and took some of them prisoners. Now, Israel on a road would be spread out over miles.

I mean, the length of the column traveling on a road. And it does say they were on the road to Atharim. The front columns would be, you know, miles ahead of the back ones.

So it'd be possible for an army in front of them or at any part attacking any part of them to be isolated from the rest of the troops so that the total number of Israelites could not mobilize immediately against them. And so there was some kind of a raid that this Canaanite tribe ran against them, and they took a few of them as prisoners and backed away. And I don't know if that was just to warn them off or what, but it was the wrong move for them to make because it just made Israel angry.

And Israel did mobilize against them, and that did not go well for Arad, the Canaanite tribal leader. It says, So Israel made a vow to the Lord and said, If you will indeed deliver this people into my hand, then I will utterly destroy their cities. And the Lord listened to the voice of Israel and delivered up the Canaanites, and they utterly destroyed them and their cities.

So they came. So the name of the place was called Hormat, which means utter destruction. This was the first fruits of the Canaanites.

Israel was going to take all the land of the Canaanites. These ones were down in the south or the Negev in the southern region of Palestine. And they shouldn't they should just let well enough along.

But instead, they attacked Israel and Israel retaliated and totally wiped them out, totally annihilated them and wiped out their cities. And this was what eventually would happen to the rest of the Canaanites. And so God has given them sort of a first to encourage them that this is what was going.

This is sort of a picture of things to come. Actually, in this same chapter, they're going to defeat some other hostile kings, but they are not kings of Canaan because the Israelites, although they're coming up from the south, they they could have. We assume they could have just come up to the west side of the Dead Sea and walked right into Canaan.

But instead, they came along the east side and that put the River Jordan between them and Canaan. As I'm sure you can picture the geography, the River Jordan, which runs from the Sea of Galilee down to the Dead Sea. Actually, originally it's north of the Sea of Galilee, but if they are at any point between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea, the River Jordan provides a barrier to entrance into the land of Canaan.

And therefore, it doesn't seem like the natural way they would go if they're planning to invade Canaan. But they did come up along the east side and encountered, as we shall see, kings who are hostile to them of the Amorites. Who are living on the other side of Jordan, not the promised land, but they end up conquering them too.

Israel didn't provoke them. These kings provoked Israel and ended up getting defeated by Israel. So three times in this chapter, we will see Israel is not provoking anybody, but they get attacked and they whip them.

They whip the guys who come against them. But in the middle of all that, we have this section, verses 4 through 20. It says, Then they journeyed from Mount Hor, which is where they were when Aaron died, by the way of the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom, and the soul of the people became very discouraged on the way.

And the people spoke against God and against Moses. Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and our soul loathes this worthless bread, meaning manna. Now, they may have been disturbed because they saw they weren't going directly into Canaan when they could, but they were going around it.

In fact, they had to go around the land of Edom, which is a pretty far loop east in the wrong direction. And this may be what discouraged the people. They saw that, you know, here it is.

It's been 40 years they're in the wilderness. They're supposed to take Canaan now, aren't they? And now they're near it. And then they make this take this long route around it through the desert where there's still no food.

They still have to depend on manna. And so they're again grumbling. And so this time the Lord used a different means of judging them for that.

It said in verse 6, the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people and they bit the people and many of the people of Israel died. Now, it's not I'm not sure why they call them fiery serpents. Perhaps their bite felt fiery, felt like burning where the poison went in.

These were definitely venomous serpents and there must have been a lot of them. I mean, you would encounter snakes in the desert on a regular basis. So it wouldn't be any special curse of God that they would run into a snake here and there.

But this must have been a nest of them, a nest of vipers that they came among. Maybe God used that in order to communicate to them that they were like that. Remember, Jesus and John the Baptist both referred to the Jews of their time in their rebellion as a generation of vipers, of deadly snakes.

And perhaps Israel was being like the Pharisees on this occasion. They were apostate, they were not loyal and they were like a generation of vipers. So God sent vipers among them, apparently in large numbers and a lot of people were dying.

Therefore, the people came to Moses and said, we have sinned for we have spoken against Yahweh and against you. They should have done that earlier, like before they did it. It's a strange thing that they, you know, as soon as the judgment comes, they say, oh, yeah, Yahweh is doing that again to us.

Well, again, right. Why didn't you remember the other times they did that? Why do you keep making the same mistakes? Of course, we have to be careful about being too critical of them, because there are some of us who probably repeat our mistakes over and over again, too. But it just seems strange.

It's human nature. I guess we can see ourselves better in the reflection of these people who don't seem to ever really learn. And it says, pray the Lord that he will take away the serpents from us.

So Moses prayed for the people. Then the Lord said to Moses, make a fiery serpent, set it on a pole and it shall be that everyone who is bitten when he looks at it shall live. So Moses made a bronze serpent and put it on a pole so that it was if a serpent had bitten anyone when he looked at this bronze serpent, he lived.

Now, there's a couple of interesting things about this. One is obviously that Jesus used this as an illustration of himself on the cross. In John chapter three, when he's talking to Nicodemus and Nicodemus says, how can it be that a man could be born again? And part of the answer that Jesus gives him is an illustration from this story.

And in John chapter three, verse 14 and 15, Jesus said, and as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. That whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. Now, whoever looked at the serpent would not perish.

They wouldn't die of their snake bite. They could live on. So looking upon the serpent on the pole, Jesus said, it's like believing on Christ on the cross.

But this is a peculiar connection for him to make, because the serpent is obviously in Scripture an emblem of evil and of Satan. It's not an emblem of Christ who'd more properly be represented as a lamb or some other maybe sacrificial animal. Not an unclean animal, certainly not the animal that Satan inhabited to deceive Adam and Eve.

Why would a serpent make a symbol of Christ on the cross? Now, there's two things that come to my mind as possibilities. One of them is that, in fact, the serpent does represent Christ, but that when Christ was put on the cross, rather than being innocent, all the sins of the world were put upon him so that he became sin for us and that to represent him dying on the cross as a serpent dying on the cross would represent perhaps what he voluntarily allowed himself to become in our place, that we're the ones who are the serpents. We're the ones who are the sinners.

We're the ones who are the unclean, loathsome, demonic creatures. And yet he became all of our substitute, our sin, all of our loathsomeness was put upon him. So it says in Second Corinthians 521 that he who knew no sin became sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

That's Second Corinthians 521. And that might be the reason. But I think there may be a different reason.

And the different reason might be that the serpent does not represent Jesus. The serpent represents the devil. And that the serpent was represented here, not as something exalted, but something impaled on the pole.

Actually, the Hebrew verb in verse eight said it on a pole said it can be understood to mean impale it. Now, impalement was an awful way that some people were killed in the Persian Empire. They impaled people who had the death penalty and they just have a sharp pointed pole and they just shoved the body of the person over it alive.

And the pole go up through their body. It's like they became a human shish kebab while they're still alive. It's an awful horrible way to the Assyrians did this to people, too.

And, you know, impalement is just a gross way to suffer death. Painful while it lasted until you died. You probably die quickly once impaled, but maybe not quickly as you'd wish.

But it may be that this emblem was of Satan being impaled, which is what was affected when Jesus died on the cross, because the Bible says that through the cross, Jesus disarmed principalities and powers and made a show of them openly triumphing over them in it. In Colossians 2, 15. And we read that Jesus through death destroyed him that had the power of death.

That is the devil in Hebrews, chapter two. In verse 14, through his death, Jesus wasn't destroyed, Satan was destroyed. Jesus was killed, but really it was the doom, not of Jesus, but of Satan.

Satan was killed, as it were. And so as a picture of what Christ would accomplish with the cross, that maybe that God had Moses depict the doom of the serpent, because the cross was the doom of the serpent. And that might be the connection that Jesus intended for us to make between those two events.

The fact is, when people saw the impaled serpent, the idea that God conquered the serpent. That would cause those who were bitten by serpents to, by faith in God who conquered the serpent, to be healed of their snake bite. So that whoever now believes in Jesus, who has conquered the serpent, would also, whoever believes in him would be healed of their sin and their mortal condition of sin.

But then there's another thing that's interesting about this. And that is that this bronze serpent was kept by Israel after this time for some period of time, centuries actually. And in the days of Hezekiah, after the time of the long apostasy of Judah, after the time of David, Judah went into a time of apostasy and they only had a few kings that were any good.

Most of them were very evil. And the people of Israel began to worship other gods. Among other things, they began to worship this bronze serpent.

It was one of the images that they chose to worship. And when Hezekiah made his reforms, he had to destroy this serpent that Moses had made. You read about it in 2nd Kings 18.

For he made reference to it as Nehush-ten. That Hezekiah referred to the serpent as this bronze serpent as Nehush-ten, which literally means a piece of bronze or piece of brass. And of course, what it's suggesting is he's saying, why are you worshiping the thing? It's just a piece of metal.

It's not a god. But it's in 2nd Kings chapter 18, verse 4, says he has a kind of removed the high places and broke the sacred pillars, cut down the wooden images and broken pieces. The bronze serpent that Moses had made for until those days, the children of Israel burned incense to it and called it Nehush-ten.

I believe it was actually the king who called it Nehush-ten, not the people. It's not clear, but I believe that in referring to it as a piece of bronze, which is what that means, or a bronze thing. It's referring to what Hezekiah referred to it as as he destroyed it.

So even that thing which God uses for people's salvation can become an idol to people. And we see that sort of in the sentiments of the Roman Catholics and their relics, splinters of the cross, toenails of Peter or whatever, locks of hair from the Virgin Mary. I mean, they don't have those actual things, but they, you know, things that are considered to be things used by God to bring about salvation.

They kind of make them objects of reverence and veneration and burn incense to them, so to speak. And that was something that in the reforms of Hezekiah that had to be done away with. Just as in the Reformation, some of that was done away with by Luther.

The relics are sort of, I think, having relics and thinking they have power or potency is about the same mentality as what these people did. It was something God had used. I wonder sometimes even about crosses today.

I don't think there's anything wrong with an ornamental cross necessarily. But if anyone thinks that a cross worn around the neck has some kind of power, you know, words off vampires or something, you know, or demons, or there are people who, you know, depend on things that represent salvation, images and so forth that they attribute power to. They begin to look to those things almost as if they have divine status themselves.

That's what the Israelites did with the serpent, which God had commanded to be made, and God had used it supernaturally to bring about healing and survival of the people. But the people responded wrongly to it because of their natural idolatry of their corrupt hearts. Verse 10, Now the children of Israel moved and camped in Oboth, and they journeyed from Oboth and camped at Ijah, Abarim, in the wilderness, which is in the east of Moab, toward the sunrise.

Now they were near Moab, and the Moabites are going to get afraid of them, as we shall see in chapter 22, but they're going to encounter some other opposition first. From there they moved and camped in the valley of Zered. From there they moved and camped on the other side of the Arnon, which is in the wilderness that extends from the border of the Amorites.

For Arnon is the border of Moab between Moab and the Amorites. Now the Amorites are going to be the next people that the Israelites fight, and the Moabites, who are there on the border of these two places, the Moabites are going to be the ones who hire Balaam to try to curse them. So that's the region they're in.

They're on the east side of Jordan. They're on the border between the Amorite territory and the Moabite territory. Now some of the Amorite territory had once been Moabite territory.

For example, Israel is going to camp eventually on the plains of Moab. This is territory they took from Sihon, the king of the Amorites. But we have reason to believe that that is some of the territory that Sihon had previously taken from the Amorites.

As we shall see, there is reference to him having done so. OK, now from the Moabites, I said from the Amorites, he took it from the Moabites. OK, therefore, it is said in the book of the Wars of the Lord, a book that we don't know anything more about other than it's mentioned here.

Apparently Moses knew of it or wrote it and it may have it may have perished. It may be that there's another book that Moses wrote. We don't know who wrote the book of the Wars of the Lord.

It says, Waheb and Suphah, the brooks of the Arnon and the slope of the brooks that reaches the dwelling of Ar and lies on the border of Moab. Now, why does it mention this, this quote from the book of the Wars of the Lord? It's obviously mentioned as a confirmation of what we've just been told, and perhaps all that it is intended to confirm is the fact that Arnon lies on the or Ar lives lies on the border of Moab, which we've just been told. And maybe that's why it's mentioned here, although some manuscripts or some translator, I should say, render verse 14.

We conquered Waheb and Suphah and the brooks of Arnon and the slope of the brooks, etc., which would be a document in another book of probably the Israelite conquest. Or maybe the yeah, I mean, it's hard to know. This is a very obscure reference.

Its actual meaning is disputed for 16 and from there they went to be here now. Lots of Israelite cities were named Beer something Beer Sheba. It was a common one.

Beer Lehi Roy. Beer means well, a well. And so a lot of towns or settlements were built around wells in the desert because people need water supply.

So when they find a good well, they build a settlement around it and they'd name the settlement after the well. So beer means well. It says, which is the well where the Lord said to Moses, gather the people together and I will give them water.

They had complained that there was no water before the snakes came. And so God took them to a well where there was some water. And then Israel sang this song, Spring up a well.

All of you sing to it. The well, the leaders sank, dug by the nation's nobles, by the lawgiver with their staves or stabs. It would appear that the lawgiver Moses actually had them dig the well here.

It says their nobles sank this well. So but of course, God would have to show them where to do so out in the desert. You could dig and dig and dig and find no water in most places.

But there were places where you could tap into the aquifer and God knew where those places were. So he apparently gave them water here by inspiring Moses to say, dig here. And they may have found actually running water underground, an artesian well, because they talk about it springing up like it's water in motion, which is all the better.

It's not stagnant. And from the wilderness, they went to Metana and from Metana to Nahalil and from Nahalil to Beimoth and from Beimoth in the valley that is in the country of Moab to the top of Pisgah, which looks down on the wasteland. So there they were and they get attacked.

Sion was the king of Amorites in that region. And it says Israel sent messengers to Sion, the king of the Amorites, saying, let me pass through your land. We will not turn aside into the fields or vineyards.

We will not drink water from wells. We will go by the king's highway until we have passed through your territory. The same offer they made to eat them and they get a similar response.

The answer is no. And an army comes out to oppose them. But Sion would not allow Israel to pass through the territory.

So Sion gathered all his people together and went out against Israel in the wilderness and he came to Jahaz and fought against Israel. Then Israel defeated him with the edge of the sword and took possession of his land from the Arnon to Javach as far as the people of Ammon. Now the Ammonites were descended from Lot and the Israelites were not allowed to conquer Ammon.

God forbade them to attack Ammon and Moab, both of which were descended from Lot. But they did take all the land from the border of Moab to the border of Ammon, which was the land which Sion had controlled, the Ammonite king. And it says as far as the people of Ammon for the border of the people of Ammon was fortified.

So they didn't try to go in there. So Israel took all these cities and Israel dwelt in the cities of the Amorites in Heshbon and all its villages. For Heshbon was the city of Sion, the king of the Amorites, who had fought against the former king of Moab and had taken all his land from his hand as far as the Arnon.

Now, that explains why the place that the Israelites settled before they crossed the River Jordan was called the Plains of Moab. It was territory that had once belonged to Moab, but we're told that Sion had at one time earlier fought against the king of Moab and had taken territory. So the Plains of Moab now were the plains that belonged to Sion, the Ammonite.

However, now they belong to Israel because Israel had conquered him. Therefore, those who speak in Proverbs say, Come to Heshbon, let it be built. Let the city of Sion be repaired.

Now, by the way, those who speak in Proverbs, these must be the Proverbs of the people of the Amorites, because these are these are Proverbs that celebrate the Amorite victory over Moab. For fire went out from Heshbon, a flame from the city of Sion. It consumed are of Moab, the lords of the heights of Arnon.

Woe to you, Moab. You have perished, O people of Chemosh. Chemosh was the god of the Moabites.

He has given his son's fugitive as fugitives and his daughters into captivity to Sion, the king of the Amorites. But we have shot at them. Heshbon has perished as far as Dabon.

Then we laid waste as far as Nofah, which reaches Mediba. Now, this last verse was apparently a verse added by the Israelites of their conquest of Heshbon and of Sion. But the earlier verses celebrate Sion's victory over Moab and explaining why this territory that had been Moab's territory at one time was no longer.

So Israel got some of Moab's former territory, which had earlier been taken from Moab by this king that they now conquered. Thus, Israel dwelt in the land of the Amorites. Then Moses sent to spy out Jaser, and they took its villages and drove out the Amorites who were there.

So there's another Amorite region they conquered, and there's yet one more. They turned and went up by the way to Bashan. So Og, the king of Bashan, went out against them, he and all his people, to battle at Edreai.

Then the Lord said to Moses, do not fear him, for I've delivered him into your hand with all his people and his land. And you shall do to him as you did to Sion, king of the Amorites who dwelt in Heshbon. So they defeated him, his sons and all his people, until there was no survivor left him and they took possession of his land.

So they annihilated these Amorites and these people of Bashan and their kings, not because they intended to. They did not see this land as their promised land. They were not doing these wars of conquest that they would later do in the days of Joshua.

They were just trying to travel through, but they get themselves attacked and they'd retaliate. And then once the dust is settled, their enemy is completely dead. Every last one of them.

So Israel inherited their land. This land on the east side of Jordan that was not part of the promised land was later bequeathed to the tribes of Gad and Manasseh and Reuben, who wanted them because they were good land, good grazing land. But that's where Israel camped until they crossed over the Jordan.

Now, Og is the first king that God says to Moses, don't be afraid of him. Why would Moses be afraid of Og? Well, he was a pretty big guy, Og was. And we read about that in Deuteronomy chapter three, as Moses is recalling this.

Deuteronomy three and verse eleven. It says. For only Og, king of Bashan, remained of the remnant of the giants.

Indeed, his bedstead was an iron bedstead. Is it not in Rabbah of the people of Ammon? Apparently the people of Ammon kept it in their museum. Nine cubits is the length and four cubits its width, according to the standard cubit.

Well, his bed was six feet wide, which isn't too wide for a bed by today's standards, because we've gotten really luxurious. We have beds that are longer and wider than that, are king sized beds. But the length of it would show kind of the proportions of the man.

Nine cubits would be thirteen and a half feet. So if he needed a bed that was thirteen and a half feet long, then he was probably at least ten or twelve feet long himself. And that make him as big as Goliath.

And that may be why God said to Moses, don't be afraid of him. Now we come to the story of Balaam. Then the children of Israel moved and camped in the plains of Moab.

The plains of Moab, as I said, were territories they had now acquired by conquering Sion. And they had been under Sion's control until now. On the side of the Jordan, across from Jericho.

Now, Balak, the son of Zippor, saw all that Israel had done to the Amorites, and Moab was exceedingly afraid of the people because they were many. And Moab was sick with dread because of the children of Israel. So Moab said to the elders of Midian, now is this company will lick up all that is 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. So we've got the Moabites and the Midianites consulting here. All through this story, we're going to have the kind of a mixture, the Moabites and the Midianites.

In fact, the two terms are used almost interchangeably, as we shall see. For example, we will find in chapter 25, it says in verse one, then Israel remained in the Acacia Grove and the people began to commit harlotry with the women of Moab. But if you look at verse six of chapter 25, it says, Indeed, one of the children of Israel came and presented his brethren a Midianite woman.

And then later, God said in verse 17, chapter 25, verse 17, harass the Midianites and attack them. And in chapter 31, verse 16, when they actually do attack the Midianites and spare some of the women. In verse 16, Moses said, Have you kept all the women alive? Look, these women caused the children of Israel through the council of Balaam to trespass against the Lord in the incident of Peor.

Which is what we're talking about back here in chapter 25, the Midianite women and the Moabite women are considered to be the same women. And so it would appear perhaps both the Midianites and the Moabites at one time had come under the rule of Sihon, who conquered them. And they kind of just intermix.

They were a different ethnicity, but they mixed together. So they were kind of one people. Possibly now we have another phenomenon we find in Genesis that the Midianites are also called Ishmaelites, which is strange, too, because Ishmael and Midian are not the same family.

But we find that when Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers in the last verse of Genesis 37, it says, Now the Midianites had sold him in Egypt to Potiphar. But the first verse of Genesis 39 says Joseph had been taken down to Egypt and says Potiphar, the officer of the Pharaoh, had bought him from the Ishmaelites. Now the Midianites are called Ishmaelites here.

And so they are also in the book of Joshua. In Joshua chapter 8, when Gideon had delivered the people of Israel from the Midianite overlords who had invaded them before, the people actually wanted to make Gideon. Did I say Joshua? It's in Judges, of course.

In Judges chapter 8, they wanted to make Gideon their king. And notice it says in Judges 8, 22, The men of Israel said to Gideon, Rule over us, both you and your son and your grandson also for you have delivered us from the hand of Midian. But Gideon said to them, I will not rule over you, nor shall my son rule over you.

The Lord shall rule over you. Then Gideon said to them, I would like to make a request of you that each one of you would give me the earrings from his plunder. For they had gold earrings because they were Ishmaelites.

The Midianites had gold earrings because they were Ishmaelites. So also in Genesis, Midianite and Ishmaelite are used interchangeably of the traders who sold Joseph into slavery. And now in Numbers, the Midianites and the Moabites are used essentially interchangeably.

We notice in verse 7 of Numbers 22, So the elders of Moab and the elders of Midian departed. These two nations were not only allies, they are apparently just so intermixed that both of them were involved in the story here. So the king of Moab, one of these nations, was the one who initiated this approach to Balaam to seek help from him.

So, verse 5, Then he, that is Balak, king of Moab, sent messengers to Balaam, the son of Baor, at Pethor, which is near the river in the land of the sons of his people, to call him, saying, Look, a people has come from Egypt. See, they cover the face of the earth and are settling next to me. So Israel was a pretty large group of people.

They were covering the face of the earth. Remember, we saw some indicators that made some people think that the numbers of Jews, the numbers of Israelites that are in the census were perhaps too large and that there's certain scriptures that suggest maybe they're a small nation. But actually, the indication here is that they are huge.

They cover the face of the earth. In fact, there's several references to how huge they are in these chapters. For example, in chapter 23, in verse 10, it says, Who can count the dust of Jacob or number one-fourth of Israel? Implying that their number is so great, it would be hard to even take a census of a quarter of their number.

So the nation seems to be a very large nation that God has made it, as the census we read about earlier would suggest. Now, he sent messengers to Balaam, the son of Baal, who is a very mysterious character. Now, we're told that Balaam was from it was at Pethor, which is near the river.

The river is the river Euphrates. So the Euphrates is always referred to when it's not referred to by name. It's just the river.

The river Euphrates is up in Mesopotamia. This Pethor, if scholars are correct in identifying it where they think it was, was about 360 miles from Moab. That's a long way in those days to send for a messenger to come down.

I mean, this Balaam had a reputation. How did how did Balaam down in Moab even know about this Mesopotamian guy? His reputation had preceded him, apparently, although it does say this in verse five, that Pethor was near the river in the land of the sons of his people. Now, whose people? Balaam's people? That'd be a strange, redundant thing to say if he's a neighbor of that area to say that's the land of the sons of his people.

Of course, that'd be his own land. Isn't every person's land the land of the sons of their people? But it may mean that it was the land of the sons of Balak's people. Maybe Balak was not a native Moabite.

Who knows? Maybe he had been in that. Maybe he'd grown up in that land and come down and conquered Moab earlier and become the king. Who knows? But it may be that if Balak had some history up in Pethor, he would know of Balaam by reputation from that.

We just don't know. But it was a long ways away from Moab and messengers were sent asking him to come that distance. That would take.

Well, I mean, the average traveler in those days on foot would travel 20 to 30 miles a day, I guess, that would take like 12 days or more for him to come down. That's a long trip through the desert. But Balak was somewhat desperate.

So he sent messengers to him saying, look, these people are here, please come down. He says, therefore, please come at once. Verse six, curse this people for me, for they are too mighty for me.

Perhaps I should be able to defeat them and drive them out of the land, for I know that whom you bless is blessed and whom you curse is cursed. That would be the reputation Balaam had. Archaeologists have found evidence up in the Mesopotamian region where this where Balaam was of soothsayers, diviners.

Balaam is referred to as a diviner. In retrospect, in the book of Deuteronomy, he's called Balaam the diviner. He's a soothsayer, an occultist, a fortune teller.

But there were certain soothsayers in Mesopotamia that were called imprecators. And it's now known from writings that have been found in that region that in those days there were people you could hire to utter impercations or curses on people. They were called imprecators.

And he apparently was an imprecator, a well-known one, that when he cursed people, they were cursed. And so that was the only hope Balaam felt he had of being safe from the Israelites. The sad thing is, this is all unnecessary because the Israelites were not going to attack Moab.

God had told them not to attack Moab or Ammon, as we shall see. And therefore, there was no reason for the Moabites to be afraid of them. They were not hostile to the Moabites.

But he thought they were going to lick up all the territory, he said. He was afraid they were going to do what they had done to the Amorites. And that he's going to lick up all the ground around us like an ox licks up the grass of the field, he said in verse four.

Well, that wasn't what Israel had in mind, but Balaam didn't know that, so he was unnecessarily afraid. The wicked flee when no one's pursuing, remember? And no one was pursuing him, but he was afraid, terrified. So the elders of Moab and the elders of Midian departed with the diviner's feet in their hands.

And they came to Balaam and 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 me. And the Lord hears Yahweh.

So the princes of Moab stayed with Balaam. Now, there's several references to Yahweh in the mouth of Balaam. For example, in verse 13, he says, Go back to your land for Yahweh has refused to give me permission to go with you.

And in verse 19, he says, Now, therefore, please say tonight that I will know what Yahweh will say to me. So he has many references to Yahweh. In fact, in verse 18, at the end of verse 18, Balaam refers to Yahweh as Yahweh my God.

So it sounds like Balaam is a worshipper of Yahweh. But how can this be? He's a Mesopotamian soothsayer, diviner. How would he know about Yahweh? He might know about Yahweh, but why would he be a worshipper of Yahweh? Why would be a diviner if he was what is known of these Mesopotamian or Babylonian soothsayers was that they had to acquaint themselves with the religions of the various persons that they wish to curse because they hoped to persuade the gods of those persons to curse them or at least to find some way to bring the curse of those gods upon them.

So they would research, actually, that's what they were paid for. They would they would research the religions of the surrounding areas in case they were hired to curse them. Apparently, he had done his research.

He was a leading soothsayer known throughout the whole Middle East. And so he knew something about Yahweh. He knew something about the religion of Yahweh.

How he did is hard to know since the religion of Yahweh had been pretty much obscure until they came out of Egypt. But what had been done in Egypt had been reported throughout the whole region. And that was 40 years earlier.

So apparently, Balaam, having heard about what Yahweh did to Egypt, must have done some research to find out who this Yahweh is and what his laws are. He may have even, you know, hired people to get information from the camp of Moses and find out what laws and what things Yahweh expected because he knew. Now, I mean, we could say he knew by revelation because he did receive revelations.

But my impression is he didn't always receive revelations from Yahweh, though he speaks of Yahweh as his God. He may be. I mean, he may have worshipped many gods as a Babylonian.

He probably recognized multiple gods. And so Yahweh could be his God today and another God could be his God another time. What's interesting, though, is that although Balaam continually refers to Yahweh, what Yahweh speaks to me, whenever God speaks to him, it says God spoke to him, not Yahweh.

And God is, you know, the generic word for God could be a God spoke to him. Although I think it was certainly was Yahweh that spoke to him eventually. Eventually the spirit of Yahweh came on him.

But initially, when he goes in to talk to Yahweh, we read in verse nine and ten and twelve. It says God said to him, God said to him. It doesn't say Yahweh said to him.

So it's it's ambiguous. He claimed to be speaking to Yahweh. But was he? Was he? Was there another God in person in Yahweh? Hard to say.

Or was Yahweh breaking through into the prophetic activities of a pagan? This is why Balaam is so mysterious to us. He mentions Yahweh and he seems loyal to Yahweh. He says I can't say anything except what Yahweh says.

If Yahweh won't let me, I can't do it. He says, no matter how much you pay me, you give me a house full of silver and gold. I can't do it if Yahweh doesn't let me.

I mean, this guy seems more loyal to Yahweh than the Israelites are. And yet, in the New Testament, Balaam is always remembered as an evil man, a sorcerer and a false prophet and one who deserved death, which is what he got. Actually, the Israelites eventually killed Balaam in war.

And and he is blamed for what came upon Israel at Baal Peor in chapter 25. So what's up with that? He sounds like a good guy. He talks like a good guy, but he ends up being a bad guy.

And I think we have to assume that this man was like a lot of religious people. He knows how to talk a good talk. But his motives are bad.

We're told in the book of Second Peter that Balaam loved the wages of his sin. He loved the wages of iniquity. And so man was motivated by money, notwithstanding his protest to the contrary.

And his deeds speak much louder than his words. His words sound good. He says, Lord, Lord, but he doesn't do the things that Yahweh says.

He seems to when he gives his oracles because he has no choice, as we shall see. God takes control of his mouth so that he has no choice about what he says. But he then finds a way to bring a curse on Israel after all and collect his feet.

That doesn't come out till later. So this man knows something about Yahweh. He actually claims loyalty to Yahweh.

And so he says in verse eight, launch here tonight. I'll bring back word to you as Yahweh speaks to me. So the princes of Moab stayed with Balaam.

Then God came to Balaam and said, who are these men with you? And Balaam said to God, Balak, the son of Zippor, king of Moab, has sent to me saying, look, a people has come out of Egypt and they cover the face of the earth. Come now and curse them for me. Perhaps I shall be able to overpower them and drive them out.

And God said to Balaam, you should not go with them. You should not curse the people for their blood. So Balaam rose in the morning and God said to the princes of Balaam and he said to the princes, Balaam, go back to your land for the Yahweh has refused to give me permission to go with you.

And the princes of Moab rose and went to Balaam and said, Balaam refuses to come with us. Then Balaam again sent princes more numerous and more honorable than they. Harder to say no to.

And they came to Balaam and they said to him, thus says Balaam, the son of Zippor, please let nothing hinder you from coming to me, for I will certainly honor you greatly and I will do whatever you say to me. Therefore, please come curse this people for me. Then Balaam answered and said to the servants of Balaam, though Balaam should give me his house full of silver and gold.

I could not go beyond the word of Yahweh, my God, nor do less or more. Now, therefore, please you stay here tonight that I may know what more Yahweh will say to me. And God came to Balaam at night and said to him, 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 arose in the morning and saddled his donkey and went with the princes of Moab. Then God's anger was aroused because he went and the angel of Yahweh took his stand in the way as an adversary against him. And he was riding on his donkey and his two servants were with him.

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 into the road. Then the angel of the Lord spoke in a narrow stood in a narrow path between 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. Then the angel of the Lord went further and stood in a narrow place where there was no way to turn either to the right hand or to the left.

And when the donkey saw the angel of the Lord, she lay down under Balaam. So Balaam's anger was aroused and he stood struck the donkey with his staff. Then Yahweh opened the mouth of the donkey and she said to Balaam, what have I done to you that you have struck me these three times? And Balaam said to the donkey, because you have abused me, I wish there was a sword in my hand for now I would kill you.

So the donkey said to Balaam, am I not your donkey on which you have ridden ever since I became yours to this day? Was I ever disposed to do this to you? And he said, no. I mean, I don't know what's funnier, the fact that the donkey talks or the fact that Balaam talks to the donkey. I mean, people sometimes talk to their dogs and their pets and stuff like that, but they don't have conversations with them.

They don't respond to them like to a human being. I mean, Balaam was so blinded, apparently by his greed and his eagerness to make the money he wanted to make, because that's what the New Testament says about him. That he was so distracted that when the donkey spoke, he didn't say, wait a minute, what's going on here? That donkey just talked.

That's not supposed to happen. Instead, he answered the donkey's question and the donkey spoke again. He answered the donkey's question again.

The fact that he didn't have a dialogue with his donkey. Now, it's interesting, the things that the donkey said didn't turn out to be very important things. The only time in history we know of that God opened an animal's mouth so it could speak and it didn't prophesy or anything.

It just questioned him. Why are you doing this to me? Have I ever done this kind of thing before? And I guess in a sense, God was allowing the donkey to point out to Balaam, you know, this is out of the ordinary. I don't usually do this kind of thing.

You should be aware that something's wrong. These circumstances that are so abnormal mean perhaps that you should consider there's something abnormal going on here. Maybe there's a reason for me doing this.

And sometimes I suppose that we are we would expect to recognize that God is doing something because the circumstances are so abnormal when things don't go as they are accustomed to go. It doesn't always mean God's doing something. It may be something that would raise our curiosity.

The donkey, given words by God, seemed to imply that Balaam should have known there's something wrong here. Should have known he should have questioned why this is going on and wondered whether there was a deeper meaning that he wasn't seen in the whole event. And so.

The Lord opened Balaam's eyes as he opened the donkey's mouth. The Lord didn't have to open the donkey's eyes. The donkey's eyes could see the angel.

Balaam's eyes could not until God opened them. The donkey's mouth had to be open because it couldn't talk. Balaam's eyes had to be open because he couldn't see the angel.

And the similarity of wording there may suggest that God opening the donkey's mouth. You know what that he's doing a miracle just as great as opening Balaam's eyes. Balaam was as blind by nature as a donkey is by nature dumb.

And it just as a donkey cannot talk. So Balaam could not see unless God opened his eyes as he had opened the donkey's mouth. The donkey, however, had enough good sense and spiritual perception to see the angel without God opening the donkey's eyes.

And that's interesting because we wouldn't think animals are spiritual beasts or spiritual beings. And yet it had more spiritual perception than the man did. There was another time when a man could not see angels that were there.

That is mentioned in the Bible. That was, of course, in Second Kings, Chapter six, when Elisha's servant couldn't see until Elisha prayed for him that his eyes would be open. Then God opened his eyes.

He saw that the armies of Syria were surrounded by angelic armies on the hillsides. But those angels were invisible to that man until Elisha prayed that God would open his eyes. Angels are always around.

But we don't see them. And God doesn't open our eyes to see them. We don't have to.

We have faith because the Bible tells us the angel of the Lord encamps around the righteous. We can believe that. And that's as good as seeing faith is even better than seeing.

Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe, Jesus said. But this man didn't believe or see. But the donkey did.

The donkey saw what people could not see. I wonder sometimes if animals are more spiritual than we give them credit for. Have more spiritual perception.

It does seem that it's, you know, sometimes animals may may discern the presence of demonic things more. I mean, you just never know. They know certain things we don't know, but there may be a natural explanation for it, like when an earthquake is coming or something like that before an earthquake comes and dogs begin to howl and stuff.

They can possibly feel the first rumblings before we can or hear it. But there are other times when it seems like animals may have a sense of certain spiritual realities that we are not tuned into. Anyway, this donkey did.

And that that was not the miracle. The fact that the donkey saw the angel is not the miracle. The fact that the donkey spoke was the miracle.

The fact that Balaam saw the angel was a miracle. Both of those were things God had to do to make them happen. And when he saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way with his drawn sword in his hand.

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. 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 now. Balaam was doing something that God would have killed him for if he hadn't stopped.

Yet he was doing what God told him to do. Because in verse. Twenty in verse 20.

God said, rise and go with them. And only the word which I speak to you that you shall do. But verse 22 says God's anger was aroused because he went now either the God who told him to go is a different God than Yahweh.

And it's the angel of Yahweh that comes to stop him or else the God that told him to go was God. And said, OK, you can go, but you can only speak what I say, because that's actually actually the angel repeats those instructions in verse thirty five. Gives him permission to go, but only because God's going to use Balaam to bless the people, not curse them.

But Balaam, apparently, when he went, God knew his heart. Balaam knew that he was going one way or another, he's going to get that fee. He's going to get that money that was offered him.

And we have to say God was angry at him for going because he went with raw motives. That would have to be the answer. Otherwise, there'd be no reason for God to be angry.

And God was not only a little angry, he was ready to kill him. However, Balaam said to the angel of the Lord, I have sinned. Verse thirty four, for I did not know you stood in the way against me now, therefore, if it displeases you, I'll 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 Balak. Now, this was the angel of Yahweh, and he talks like he's Yahweh because the angel of Yahweh always talked that way, like he's God.

What I tell you to speak, that speak. Now, when Yahweh, if Yahweh spoke to Balaam earlier, I wonder if there was an appearance of Yahweh like this or if it was just a voice or an impression that he had gotten in his spirit. In any case, we now have a direct word from Yahweh that we cannot dispute that comes to him, allowing him to go, but to be careful what he speaks.

Now, when Balaam heard that Balaam was coming, he went out to meet him at the city of Moab, which is on the border of the Arnon, the boundary of the territory. Then Balaam said to Balaam, did I not earnestly send for you calling for you? Why did you not come to me? Am I not able to honor you? And Balaam said to Balaam, look, I have come to you now. Have I any more any power at all to say anything? The word that God puts in my mouth that I must speak.

So Balaam went with Balaam and they came to Kiergeth, who saw and Balaam offered oxen and sheep and sent some to Balaam for dinner and to the princes who were with him. So it was the next day that Balaam took Balaam and brought him up to the high places of Baal that from there he might observe the extent of the people. Now, probably that verse should have been included in verse in Chapter 23 instead of Chapter 22, because that begins another part of the story, a new paragraph.

We won't take that now. We're out of time, but we have Balaam now ready, poised and ready to prophesy over the children of Israel. And we'll find, of course, that he is, in fact, not able to speak anything except the word that God puts in his mouth, which means he doesn't find himself capable of cursing the people.

That becomes a disappointment to him. And so he finds another end run around the Lord that he can do to bring a curse on the people. But that is what we read about later on in Chapter 25.