BALAAM ON THE WAY
Num 22:20-38
THE history is moving towards a great vindication of Israel and
prediction of its coming power, all the more impressive that they
are to be wrung from an unwilling witness, a man who would pronounce
a curse rather than a blessing; all the more impressive, too,
because the enemies of Israel will themselves arrange on a mountain
pinnacle the scene of the revelation, with smoking altars and
princely spectators. The great Actor in the drama is unseen: but His
voice is heard. However tractable the omens may have been under
other circumstances in the hands of the soothsayer, he now finds a
Master. As the story unfolds, Balaam is seen attempting the
impossible, endeavouring to force the hands of Providence, held as
in a chain at every stage. There is a Power that treats him as if he
were a child. Finally, with most unwilling eloquence, he is
compelled to fling far and wide a challenge to Israel’s enemies, the
praises of her rising star.
In harmony with this general movement is the result of Balaam’s
second appeal for permission to take the journey to Moab. He
receives it, but with a reservation. Fear of the great God whom he
invokes holds him to the conviction that whatever he may do no word
must pass his lips other than Jehovah gives him to speak. In
repeating his inquiry he has assumed that the God of Israel is
amenable to human urgency; and as he will have Jehovah to be, so
within limits he seems to find Him. Yet there is more to reckon with
than a dubious oracle, discovered through signs and portents of the
sky or whisperings of the breeze at night. Jehovah has brought His
people from Egypt, fed them in the desert, given them victory.
Balaam finds that this God can send angels upon His errands, that
there is no escape from His presence nor evasion of His will.
It was in a kind of madness the diviner set out from Pethor by the
way of the Euphrates ford. Excited by the hope of gaining the
rewards and enjoying the fame awaiting him in Moab, he was at the
same time conscious of being in opposition to the God of Israel, and
committed to an adventure that might end disastrously. He went in a
mood of wilfulness, hoping and yet half doubting that his way would
become clear, irritable therefore, ready to resent every hindrance.
A diviner of repute, credited with powers of blessing and cursing,
he perhaps felt himself safe on ordinary occasions, especially among
his own people, even when he went against those who consulted him.
But could he count on the forbearance of the king of Moab into whose
country he was venturing? Jehovah might be opening his way only to
destruction. Such fears could hardly be avoided.
And men who have gone back to conscience endeavouring to extort from
it a sanction or permission previously denied, who, with some half
assurance that the way is open, set out on a desired course, are
practically in the same mad mood, have equal reason to dread the
issue. Is this understood? It may be safely asserted that half the
wrong things men do-taking an average of human action, half at
least-are done not in despite of conscience, but with its dubious
consent, when the first clear decision has been set aside. No doubt
the urgency is often very great, as it was in Balaam’s case, and
frequently of a less questionable kind. Not the desire of envious
persons to have others cursed or evil in-treated, but possibly the
desire of some to have the shadow of adverse judgment taken away,
may be the plea, and be supported by the promise of large reward.
The first word of conscience is distinct-have nothing whatever to do
with the matter: the shadow has fallen on the wrongdoer; he has not
repented; let him suffer still. But his agents come with gold and
silver, with plausible words, with seeming Christian arguments. Then
the appeal to conscience is renewed, and he who should be firm in
judgment finds a false permission. Or the case may be of one in
business, tempted to some practice, common enough, but dishonest,
vile. His first feeling has been that of disgust. He could not for a
moment contemplate a thing so base. But under the pressure of what
appears to be necessity, plausible arguments and pretexts gain
ground. The fact that reputable men find no difficulty about the
matter, the notion that a custom is excusable because it is followed
by most if not by all, along with other considerations of a personal
kind, are allowed to have some weight, and then to overbalance the
sense of duty. And the result is that the moral atmosphere is
confused. The man sets out on a way which appears to be opened for
him; but he goes under the shadow of a haunting fear.
Like Balaam, one who thus extorts from conscience, that is from God,
permission to go where he himself desires, knowing it to be a wrong
way, is quite aware, may indeed be eager to acknowledge to himself,
that he is still held by a Divine command extending over a part of
his conduct. He will not speak a word that shall be against truth.
He will resume friendship with the rich transgressor; but he will
not in words excuse or palliate his crime. He will adulterate
certain commodities in which he deals, but he will never assert that
they are genuine. This is the tribute to religion and to conscience
that sustains decaying self-respect. By this the man who passes for
a Christian endeavours to keep himself separate from those who have
no conscience. The most is made of the difference. As compared with
those who unblushingly defend the wrong, this man may think himself
a saint. He would on no account speak a falsehood. Does he not fear
God? Is he a dog that he should do this thing? Nevertheless, the way
leads into a bottomless quagmire. For a time the waning light of
religion may shine. It may even burst before it dies into a bright
flame of indignation against sin - the crimes others commit-or of
loud protestation against what are called false charges. But the man
dies a Balaam, with a perverted conscience, and must face the
dreadful result.
Well has it been said that no virtue is safe without enthusiasm. A
man cannot be true to the highest law unless he has the motive
within him of pure devotion to God as his personal Redeemer, unless
he recognises that his joy in God and his salvation are bound up
with fidelity to the moral ideal which is presented to him. Faith,
hope, love must inspire and keep the soul in fervour of desire to
reach the heights to which it is called by the Divine voice. But the
most of men come far short of this enthusiasm. It is rather with
reluctance, after a kind of struggle with themselves, that they look
duty in the face. And even when they do they find no pleasure in
resolving to press on where the absolutely right is seen. Their
pleasure lies in doing less than that. They seek accordingly some
way of observing the letter of duty while they avoid its spirit. But
the sense of having come short in a matter that involves their
highest wellbeing, their standing before God, their very right to
hope and to live, remains with them. Marriage, for example, is often
entered upon after a struggle with conscience in which a clear
mandate has been set aside. The desire to please self is allowed to
overcome the conviction that the new bond will keep life on the low
worldly ground, or drag it back from spirituality. The merely
expedient is chosen rather than the ideal of moral independence and
power. And of this come fretfulness, dissatisfaction with self, with
others, with Providence. All the sophistries that can be used fail
to set the mind at rest. Events continually occur which throw
flashes of light on the past and reveal the lost hope, the forfeited
vision.
God does not make the wrong way smooth for one who has extorted
permission to follow it. A man desiring to enter on a course which
he sees to be dishonourable or at least dubious may be absolutely
prevented at first. His appeal is to Providence. If circumstances
allowed his plan he would reckon the Divine will favourable to it.
But they do not. Every door he tries in the direction he wishes to
take is barred against him. Afterwards one yields to pressure, or is
thrown wide because he knocks at it persistently. Then he advances,
taking for granted that he has obtained permission from God. But he
does not go far till he is undeceived. So, Balaam sets out on his
adventure, riding on his ass and attended by his two servants. Yet
he does not get clear of the vineyards of Pethor without hindrance.
Obstacles to his journey which do not appear in the narrative may
have at first stood in his way, certain political complications, we
may suppose. Now they are removed. But he is met by others. The
angel of the Lord opposes him, one who stands with a drawn sword in
hand in a hollow way between the vineyards, a path closely fenced on
the one side and the other. Balaam fails to see the adversary; be is
absorbed in his own thoughts. But the ass sees, and will not go
forward, and as Balaam becomes aware of resistance his anger is
kindled.
The narrative here is confessedly difficult. One of the most
reverent commentators on the passage declares that he feels too
deeply the essential veracity of the story to be troubled with
minute questions about its details. "I would not," he says, "force
them upon any one’s belief merely by uttering the coarse sentence,
that they are in the Bible and therefore must be received. One is
afraid of leading people to fancy that they do believe what they do
not believe, and so of propagating hypocrisy under the name of
faith." To some the narrative may present no serious difficulty.
They accept it literally at every point. Others again are not so
easily satisfied that the occasion called for miracles like those
which appear on the face of the history. It seems to them of no
great moment whether Balaam went or did not go to Moab, whether he
cursed Israel or blessed it. Neither the curse nor the blessing of a
man of Balaam’s sort could make the least difference to Israel.
These readers accordingly would find a parabolical or pictorial
explanation of the incidents. Literal belief, in any case, need not
be made a test of reverence; the spirit is surely more than the
letter. The point of greatest importance is to believe that God
dealt with this man, opposed his perverse will by gracious
influences and unexpected protests. To Balaam, no doubt, the angel’s
appearance and the ass’s rebuke were real, as real and impressive as
any experiences he ever had. He was humbled; he acknowledged his sin
and offered to return. When he reached the land of Moab, the
recollection of what befell him by the way had a salutary influence
on all he said and did.
In many unforeseen, singular, and often homely ways, men are checked
in the endeavour to carry out the schemes which ambition and avarice
prompt. The angel of the Lord who opposes one bent on a bad
enterprise often appears in familiar guise. To some men their wives
stand in the way, some are challenged by their children. What in
voluntary blindness they have declined to see-the madness of the
wrong course, the intrinsic baseness of the thing undertaken-those
who look with pure eyes perceive clearly and are brave enough to
condemn. At other times obstacles are placed in the way by the
simple ordinary duties which claim attention, occupy thought and
time, and tend to bring back the mind to humility and saneness. Yet
covetousness can make men very blind. Under the influence of it they
suppose themselves to be acting cleverly, while all the time those
whom they think they are outwitting see them posting on the way to
bankruptcy and shame.
Even a good man may lose his spiritual discrimination occasionally
when he fancies himself called to curse not Israel but Moab, and
sets out in heat upon the errand. He fails to see that the case of
Balaam is so far parallel to his own that he ought to expect an
angel to oppose him. The critical Balaam who feels it his high duty
to pronounce maledictions on some theological opponent, not for
silver and gold, but for the cause of God, is resisted by many an
angel bearing the sharp sword of the Word, set to declare the great
tolerance of Christ, and to vindicate the liberty that is in Him.
That men fail to see these angels, or else ride past them, is
abundantly evident, for the altars smoke on many a height, and
scrolls of futile condemnation are flung upon the breeze.
Balaam smites the ass even when she falls down under him in her
abject terror. He endeavours to force her on till at last he is put
to shame by her rebuke. We are pointed to the irrational way in
which, those act whose moral judgment is blinded. Their course being
wrong, they do not turn against themselves, but rise in passion
against every person or thing that hinders. The husband who is
resolved to take a wrong path thrusts away his faithful wife; the
son bent on what will be his ruin pushes off his weeping mother when
she pleads before him. Often an apparently inexplicable fit of
temper in public or in private means that a man is in the wrong and
is aware of a mistake, from the consequences of which he would fain
escape. One’s heart bleeds for none more than for those victims of
selfish anger who suffer under the abuse of the Balaams of society.
They have seen the angel in the way. They have sought by a gesture
or a warning word to arrest the friend who would go on to evil. Then
the cruel strokes fall on them, curses, foul abuse, taunts often
directed against their religion. They are charged with setting
themselves up as holier and better than other people. They are
denounced as meddlers and fools. They protest without effect often,
and suffer apparently to no purpose. Yet shall we suppose their
endeavours altogether lost? Good is surely stronger than evil. Every
right act and word is germinal. After long years it bears fruit.
In Balaam’s case there was a happier issue than is often seen. The
protest against his cruelty opened his eyes to the truth that a
messenger of God stood in his way. The rebuke came home to him. So
might a hard self-willed man who rode rough-shod over the feelings
and rights of others be brought suddenly to a sense of his cruelty
by the look on the face of a dog. Bad as men and women may be,
violent and abusive as they may become in times of anger and
impatience, there are ways of softening their hearts. They go on for
years attempting to justify themselves in a rough and selfish
course. But who shall say that even the seeming worst are beyond
recovery? When there appears to be no redeeming feature left in the
character, the crisis may be at hand, the transgressor, may be so
taught by the piteous look of a dumb animal that his infatuation
will come to an end. Recoiling from himself he will acknowledge his
perversity and turn to better thoughts.
How far did Balaam’s repentance go? There can be little doubt the
motive of it was the sudden discovery that the God of Israel was
mightier and more observant than he had imagined; in short, that
Jehovah was his master. Balaam yields, changes his mind, not because
he is in the least degree more disposed to do what is right, but
because he finds the antagonism of God falling suddenly upon his
life. To the angel he says: "I have sinned: for I knew not that thou
stoodest in the way against me: now therefore, if it displease thee,
I will get me back again." This is an acknowledgment of authority,
but not of an obligation into which any sense of God’s goodness
enters. It is the sullen acquiescence of a foiled adventurer, who at
the very outset is made to understand the terms and narrow limits of
his power. He has his knowledge, his vision. When he set out he
intended to use them, if possible, under such conditions as would
secure his own liberty. He is now made to understand that he is not
free. The angel with the drawn sword will be in Moab before him,
ready to cut him down if he should do or say anything opposed to the
mind of the God of Israel. He is cowed, not converted.
And so it often is with men who find their schemes counteracted, and
are made to feel their weakness in presence of the forces of human
government, or of the natural world. Their confession of sin is
really a sullen acknowledgment of impotence. Sift their feelings and
you discover no sense of guilt. They miscalculated, and they regret
having done so, because it is to their shame. They will go back to
make other plans, to lay the foundations deeper with greater
subtlety, and by-and-by, if they can, to carry out their ideas and
gratify their covetousness and ambition in other ways. Sometimes
indeed it may become clear to a man that his efforts to advance
himself, such as he is, cannot prosper because Omnipotence is
against him. Then acknowledgment of defeat is confession of despair.
Of this we see an example in the first Napoleon after his final
capture when he was on the voyage to St. Helena. He had forced his
way over obstacles enough, leaving blood and ruin behind him. But at
length the stronger power came down to meet him, and he knew that
the game was lost. Beneath the seeming acquiescence there lurked
rebellion. He often spoke as a believer in God; but the God he knew
was one he could have wished to foil. In the island to which he was
confined he schemed desperately to regain his freedom that he might
renew the vain conflict with Providence for his own glory and the
glory of France. "I have sinned: I will get me back again." Yes. But
will it be to lay other and more cunning plots for self-aggrandisement,
and recover the lost ground by some daring stroke? Then it will be
also to meet other angels, and at the last the minister who bears
the sword of doom.
Balaam will return, confessing himself defeated for the time. But he
learns that he may not. He has come so far with designs of his own;
he must now go on to Moab to serve the purposes of God. The
permission he wrested, so to speak, from Providence, was not wrested
after all. There are deeper schemes than Balaam can form, the great
far-reaching plans of the God of Israel, and by these, however
unwillingly, the soothsayer of Pethor is now bound. This journey has
been of his own perverse choosing; now he must finish it, feeling
himself at every point a servant, an instrument; and if danger and
even death await him, still he must proceed. Easy it is to begin in
the craftiness of human purpose and the foolishness of earthly hope;
but the end is not under the control of him who begins. There is One
who orders all things so that the gifts of men and their perversity
and their wrath shall all praise Him, shall all be woven into the
web of His evolving purpose, universal, holy, sure.
It is a startling thought that in a sense whatever we begin in pride
or self-will playing, as it were, the first act of the drama on some
stage we ourselves select, the movement cannot be arrested when we
choose. In one way or another, act after act must proceed to the
very end which God foreordains. Many human purposes appear to be
sharply and completely broken off. In the midst of his days man
hears the call he cannot disobey. His tools, his hopes, his declared
intentions must be laid aside. But the end is not yet. The curtain
has fallen here. It will be raised again. And in many unfoldings of
Divine purpose we witness scene after scene, in scene after scene
have to play our part. One who has begun ill may sincerely repent,
and then the development takes a direction which will be to the
glory of Divine grace. That act of repentance over, another comes,
in which the humble thought of the penitent reveals itself. He is
seen a new man, timorous where he was bold, bold where he was
timorous. Beyond there are other scenes, in which he shall be found
endeavouring to repair the evil he has done, to gather the poisoned
arrows he has strewed about the world. And the consummation shall be
reached when the task at which he has vainly laboured is completed
for him by Christ, and his recovery and the restitution he toiled
for shall be complete.
But if there is no penitence, still the drama must go on to its
finish. The man resenting, yet unable to resist, shall do what God
requires, what God permits. He shall attempt to curse, yet be
constrained to bless. He shall in bitterness of anger frame new
devices and carry them out. Then, when the cup of his iniquity is
full, and all is done Providence allows, retribution shall overtake
him. In the thick of battle the sword of the angel shall smite him
to the ground. For each man, under God’s rule, in the midst of the
forces He upholds, there is a destiny, some stages of which we can
trace. Entering on life we of necessity become subject to great laws
which our revolt cannot in the least affect. And these are moral
laws. The seeming success of the immoral who are intellectually or
brutally strong is within the narrow limits of time and space. In
the breadths of eternity and infinity there is no strength for any
but the good.
There is a purpose of God which Balaam is unwilling to subserve; and
of that the man becomes gradually aware. When he is met by Balak and
his train and upbraided with his reluctance to come where honours
and rewards are to be had, the soothsayer realises his peril and
begins at once to prepare the Moabite ‘king for disappointment. "Lo,
I am come unto thee," he says: "have I now any power at all to speak
anything? The word that God putteth in my mouth, that shall I
speak." What we see now is a contest between the influence of Balak,
with his power to reward and also to punish, and the consciousness
of a constraint which had entered deeply into Balaam’s mind. The
sense of Jehovah’s authority over him on this occasion was indeed
supported by another strong motive which the diviner never allowed
to fall into the background. He had his reputation to maintain. At
whatever hazard, he must show himself to Moabites, Midianites,
Aramaeans, a man who knew the knowledge of the Most High. The
ignorance of Balak is seen in his absurd hope that for the sake of
some bribe of his the prophet of Pethor will be induced to fling
away his fame.
There are things which even money cannot buy. There is a limit
beyond which even a false and avaricious man cannot venture for the
sake of hononrs and rewards. It is a vulgar judgment that every man
has his price. One who is not particularly conscientious on most
occasions will sometimes touch the bounds of concession and take his
stand for what is left, all the self he has in any true sense.
Neither will money buy nor threats compel his further acquiescence
in what he deems wrong. Again, as in Balaam’s case, the limit of the
power of gold or of threats may be fixed by pride. There are gifts,
qualities, distinctions possessed by some, in virtue of which they
seem to themselves to occupy a place which all might covet. The
veteran has his decoration, once attached to his uniform by some
honoured commander under whom he served. No money could buy that. He
would die rather than part with it. Another is proud of his name. To
dishononr that would be treachery to his ancestors. Balaam has his
unique power of vision, and for a while at least he preserves it. A
man like Balak, measuring others by himself, regards a diviner as
one of a lower order who may be moved by menaces and promises. He
finds that Balaam has pride enough to lift him above them. Thus
vanity counteracts vanity; the comparatively base keeps the base in
check.
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