BALAAM’S PARABLES
Num 22:39-41, Num 24:1-9
THE scene is now on some mountain of Moab from which the
encampment of the Hebrew tribes in the plain of the Jordan is fully
visible. At Kiriath-huzoth, possibly the modern Shihan, about ten
miles east of the Dead Sea, and to the south of the Amon valley,
preparation for the attempt against Israel’s destiny has been made
by a great sacrifice of oxen and sheep intended to secure the
good-will of Chemosh, the Baal or Lord of Moab. On the range
overhanging the Dead Sea, somewhat to the north of the Amon,
perhaps, are the Bamoth-Baal, or high places of Baal, and the "bare
height" where Balaam is to seek his auguries and will be met by God.
The evening of Balaam’s arrival has been spent in the sacrificial
festival, and in the morning Balak and his princes escort the
diviner to the Bamoth-Baal that he may begin his experiment. After
his usual manner, Balaam pompously requires that great arrangements
be made for the trial of auguries by means of which his oracle is to
be found. Balak has offered sacrifices to Chemosh; now Jehovah must
be propitiated, and seven altars have to be built, and on each of
them a bullock and a ram offered by fire. The altars erected, the
carcases of the animals prepared, Balaam does not remain beside them
to take actual part in the sacrifice. It is, in fact, to be Balak’s,
not his; and if the God of Israel should refuse His sanction to the
curse, that will be because the offering of the king of Moab has not
secured His favour. Accordingly, while the seven wreaths of smoke
ascend from the altars, and the invocations of the Divine power
which usually accompany sacrifice are chanted by the king and his
princes, the soothsayer withdraws to a peak at some distance that he
may read the omens. "Peradventure," he says, "Jehovah will come to
meet me."
It was now a critical hour for the ambitious prophet. He had indeed
already found distinction, for who in Moab or Midian could have
commanded with so royal an air and received attention so obsequious?
But the reward remained to be won. Yet may we not assume that when
Balaam reached Moab and saw the pitiable state of what had been once
a strong kingdom, the cities half ruined, filled with poor and
dejected inhabitants, he conceived a kind of contempt for Balak and
perceived that his offers must be set aside as worthless? God met
Balaam, we are told. And this may have been the sense in which God
met him and put a word into his mouth. What was Moab compared with
Israel? A glance at Kiriath-huzoth, a little experience of Balak’s
empty boastfulness and the entreaties and anxiety which betrayed his
weakness, would show Balaam the vanity of proposing to reinvigorate
Moab at the expense of Israel. His way led clearly enough where the
finger of the God of Israel pointed, and his mind almost anticipated
what the Voice he heard as Jehovah’s declared. He saw the smoke
streaming south-eastward, and casting a black shadow between him and
Moab; but the sun shone on the tents of Israel, right away to the
utmost part of the camp. {Num 22:41} The mind of Balaam was made up.
It would be better for him in a worldly sense to win some credit
with Israel than to have the greatest honour Moab could offer.
Chemosh was in decline, Jehovah in the ascendant. Perhaps the
Hebrews might need a diviner when their great Moses was dead, and
he, Balaam, might succeed to that exalted office. We never can tell
what dreams will enter the mind of the ambitious man, or rather, we
do not know on what slender foundations he builds the most
extravagant hopes. There was nothing more unlikely, the thing indeed
was absolutely impossible, yet Balaam may have imagined that his
oracle would come to the ears of the Israelites, and that they would
send for him to give favourable auguries before they crossed the
Jordan.
Rapidly the diviner had to form his decision. That done, the words
of the oracle could be trusted to the inspiration of the moment,
inspiration from Jehovah, whose superiority to all the gods of Syria
Balaam now heartily acknowledged. He accordingly left his place of
vision and returned to the Bamoth where the altars still smoked.
Then he took up his parable and spoke.
"From Aram Balak brought me, Moab’s king from the mountains of the
east; "Come, curse for me Jacob, And come, menace Israel."
"How can I curse whom God hath not cursed? And how can I menace whom
God hath not menaced? For from the head of the rocks I see him, And
from the hills I behold him. Lo, a people apart he dwells, And among
the nations he is not counted."
"Who can reckon the dust of Jacob, And in number the fourth of
Israel? Let my soul die the death of the righteous; And be my last
end like his!"
In this parable, or mashal, along with some elements of egotism and
self-defence, there are others that have the ring of inspiration.
The opening is a vaunt, and the expression, "How can I curse whom
God hath not cursed?" is a form of self-vindication which savours of
vanity. We see more of the cowed and half-resentful man than of the
prophet. Yet the vision of a people dwelling apart, not to be
reckoned among the others, is a real revelation, boldly flung out.
Something of the difference already established between Israel and
the goim, or peoples of the Syrian district, had been caught by the
seer in his survey of past events, and now came to clear expression.
For a moment, at least, his soul rose almost into spiritual desire
in the cry that his last end should be of the kind an Israelite
might have; one who with calm confidence laid himself down in the
arms of the great God, the Lord of providence, of death as well as
life.
A man has learned one lesson of great value for the conduct of life
when he sees that he cannot curse whom God has not cursed, that he
would be foolish to menace whom God has not menaced. Reaching this
point of sight, Balaam stands superior for the time to the vulgar
ideas of men like the king of Moab, who have no conception of a
strong and dominant will to which human desires are all subjected.
However reluctantly this confession is made, it prevents many futile
endeavours and much empty vapouring. There are some indeed whose
belief that fate must be on their side is simply immovable. Those
whom they choose to reckon enemies are established in the protection
of heaven; but they think it possible to wrest their revenge even
from the Divine hand. Not till the blow they strike recoils with
crushing force on themselves do they know the fatuity of their hope.
In his "Instans Tyrannus" Mr. Browning pictures one whose
persecution of an obscure foe ends in defeat.
I soberly laid my last plan
To extinguish the man.
Round his creep-hole, with never a break,
Ran my fires for his sake;
Overhead, did my thunder combine
With my underground mine:
Till I looked from my labour, content
To enjoy the event.
When sudden how think ye, the end?
Did I say, ‘Without friend’?
Say rather from marge to blue marge
The whole sky grew his targe,
With the sun’s self for visible boss,
While an Arm ran across,
Which the earth heaved beneath, like a breast
Where the wretch was safe prest!
"Do you see? Just my vengeance complete,
The man sprang to his feet,
Stood erect, caught at God’s skirts and prayed! -
So, I was afraid!"
In smaller matters, the attempts at impudent detraction which are
common, when the base, girding at the good, think it possible to
bring them to contempt, or at least stir them to unseemly anger, or
prick them to humiliating self-defence, the law is often well enough
understood, yet neither the assailants nor those attacked may be
wise enough to recognise it. A man who stands upon his faithfulness
to God does not need to be vexed by the menaces of the base; he
should despise them. Yet he often allows himself to be harassed, and
so yields all the victory hoped for by his detractor. Calm
indifference, if one has a right to use it, is the true shield
against the arrows of envy and malice.
Balaam’s vision of Israel as a separated people, a people dwelling
alone, had singular penetration. The others he knew-Amorites,
Moabites, Ammonites, Midianites, Hittites, Aramaeans-went together,
scarcely distinguishable in many respects, with their national Baals
all of the same kind. Was Ammon or Chemosh, Melcarth or Sutekh, the
name of the Baal? The rites might differ somewhat, there might be
more or less ferocity ascribed to the deities; but on the whole
their likeness was too close for any real distinction. And the
peoples, differing in race, in culture, in habit, no doubt, were yet
alike in this, that their morality and their mental outlook passed
no boundary, were for the most part of the beaten, crooked road.
Strifes and petty ambitions here and there, temporary combinations
for ignoble ends, the rise of one above another for a time under
some chief who held his ground by force of arms, then fell and
disappeared-such were the common events of their histories. But
Israel came into Balaam’s sight as a people of an entirely different
kind, generically distinct. Their God was no Baal ferocious by
report, really impotent, a mere reflection of human passion and
lust. Jehovah’s law was a creation, like nothing in human history
ascribed to a God. His worship meant solemn obligation, imposed,
acknowledged, not simply to honour Him, but to be pure and true and
honest in honouring Him. Israel had no part in the orgies that were
held in professed worship of the Baals, really to the disgrace of
their devotees. The lines of the national development had been laid
down, and Balaam saw to some extent how widely they diverged from
those along which other peoples sought power and glory. Amorites and
Hittites and Canaanites might keep their place, but Israel had the
secret of a progress of which they never dreamed. Wherever the
tribes settled, when they advanced to fulfil their destiny, they
would prove a new force in the world.
For the time Israel might be called the one spiritual people. It was
this Balaam partly saw, and made the basis of his striking
predictions. The modern nations are not to be distinguished by the
same testing idea. The thoughts and hopes of Christianity have
entered more or less into all that are civilised, and have touched
others that can scarcely be called so. Yet if there is any oracle
for the peoples of our century it is one that turns on the very
point which Balaam seems to have had in view. But it is, that not
one of them. as a nation, is distinctly moved and separated from
others by spirituality of aim. Of not one can it be said that it is
confessedly, eagerly, on the way to a Canaan where the Living and
True God shall be worshipped, that its popular movements, its
legislation, its main endeavours look to such a heavenly result. If
we saw a people dwelling apart, with a high spiritual aim,
resolutely excluding those ideas of materialism which dominate the
rest, of them it would not be presumptuous to prophesy in the high
terms to which the oracles of Balaam gradually rose.
Regarding the wish with which the diviner closed his first mashal,
hard things have been said, as for example, that "even in his
sublimest visions his egotism breaks out; in the sight of God’s
Israel he cries, ‘Let me die the death of the righteous."’ Here,
however, there may be personal sorrow and regret, a pathetic
confession of human fear by one who has been brought to serious
thought, rather than any mere egoistic craving. Why should he speak
of death? That is not the theme of the egotist. We hear a sudden
ejaculation that seems to open a glimpse of his heart. For this man,
like every son of Adam, has his burden, his secret trouble, from
which all the hopes and plans of his ambition cannot relieve his
mind. Now for the first time he speaks in a genuinely religious
strain. "There are the righteous whom the Great Jehovah regards with
favour, and gathers to Himself. When their end comes they rest.
Alas! I, Balaam, am not one of them; and the shadows of my end are
not far away! Would that by some mighty effort I could throw aside
my life as it has been and is, revoke my destiny, and enter the
ranks of Jehovah’s people-were it only to die among them."
Wistfully, men whose life has been on the low ground of mere earthly
toil and pleasure may, in like manner, when the end draws near, envy
the confidence and hope of the good. For the old age of the
sensualist, and even of the successful man of the world, is under a
dull wintry sky, with no prospect of another morning, or even of a
quiet night of dreamless sleep.
"The weariest and most loathed worldly life,
That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment
Can lay on nature, is a paradise
To what we fear of death."
Courage and peace at the last belong to those alone who have kept in
the way of righteousness. To them and no others light shall arise in
the darkness. The faithfulness of God is their refuge even when the
last shadows fall. He whom they trust goes before them in the pillar
of fire when night is on the world, as well as in the pillar of
cloud by day. To the man of this earth even the falling asleep of
the good is enviable, though they may not anticipate a blessed
immortality. Their very grave is a bed of peaceful rest, for living
or dying they belong to the great God.
It was with growing dissatisfaction, rising to anxiety, Balak heard
the first oracle that fell from the diviner’s lips. Despite the
warning he had received that only the words which Jehovah gave
should be spoken, he hoped for some kind of a curse. His altars had
been built, his oxen and rams sacrificed, and surely, he thought,
all would not be in vain! Balaam had not travelled from Pethor to
mock him. But the prophecy carried not a single word of heartening
to the enemies of Israel. The camp lay in the full sunshine of
fortune, unobscured by the least cloud. It was the first blow to
Balak’s malignant jealousy, and might well have put him to
confusion. But men of his sort are rich in conjectures and
expedients. He had set his mind on this as the means of finding
advantage in a struggle that was sure to come; and he clung to his
hope. Although the curse would not light on the whole camp of
Israel, yet it might fall on a part, the remote outlying portion of
the tribes. In superstition men are for ever catching at straws. If
the anger of some heavenly power, what power mattered little to
Balak, could be once enlisted against the tribes, even partially,
the influence of it might spread. And it would at least be something
if pestilence or lightning smote the utmost part of that threatening
encampment.
One must be sorry for men whose impotent anger has to fall on
expedients so miserably inadequate. Moab defeated by the Amorites
sees them in turn vanquished and scattered by this host which has
suddenly appeared, and to all ordinary reckoning has no place nor
right in the region. Sad as was the defeat which deprived Balak of
half his land and left his people in poverty, this incursion and its
success foreboded greater trouble. The king was bound to do
something, and, feeling himself unable to fight, this was his
scheme. The utter uselessness of it from every point of view gives
the story a singular pathos. But the world under Divine providence
cannot be left in a region where superstition reigns and progress is
impossible-simply that a people like the Moabites may settle again
on their lees, and that others may continue to enjoy what seem to
them to be their rights. There must be a stirring of human
existence, a new force and new ideas introduced among the peoples,
even at the expense of war and bloodshed. And our sympathy with
Balak fails when we recollect that Israel had refrained from
attacking Moab in its day of weakness, had even refrained from
asking leave to pass through its impoverished territory. The
feelings of the vanquished had been respected. Perhaps Balak, with
the perversity of a weak man and an incompetent prince, resented
this as much as anything.
Balaam was now brought into the field of Zophim, or the Watchers, to
the "top of Pisgah," whence he could see only a part of the camp of
Israel. The Hebrew here as well as in Num 22:41 is ambiguous. It has
even been interpreted as meaning that on the first occasion part of
the encampment only was in view, and on the second occasion the
whole of it (so Keil in loco). But the tenor of the narrative
corresponds better with the translation given in the English
Version. The precise spot here called the top of Pisgah has not been
identified. In the opinion of some the name Pisgah survives in the
modern Siag-hah; but even if it does we are not helped in the least.
Others take Pisgah as meaning simply "hill," and read "the field of
Zophim on the top of the hill." The latter translation would obviate
the difficulty that in Deu 34:1 it is said that Moses, when the time
of his death approached, "went up from the plains of Moab unto Mount
Nebo, to the top of Pisgah that is over against Jericho." Pisgah may
have been the name of the range; yet again in Num 27:12, and Deu
32:49, Abarim is given as the name of the range of which Nebo is a
peak. We are led to the conclusion that Pisgah was the name in
general use for a hill-top of some peculiar form. The root meaning
of the word is difficult to make out. It may at all events be taken
as certain that this top of Pisgah is not the same as that to which
Moses ascended to die. Batak and his princes had not as yet ventured
so far beyond the Amon.
At Balaam’s request the same arrangements were made as at Bamoth-Baal.
Seven altars were built, and seven bullocks and seven rams were
offered; and again the diviner withdrew to some distance to seek
omens. This time his meeting with Jehovah gave him a more emphatic
message. It would seem that with the passing of the day’s incidents
the vatic fire in his mind burned more brightly. Instead of
endeavouring to conciliate Balak he appears to take delight in the
oracle that dashes the hopes of Moab to the ground. He has looked
from the new point of vision and seen the great future that awaits
Israel. It is vain to expect that the decree of the Almighty One can
be revoked. Balak must hear all that the spirit of Elohim has given
to the seer.
Up, Balak, and hear; Hearken to me, son of Zippor: No man is God,
that He should lie; And no son of man, that He should repent.
Hath He said, and shall He not do it? And spoken, and shall He not
make good? Behold to bless I have received; And He hath blessed and
I cannot undo.
He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, Nor seen perverseness in
Israel. Jehovah his God is with him; And the shout of a King is with
him.
God brings them forth from Egypt: Like the horns of the wild ox are
his. Surely no snake-craft is in Jacob, And no enchantment with
Israel.
"At the time it shall be said of Jacob and Israel, What hath God
wrought? Behold the people as a lioness arises, And as a lion lifts
himself up; He shall not lie down till he eat the prey, And drink
the blood of the slain."
The confirmation of the first oracle by what Balaam has realised on
his second approach to Jehovah compels the question which rebukes
the king’s vain desire. "Hath He said, and shall He not do it?"
Balak did not know Jehovah as Balaam knew Him. This God never went
back from His decision, nor recalled His promises. And He is able to
do whatever He wills. Not only does He refuse to curse Israel, but
He has given a blessing which Balaam even, powerful as he is, cannot
possibly hinder. It has become manifest that the judgment of God on
His people’s conduct is in no respect adverse. Reviewing their past,
the diviner may have found such failure from the covenant as would
give cause for a decision against them, partial at least, if not
general. But there is no excuse for supposing that Jehovah has
turned against the tribes. Their recent successes and present
position are proofs of His favour unrevoked, and, it would seem,
irrevocable. There is a King with this people, and when they advance
it is with a shout in His honour. The King is Jehovah their God;
mightier far than Balak or any ruler of the nations. When the loud
Hallelujah rose from the multitude at some sacred feast, it was
indeed the shout of a monarch.
Singular is it to find a diviner like Balaam noting as one of the
great distinctions of Israel that the nation used neither augury nor
divination. The hollowness of his own arts in presence of the God of
Israel who could not be moved by them, who gave His people hope
without them, would seem to have impressed Balaam profoundly. He
speaks almost as if in contempt of the devices he himself employs.
Indeed, he sees that his art is not art at all, as regards Israel.
The Hebrews trust no omens; and either for or against them omens
give no sign. It was another mark of the separateness of Israel.
Jehovah had fenced His people from the spells of the magician. True
to Him, they could defy all the sorcery of the East. And when the
time for further endeavour came, the nations around should have to
hear of the God who had brought the Hebrew tribes out of Egypt. With
a lion-like vigour they would rise from their lair by the Jordan.
The Canaanites and Amorites beyond should be their prey. Already
perhaps tidings had come of the defeat of Bashan: the cities on the
other side of Jordan should fall in their turn.
As yet there is nothing in the predictions of Balaam that can be
said to point distinctly to any future event in Israel’s history.
The oracles are of that general kind which might be expected from a
man of the world who has given attention to the signs of the times
and perceived the value to a people of strong and original faith.
But taking them in this sense they may well rebuke that modern
disbelief which denies the inspiring power of religion and the
striking facts which come to light not only in the history of
nations like Israel but in the lives of men whose vigour springs
from religious zeal. Balaam saw what any whose eyes are open will
also see, that when the shout of the Heavenly King is among a
people, when they serve a Divine Master, holy, just, and true, they
have a standing ground and an outlook not otherwise to be reached.
The critics of religion who take it to be a mere heat of the blood,
a transient emotion, forget that the grasp of great and generous
principles, and the thought of an Eternal Will to be served, give a
sense of right and freedom which expediency and self-pleasing cannot
supply. However man comes to be what he is, this is certain, that
for him strength depends not so much on bodily physique as on the
soul, and for the soul on religious inspiration. The enthusiasm of
pleasure-seeking has never yet made a band of men indomitable, nor
need it be expected to give greatness; we cannot persuade ourselves
that apart from God our blessedness is a matter of surpassing
importance. We are a multitude whose individual lives are very
small, very short, very insignificant, unless they are known to
serve some Divine end.
It has been seen by one philosopher that if the religious sanction
be taken away from morality some other must be provided to fill up
the vacuum. Further, it may be said that if the religious support
and stimulus of human energy be withdrawn there will be a greater
vacuum more difficult to fill. The would-be benefactors of our race,
who think that the superstition of a personal God is effete and
should be swept away as soon as possible, so that man may return to
nature, might do well to return to Balaam. He had a penetration
which they do not possess. And singularly, the very apostle of that
impersonal "stream of tendency making for righteousness," which was
once to be put in the place of God, did on one occasion unwittingly
remind us of this prophet. Mr. Matthew Arnold had a difficult thing
to do when he tried to encourage a toiling population to go on
toiling without hope, to plod on in the underground while a select
few above enjoyed the sunlight. The part was that of a diviner
finding auguries for the inevitable. But he spoke as one who had to
pity a poor blind Israel, no longer inspired by the shout of a king
or the hope of a promised land, an Israel that had lost its faith
and its way and seemed about to perish in the desert. Well did he
know how difficult it is for men under this dread to endure
patiently when those above have abolished God and the future life;
men, who are disposed to say, yet must be told that they say vainly,
"If there is nothing but this life, we must have it. Let us help
ourselves, whenever we can, to all we desire." Was that Israel to be
blessed or cursed? There was no oracle. Yet the cultured Balak,
hoping for a spell at least against the revolutionaries, had a
rebuke. The prophet did not curse; he had no power to bless. But
Moab was shown to be in peril, was warned to be generous.
Balaams enough there are, after a sort, with more or less
penetration and sincerity. But what the peoples need is a Moses to
revive their faith. The hollow maledictions and blessings that are
now launched incessantly from valley to hill, from hill to valley,
would be silenced if we found the leader who can re-awaken faith. It
would be superfluous, then, for the race in its fresh hope to bless
itself, and vain for the pessimists to curse it. With the ensign of
Divine love leading the way, and the new heavens and earth in view,
all men would be assured and hopeful, patient in suffering, fearless
in death.
The second oracle produced in the mind of Balak an effect of
bewilderment, not of complete discomfiture. He appears to be caught
so far in the afflatus that he must hear all the prophet has to
tell. He desires Balaam neither to curse nor bless; neutrality would
be something. Yet, with all he has already heard giving clear
indication what more is to be expected, he proposes another place,
another trial of the auguries. This time the whole of Israel shall
again be seen. The top of Peor that looketh down upon Jeshimon, or
the desert, is chosen. On this occasion when the altars and
sacrifices are prepared the order is not the same as before. The
diviner does not retire to a distance to seek for omens. He makes no
profession of mystery now. The temperature of thought and feeling is
high, for the spot on which the company gathers is almost within
range of the sentinels of Israel. The adventure is surely one of the
strangest which the East ever witnessed. In the dramatic unfolding
of it the actors and spectators are alike absorbed.
The third prophetic chant repeats several of the expressions
contained in the second, and adds little; but it is more poetical in
form. The prophet standing on the height saw "immediately below him
the vast encampment of Israel amongst the acacia groves of Abel
Shittim-like the watercourses of the mountains, like the hanging
gardens beside his own river Euphrates, with their aromatic shrubs
and their wide-spreading cedars. Beyond them on the western side of
Jordan rose the hills of Palestine, with glimpses through their
valleys of ancient cities towering on their crested heights. And
beyond all, though he could not see it with his bodily vision, he
knew well that there rolled the deep waters of the great sea, with
the Isles of Greece, the Isle of Chittim-a world of which the first
beginnings of life were just stirring, of which the very name here
first breaks upon our ears." From the deep meditation which passed
into a trance the diviner awoke to gaze for a little upon that
scene, to look fixedly once more on the camp of the Hebrew tribes,
and then he began:
"Balaam the son of Beor saith, And the man whose eye was closed
saith: He saith who heareth the words of El, Who seeth the vision of
Shaddai, Falling down and having his eyes opened."
Thus in the consciousness of an exalted state of mind which has come
with unusual symptoms, the ecstasy that overpowers and brings
visions before the inward eye, he vaunts his inspiration. There is
no small resemblance to the manner in which the afflatus came to
seers of Israel in after-times; yet the description points more
distinctly to the rapture of one like King Saul, who has been swept
by some temporary enthusiasm into a strain of thought, an emotional
atmosphere, beyond ordinary experience. The far-reaching encampment
is first poetically described, with images that point to perennial
vitality and strength. Then as a settled nation Israel is described,
irrigating broad fields and sowing them to reap an abundant harvest.
Why comparison is made between the power of Israel and Agag one can
only guess. Perhaps the reigning chief of the Amalekites was at this
time distinguished by the splendour of his court, so that his name
was a type of regal magnificence. The images of the wild ox and the
lion are repeated with additional emphasis; and the strain rises to
its climax in the closing apostrophe:
"Blessed be every one that blesseth thee And cursed be every one
that curseth thee."
So strongly is Israel established in the favour of Shaddai, the
Almighty One, that attempts to injure her will surely recoil on the
head of the aggressor. And on the other hand, to help Israel, to bid
her God-speed, will be a way to blessedness. Jehovah will make the
overflowing of His grace descend like rain on those who take
Israel’s part and cheer her on her way.
In the light of what afterwards took place, it is clear that Balaam
was in this last ejaculation carried far beyond himself. He may have
seen for a moment, in the flash of a heavenly light, the high
distinction to which Israel was advancing. He certainly felt that to
curse her would be perilous, to bless her meritorious. But the
thought, like others of a more spiritual nature, did not enter
deeply into his mind. Balaam could utter it with a kind of strenuous
cordiality, and then do his utmost to falsify his own prediction.
What matter fine emotions and noble protestations if they are only
momentary and superficial? Balak’s open jealousy and hatred of
Israel were, after all, more complimentary to her than the
high-sounding praises of Balaam, who spoke as enjoying the elation
of the prophet, not as delighting in the tenor of his message.
Israel was nothing to him. Soon the prosperity to which she was
destined became like gall and wormwood to his soul. The encampment
roused his admiration at the time, but afterwards, when it became
clear that the Israelites would have none of him, his mood changed
towards them. Ambition ruled him to the end; and if the Hebrews did
not offer in any way to minister to it, a man like Balaam would
by-and-by set himself to bring down their pride. Weak humanity gives
many examples of this. The man who has been an expectant flatterer
of one greater than himself, but is denied the notice and honour he
looks for, becomes, when his hopes have finally to be renounced, the
most savage assailant, the most bitter detractor of his former hero.
And so strong often are the minds which fall in this manner, that we
look sometimes with anxiety even to the highest.
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