Balaam and the Wages of Unrighteousness

The importance of story of Balaam from the Old Testament is highlighted by the fact that he is mentioned three times in the New Testament, so I think it is worth looking at in trying to understand what Balaam did that caused later prophets to use him as an example of unrighteousness.  Balak, the king of the Moabites, summoned help from Balaam by requesting him to curse the Israelites.  Balaam was not an Israelite but appears to have been some kind of prophet.  As the student manual states, “Balaam could have been one of the few scattered people such as Jethro, who held the priesthood and exercised its power” (see here).  Balak sent a kind of convoy to Balaam with money for him to come with them and ultimately to curse Israel.  Balaam received revelation from God that night and was told, “Thou shalt not go with them; thou shalt not curse the people: for they are blessed” (Numbers 22:12).  Balaam was obedient to the Lord’s command and he sent the people away.  Then Balak sent to him “more honorable” princes and pleaded with Balaam to come with them back to Balak.  Balaam responded, “If Balak would give me his house full of silver and gold, I cannot go beyond the word of the Lord my God, to do less or more” (Numbers 22:18).  If that were the end of the story, then surely we would today praise Balaam as a man of integrity and obedience and the words of this verse would be repeated as an example of uncompromising faithfulness. 

                Unfortunately, though, that’s not the end of the story.  Balaam had the men stay the night, and he prayed to the Lord again.  Here’s where the story gets confusing.  We read this response from the Lord, “If the men come to call thee, rise up, and go with them; but yet the word which I shall say unto thee, that shalt thou do” (Numbers 22:20).  Then Balaam “rose up in the morning, and saddled his ass, and went with the princes of Moab” (Numbers 22:21).  As the story continues, it becomes clear that the Lord was very displeased with this choice of his to go with the men.  And yet it appears from verse 20 that the Lord was giving him permission to go.  Assuming the text is accurate, the only explanation I can think of is that the Lord’s condition was not met: “If the men come to call thee, rise up, and go with them.”  In the next verse when we read that Balaam went, there’s no mention of having waited for the men to call thee.  Perhaps we don’t quite have all of the story, but the Lord is clearly upset that Balaam went with the men, and it seems that his apparently courageous stand of verse 18 was not backed by his actions.  The Lord’s rebuke may have had to do with the condition of his heart as well, which ultimately we find out was not in the right place.  At any rate, it’s here in the story that we have the story of the talking donkey and the angel that came to stop Balaam.  At the end of that little encounter he received permission to keep going to meet with Balak so long as he only spoke the words of the Lord. 

                The next couple of chapters in the story give the account of the exchange between Balaam and Balak, with Balak consistently asking Balaam to curse Israel and Balaam blessing them instead.  He even prophesied that “there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel” which, at least according to the chapter heading, was a prophecy about the Messiah coming (Numbers 24:17).  After this Balaam went back to his home, and it would seem at least from this reading that Balaam did the right thing by blessing Israel and refusing to curse them.  After Balaam’s return home, the next chapter begins this way: “And Israel abode in Shittim, and the people began to commit whoredom         with the daughters of Moab” (Numbers 25:1).  The student manual suggests that herein was the great sin of Balaam: “Evidently, when [Balaam] saw that he could not earn Balak’s commission by cursing Israel directly, he told Balak that God would only bless Israel when they were righteous. If the Moabites could seduce Israel into idol worship, they would lose God’s power” (see here).  The basis for this explanation comes from this verse several chapters later: “Behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the Lord” (Numbers 31:16).  So it appears that while Balaam refused to go against the counsel of the Lord directly, he found a way in the end to get Israel cursed (by telling the Moabites to entice the Israelites to sin) so he could get the financial reward of Balak.  I think we get an indication that this is exactly what happened—even though the Old Testament text doesn’t give us all the details—from the book of Revelation.  We read that Balaam “taught Balac to cast a stumblingblock before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication” (Revelation 2:14).  Ultimately Balaam was slain by the Israelites (see Numbers 31:8).

                So what is the lesson from the life of Balaam?  Peter wrote that Balaam “loved the wages of unrighteousness” (2 Peter 2:15).  It seems that Balaam had so much potential to be a faithful servant of the Lord, but he let the enticements of Balak and worldly wealth cause him to go against what he ultimately knew was right.  Perhaps he rationalized that telling Balak how to get Israel to be cursed instead of cursing them himself was okay, but surely deep down he knew that it was not what the Lord wanted of him.  One of our great challenges today is to remain faithful to the principles of righteousness even as the world puts enormous pressures on us to indulge in its vain possessions.