Balak and Balaam

Numbers 22

We take a short break from Israel being the center of the narrative to now someone else, Balak and Balaam. Balak was king of Moab and the Moabites were afraid of the Israelites because they did not want to be dead. Because of the fear, King Balak sent word to get a sorcerer, Balaam, to curse the people of Israel so he could defeat them in battle.

God speaks to Balaam and asked “what do these men want with you?” Balaam told God that the Moabites wanted him to curse the people of Israel and God told Balaam that he could not do that. A second time King Balak asked and Balaam said no, but this time God said go.

As Balaam was going an angel of the Lord was standing in the way and only his donkey saw it. The donkey moved one way to another to try to avoid the angel. Balaam thought his donkey was going nuts and he hit the donkey. Then all of sudden the donkey starts to talk. The thing that is more interesting than this is that Balaam responded as this was a normal conversation. This was not Mr. Ed the talking horse this was the talking donkey. God opened Balaam’s eyes and he saw the angel of the Lord. In this Balaam realized that he needed to submit to God in his request. Balak and Balaam go up on the mount and they were able to see a fraction of the people.

God’s speaks

In this chapter we can see this false prophet Balaam being used for a reason. We will see more of Balaam in the next few chapters. What would your reaction be if your animal started to talk? I am not talking about the donkey in Shrek or anything but like your dog just said something and you responded.  Now, if God communicated to you would you listen? God first showed himself to Balaam and Balaam somewhat listened but he also had false motives. He was going to go to curse the people of Israel still. God had to stop him in his tracks and God sometimes has to stop us in our tracks to get our attention. God desries for us to listen to him completely, not just partially. Do you let God speak to you through his word?