Balaam #44

Balaam, son of Beor, is a non-Israelite seer whose story fills Numbers 22 to 24. Israel had camped on the plains of Moab across the Jordan from Jericho, and Balak, king of Moab, was afraid. He sent elders with a fee for divination to Balaam, who lived at Pethor by the Euphrates, asking him to curse the people (Numbers 22:5-7). Balaam is a puzzling figure: he speaks of the Lord as his God and receives divine messages, yet the Bible ultimately counts him among Israel’s enemies.

Biblical Significance

God told Balaam not to go with Balak’s men and not to curse Israel, because the people were blessed (Numbers 22:12). When more officials came, Balaam was told to go with them but to do only what God told him (Numbers 22:20). On the way, God’s anger burned and the angel of the Lord blocked his road three times. His donkey saw the angel and turned aside, and after Balaam struck her, the Lord opened her mouth so that she spoke to him. Then Balaam’s own eyes were opened and he saw the angel with a drawn sword (Numbers 22:21-35). He was then allowed to continue, with the same condition.

At three locations Balak built altars and prepared sacrifices, and each time Balaam pronounced a blessing instead of a curse. His fourth oracle looks to the future: “there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel” (Numbers 24:17). Christians have long read this as pointing toward the Messiah, while Jewish interpreters have often connected it to King David. Either way, it is a notable prophecy from an unexpected source.

The narrative does not end there. Numbers 31:16 says that the women of Midian, on Balaam’s advice, made Israel unfaithful to the Lord in the affair of Peor, which brought a plague. Balaam is killed by Israel among the Midianite kings (Numbers 31:8; Joshua 13:22).

Legacy

The New Testament treats Balaam as a warning. Peter says false teachers have followed the way of Balaam, who “loved the wages of unrighteousness” and was rebuked by a speechless donkey (2 Peter 2:15-16). Jude 11 lists his error alongside Cain and Korah. Revelation 2:14 speaks of those in Pergamum who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before Israel by encouraging idolatry and sexual immorality.

An archaeological find supports his historical memory. In 1967 excavators at Tell Deir Alla in Jordan uncovered a wall inscription in a Northwest Semitic language, dated to roughly the eighth century BC, that mentions a seer named Balaam son of Beor. Scholars debate how closely it relates to the biblical account, but it shows that a prophetic figure by that name was remembered in the region. His story is commonly used to illustrate that God can restrain a curse, that gifts are not the same thing as character, and that compromise can ruin a person who knows what is right.