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ever thou sayest unto me : come, therefore, I pray thee, and curse me this people."
The spirit of avarice, awakened by the first embassy, had now got full possession of Balaam; and, therefore, though he made the most pompous protestations of his entire fidelity to God, and of the utter impossibility of saying or doing anything but what God commanded or permitted, he wound up with the lame conclusion that they should stay with him another night, to see what the Lord would say unto him more; in other words, to see whether God might not change His mind, like some weak mortal, and permit His prophet to pronounce a gainful curse upon His people. So God, who answers fools after their folly, who, in the strong language of the 18th Psalm, " with the perverse shows himself perverse," in other words, whose voice, speaking through the conscience, may always be altered and vitiated by a persevering determination to attend only to what we like — God permitted him to go with the messengers if they came to call him. Balaam made no further delay. He rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass and went with the men. But he was sternly warned, and he determined for his own safety's sake to say nothing except what God should say to him. Still, strange to say, he fancied that by magical rites and sacrifices, in which the mystic number seven was twice repeated, he might prevail on God to change His mind. Thrice did he make the presumptuous attempt, and thrice was he obliged, instead of curses, to pour forth blessings. So he had violated his conscience to no purpose ; he had made nothing by his wicked journey ; the Lord had kept him from honour, as Balak told him with bitter mockery ; he had lost the promise of the life to come, without gaining anything for the life that now is ; he went back to his distant home ungraced and unrewarded.
2. As he uttered this prayer Balaam was among the mountain - peaks of Moab, and before him lay a deeply impressive scene. In the far distance in front of him were the hills of Ephraim and Judah, with numerous openings that gave glimpses of fertile plains and smiling valleys. Still nearer was the plain through which the sacred Jordan rolled — a plain some six or seven miles broad. Immediately below him lay the eastern hillside, covered
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in part by a long belt of acacia groves. Among these groves he could see thousands of tents belonging to the Hebrew wanderers — the chosen of the Lord. In vain had he striven to draw down the displeasure of the Almighty upon them, and, now that he thought of their special religious knowledge, and spiritual advan- tages, he regarded them as " righteous," and felt constrained to give sincere utterance to his deepest wish : " Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his ! "
^ The text occurs in the first of the prophecies or oracles uttered by Balaam. His eye ranges over " the utmost part of the people." Accordingly, after the repetition of the declaration that he cannot curse or defy, except at the bidding of the Lord, the leading idea which expresses itself is the idea of their vast multi- tude, dwelling apart from the nations, in " numbers numberless " as the sand on the seashore.
Num. xxiii. 7-10. — " And he took up his parable, and said —
From Aram hath Balak brought me.
The king of Moab from the mountains of the East.
Come, curse me Jacob,
And come, defy Israel.
How shall I curse, whom God hath not cursed ?
And how shall I defy, whom the Lord hath not defied ?
For from the top of the rocks I see him,
And from the hills I behold him:
Lo, it is a people that dwell alone.
And shall not be reckoned among the nations.
Who can count the dust of Jacob,
Or number the fourth part of Israel?
Let me die the death of the righteous.
And let my last end be like his ! "
The parable, as a whole, is as simple as it is forcible. The only point which needs explanation is the connection with the context of the celebrated aspiration of the last couplet — suddenly introducing the conception of the blessing of righteousness after the mere contemplation of multitude and strength. That con- nection is probably to be found in the allusions made in the previous couplets to the separation of the people from all others, and the comparison of them to the " dust " or sand. It is hardly possible not to trace in these, signs of some knowledge, in itself most probable, of the great promises to Abraham (Gen. xxii. 17) and to his descendants : " I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore."
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These are the " righteous ones." To them is fulfilled, in special fulness, that general promise of offspring from generation to generation, which ancient faith believed to be given to all the righteous. " Thou shalt know also that thy seed shall be great ; and thine offspring as the grass of the field " (Job v. 25) ; " His seed shall be mighty upon earth ; the generation of the upright shall be blessed " (Ps. cxii. 2). Hence the aspiration of Balaam is that he may die as they died, full of years and honour — their last hour lighted up by the promise of seed as the stars of heaven — sure that the same blessing of God, under which they had lived, would deepen and widen out into the greatness of a magnificent future.^