But the most important difference in the stories is the contrast which they present in the character of Balaam. In J there is nothing rejiroachful in his conduct. He acts up to his light with perfect consistency. But the Balaam of E is of a much lower order. He has imlced a higher perception of the moral beauty of righteous
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BALDNESS
ness. He can say with all sincerity, ' Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his ' (23'°). This can hardly at so early a date mean, ' May I in some future state have the rewards, even without the reality, of a righteous life here,' but, 'May I in my last moments have the satisfaction of feeling that I have lived a righteous life to the very end.' But, in spite of such noble sentiments, the Balaam of £ is a selfish, grasping man. He covets the rewards of Balak, and is restrained from taking them only by a sordid fear of God, who could make the conse- quence of so doing worse than losing them. He is not content to know God's will, but tries by every means in his power to cajole God into changing His mind, or, in other words, makinj' wrong right. Five times he attempts to obtain God's consent, and always fails. It may be thought that this estimate of Balaam's character as portrayed in E assumes a higher view of God and morality than E may be supposed to have had. The God of 1 S 15-^ was not 'a man, that he should repent.' But could this be said of the God of E ? Probably not ; but, at any rate, Balaam's persistence is evidently due to selfishness and greed.
Some regret may be felt on the ground that such a critical analysis of Balaam's story destroys its value as the study of an instructively composite character. But this is not so much so as ajjpears at first sight. The great sermon of Bp. Butler, for example, depends almost entirely on the nar- rative of E. His allusion to P's story as part of Balaam's career does not affect his main argument much more than the words of Mieah (6'''^) erro- neously put by him into Balaam's mouth. The real value of his sermon arises out of his insight into human nature and motive. On the other side, it is only fair to state that the critical process removes at least one very serious moral ditticulty, that, as the narrative now stands, God allows Balaam to go on certain conditions, and before the conditions have been violated is angry, and punishes him for acting on this permission.
The date and origin of the Balaam story cannot be determined with certainty. The reference to the subjugation of Moab (24"), if we suppose that these are prophecies only in a literary sense, seems to point, for the Jahwistic narrative, to a date jjosterior to David's Moabitish war (2 S 8) ; and It is hardly likely to be much later— indeed it is highly probable that the story is based on a much earlier le";end. The speaking of animals is a common feature of the early folk-lore of many nations, and this incident has its obvious parallel in the Jahwistic story of Paradise. Among some of the Norwegian peasantry the belief that bears could speak, and refrained from doing so only from fear of man, continued down to comparatively recent times.
LlTERATURB. — The fltory and character of Bala-am have been the subject of a large number of treiitises and sermons. By far the beat known, and generally acknowledged to be the most valuable, is the great sermon of Bp. Butler upon the charai^ter of Balaam. Among those of more recent date may be mentioned the sermons of F. D. Maurice and Isaac Williams.
F. H. Woods. BALAH (.17?), Jos IQ*. — A town of Simeon, perliaps the same as Bealoth, and apparently the Bilhah of a parallel passage 1 Ch 4-". None of the.se is known. C. R. CONUER.
BALAK (p^; 'making empty or waste'). — A king of Moab who, according to a story pre- served in Nu 22-24, hired the prophet Balaam to curse the Israelites before their entry into Canaan. See Bala,vm. F. H. Woods.
BALAMON (BaXaMuf, AV Balaxio). — A iovra near
Dothaim (Jth 8», cf. Ca 8").
BALANCE (c:Jl^io, njj, ^vy6f). — Weighing was per formed from early times in Egypt, and was probably thence borrowed by the Hebrews. All Oriental balances were equal-armed, the principle of lever- age in the steelyard having been apparently an Italian invention, carried into the East under Roman influence. In Egypt before the Exodus, balances of all sizes were employed ; the larger ones having a fixed pole for support, a beam of several feet in length, and large scale pans hung by cords. To test the evenness of the balance a tongue was attached to it, but instead of observing the tongue against a long vertical sling of the balance, as in modern times, the ancient tongue was below the beam, and the verticality of it (and evenness of the beam) was observed against a plummet. As the plummet was easily set swinging by a lurch of the stand, the characteristic action shown in weighing ie for the man to steady the plummet with his hand in order to read its position. Smaller balances were held in the hand, hung by a cord. The beam was