The Pulpit Commentary — Numbers — Section 305

Balaam was interesting only as a great foe, greatly baffled ; as a sorcerer whose ghostly power and craft was brcken and turned backward by the God of Israel (Deut. xxiii. 5; Josh. xiii. 22; xxiv. 10; Micah vi. 5). To the Christian of the first age be was only interesting as the Scriptural type of the subtlest and most dangerous kind of enemy whom the Church of God had to dread-the enemy who united spiritual pretensions with persuasions to vice (Rev. ii. 14). To the more critical intellects of later ages, such even as Augustine and Jerome, he was altogether a puzzle ; the one regarding him as proph,et,am dialJoli, whose religion was a mere cloak for covet-0usness; the other as prophetam IJei, whose fall was like unto the fa!! of the old prophet of Bethel. The two parallel allusions to his character in 2 Pet. ii. 15, 16; Jude 11 do not take us any further, merely turning upon the covet- ousness which was his most obvious fault. Unquestionably, however, Balaam is most interesting to us, not from any of these points of view, but as a study drawn by nn inspired hand of a strangely but most naturally mixed character, the broad features of which are constantly being reproduced, in the same unhallowed union, in men of all lands and ages. This is undeniably one of the instances (not perhaps very numerous) in which the more trained and educated intelligence of modem days has a distinct advantage over the simpler faith and intenser piety of the first ages. • The conflict, or rather the compromise, in Balaam between true religion and superstitious imposture, between an actual Divine inspiration and the practice of heathen sorceries, between devotion to God and devotion to money, was an unintelligible puzzle to men of old. To those who have giasped the character of a Louis XI., of a Luther, or of an Oliver Cromwell, or .have gauged the mixture of highest and lowest in the religious movements of modem history, the wonder is, not that such an one should have been, but that such an one should have been so simply and yet so skilfully depicted. Two questions arise pre-eminently out of the story of Balaam which our want of knowledge forbids us to answer otherwise than doubtfully. L Whence did Balaam derive his knowledge of the true God, and how far did it extend? Was he, as some have argued, a heathen sorcerer who took to invoking Jehovah because circumstances led Wm to believe that the cause of Jehovah was likely to be the winning cause? and did the God whom he invoked-in this mercenary spirit (after the fashion of the sons of Sceva) take advantage of the fact to obtain an ascendancy over his mind, and to compel his unwilliiig obedience? Such an assumption seeillS at once unnatural and unnecessary. It is hardly conceivable that God should have bestowed a true prophetic gift upon one who stood in such a rela- tion to him. Moreover, the kind of ascendancy which the word of God had over the mind of Balaam is not one which springs from calculation, or from n mere intel- lectual persuasion. The man who lives before us in these chapters bas not only a considerable knowledge of, but a very large amount of faith in, the one true God; he walks with God; he sees him that is invisible; the presence of God, and God's direct concern about hie doings are as familiar and unquestioned elements of his every-day life as they were of .Abraham's. In a word (whatever difficulties a shallow theology may find in the fact), he has religious faith in God, a faith which is natur- ally strong, and has been further intensified by special revelations of the unseen ; and this faith is the basis and condition of his prophetic gift. Balaam's religion, therefore, on this side was neither an hypocrisy nor an assumption; it was a real conviction which had grown up with him and formed part of hie inner self. It is tnie that ip Josh. :iriii. 22 he is calle<l a soothsarer (kosem), a nan.ie of reproach an4 CHS. xx11.-x.x1v.J THE BOOK Oll' NUMBERS.