Infamy among the Jews (cf. 1 Sam. xv. 23, "witchcraft;" Jer. xiv. 14, "divination''); but no one doubts that he played for gain the part of a soothsayer, employing with more or less of inward unbelief and contempt the arts of heathen sorcery; and it was quite natural that Joshua should recognise only the lower and more obvious side of hie enemy's character. It remains then to consider how Bale.am, living in Mesopotamia, could have had so considerable a knowledge of the true God ; and the only satisfactory answer is this, that such knowledge had never disappeared from that region. Every glimpse which is afforded us of the descendants of Ne.hor in their Mesopotamian home confirms the belief that they were substantially at one with the chosen family in religious feeling and religious speech. Bethuel and Laban acknowledged the same God, and called him by the same name as Isaac and Jacob (Gen. xxiv. 50; x.xxi. 49). No doubt idolatrous practices prevailed in their household (Gen. x:xxi. 19; XXXT. 2; Josh. xxiv. 2), but that, however dangerous, we.a not fatal to the existence of the true faith amongst them, any more than is the existence of o. similar cultue amongst Christians. Centuries had indeed passed away since the days of Laban, and during those centu- ries we may well conclude that the common people had developed the idolatroua practices of their fathers, until they wholly obscured the worship of the one true God. But the lapse of years and the change of popular belief make little differ- ence to the secret and higher teaching of countries like the Mesopotamia of that age, which is intensely conservative both for good and evil. Men like Be.le.am, who probably had an hereditary claim to his position as a seer, remained purely mono- theistic in creed, and in their hearts called only upon the God of all the earth, the God of .Abraham and of Ne.hor, of Melchizedec and of Job, of Laban and of Jacob. H we knew enough of the religious history of that land, it is possible that we might be able to point to a tolerably complete succession of gifted (in many cases Divinely- gifted) men, servants -and worshippers of the one true God, down to the Magi who first hailed the rising of the bright and morning Star. There is connected with this question another of much narrower interest which causes great perplexity. Be.le.am ( and indeed Balak too) freely uses the sacred name by whfch God had revealed himself o.a the God of Israel (see on Exod. vi. 2, 3). There are two views ·of this matter, one or other of which is tolerably certain, and for both of which much may be said: either the snored name was widely known and used beyond the limits of Israel, or else the sacred historian must have freely put it into the mouths of people who actually used some other no.rue. There are also two views both of which may be summarily rejected, because their own advo- cates have reduced them to absolute absurdity: the one is, that the use of the two nomes Elohim and Jehovah shows a difference of authorship; the other, that they are employed by the same author with variety of sense-Elohim (God) being the God of nature, Jehovah (the Lord) the God of grace. It is no doubt true that there are passages where the sole use, or the pointed use, of one or other of these names does really point to a diversity either of authorship or of meaning ; but it is abundantly clear that in the general narrative of Scripture, including these chapters, not the least distinction whatever can be drawn between the use of Elohim and Jehovah which will stand the simplest test of common sense; the same ingenuity which explains the occurrence of Elohim instead of Jehovah in any particular sentence would find an explanation quite as satisfactory if it were Jehovah instead of Elohim. II. Whence did Moses obtain his knowledge of the incidents here recorded, many NIJMBEBB, R 290 THE BOOK OF NUMBERS. [OHS. XXII.-XXIV,
of which mwit have been known to Balaam alono? Was it directly, by revelation; or from some memori&ls left by Balaam himself ? The former supposition, once generally held, is as generally abandoned now, becnuse it is perceived that inspiration over-ruled and utilised for Divine purposes, but did not supersede, natm:al sources of information. The latter supposition is rendered more probable by these considerations :-1. That a man of Balaam'e character and training would be very likely to put on record the remarkable things which had happened to himself. Such men who habitually lead a double life are often keenly alive to their own errors, and are singularly frank in writing themselves down for the benefit of posterity. 2. That Balaam was slain among the Midianites, and that his effects must have fallen into the hands of the victors, On the other hand, it is inconceivable tha.t Balaa.m, being what he was, should have written these chapters at all as they stand ; the moral and religious intent of the story is too evident in itself, and is too evidently governed by Jewish faith and feeling. It may be allowable to put it before the reader as an opinion which may or may not be true, but which is quite compatible with profound belief in the inspired truth of this part of God's word, that Moses, having obtained the facts in the way above indicated, was moved to work them up into the dramatic form in which they now appear-a form which undoubtedly brings ont the character of the actors, the struggle between light and :larknese, and the final triumph of light, with much more force (and therefore much more troth) than anything else conld. If it be objected that this gives a fictitious character to the narrative, it may be replied that when the imagination is called into exercise to present actoal facts, existing characters, and prophecies really uttered in a striking light,-and that under the over-ruling guidance of the Divine Spirit,-the result cannot be called fictitioUB in any bad or unworthy sense. If it be added that such a theory attributes to thil! section a character different from the rest of the Book, it may be allowed at once. The episode of Balaam and Balak is obviously, as to literary form, distinct from and strongly contrasted with the narrative which precedes and follows, It has been made a question e.s to the language in which Balaam and hie companions spoke and wrote. The discovery of the Moo.bite stone has made it certain that the language of the Moabites, and in all probability of the other races deecentled from Abraham and Lot, was practically the same as the language of the Jews. Balaam's own tongue may have been Aramaic, but amongst hie western friends and patrons he wonld no doubt be perfectly ready to speak as they spoke.