The Story of Balaam and Balak

Comment:

The story of Balaam and Balak takes up three chapters of the Book of Numbers (22-24). Its style is like a slapstick comedy, deliberately funny in its depiction of talking donkeys, angels unaware and the inevitable humor of mere mortals trying to subvert the will of the divine. And yet, for all its entertainment value, it offers important spiritual lessons for our own lives.

Balak, the king of the Moabites, is alarmed by the sudden appearance in his kingdom of the hoard of Israelites who have left Egypt. He sends for a well-known Mesopotamian soothsayer/fortune-teller, Balaam, and asks him to come and curse the intruders so that they will leave. Balaam first consults his own guidance, which is that he should not get involved. But after a second entreaty from emissaries of Balak, he agrees to go, but with the provision that he will say nothing but what he is guided to say by the Lord of his being—his personal connection with the divine.

At this point comes an interval that seems to be from another story altogether. Suddenly the same Lord who guided Balaam to make the journey is angry because he agreed to make the journey. He sends an angel to interrupt the journey. Balaam cannot see the angel, but the ass on which he is riding can, and tries to avoid it by turning off the road, bumping up against a wall and in general refusing to obey the guidance of Balaam, who responds by striking the ass with a stick three times. At this point the ass is given the power of speech, to complain about his treatment, and then Balaam is given the power to see the angel. Chastened, Balaam offers to return home, but the angel tells him to go forward—but, again, to speak only what he is guided to say by the Lord.

The comedy continues as Balak eagerly takes Balaam to four different perspectives from which he can see the vast numbers of Israelites, insisting that he prophesy a curse upon them. And four times Balaam instead prophesies that the Israelites will be victorious, and will ultimately possess the land that now belongs to the Moabites. 

The underlying meaning, of course, is that there is no human way to counteract or resist the energy of the divine. Surrendering to that energy, as Balaam had, does not give us mastery over it. Rather it gives the energy mastery over our own human fears and preferences. Our attempts to impose our own will may seem dramatic and frightful; in truth, they are simply highly comic efforts to resist the inevitable. From a spiritual perspective, we are never funnier than when we think we know what our next steps must be, and what our good must look like.

Blessings!

Rev. Ed