Thread by @JamesBejon

THREAD: To date, Twitter appears to have devoted little attention to the story of Balaam’s donkey.

What follows are some preliminary steps/tweets intended to redress the balance.

Please join me in them.

Or, to borrow the words of Jacob of Serugh’s Mīmrō,

Our story consists of four main scenes, which are carefully arranged/structured:

(1) Balaam’s initial summons (22.1–14),

(2) Balaam’s second summons (22.15–22a),

(3) Balaam’s threefold journey (22.22b-40), and

(4) Balaam’s fourfold oracle (22.41–24.25).

As we pick up the story at the start of Scene I, Israel has just overthrown the Amorites and is now encamped in the land of Balak (i.e., Moab).

Balak is troubled by Israel’s size and strength.

More specifically, he is worried Israel will hog the land’s resources:

An aside: Balak’s turn of phrase is reminiscent of a line in an Akkadian epic (The Epic of Zimrī-Līm), where the voracious appetites of some Amorite warriors are likened to ‘a wild ass (eating) straw in the steppe’:

What, then, to do?

Balak decides Israel must be expelled from the land.

But, as he knows, when Israel was expelled from *Egypt*, things got very messy (22.5),

And Balak hardly wants to encourage a repeat performance.

Note: The textual parallels between Balak and Pharaoh’s experiences are notable. Both Balak and Pharaoh are troubled (קוץ) by Israel’s size (רב) and strength (עצום: cp. 22.3–6, Exod. 1.9–12), and both want to expel Israel from their land (cp. לגרש מן הארץ in 22.6, Exod. 6.1).

——————

Balak must somehow, therefore, turn Israel’s God against her.

To that end, he seeks to procure the services of a man named Balaam (apparently at the recommendation of the Midianites: cp. 22.4 w. 31.8).

Balaam is a man with an impressive reputation.

‘Those whom he blesses are blessed, and those whom he curses are cursed’ (22.6).

As such, Balaam is exactly the kind of man Balak is after.

His word clearly has incredible power.

Or at least it has done until now.

But Balaam’s apparently unstoppable force is about to meet an immovable object.

To be more precise, the word of Balaam is about to come into conflict with the word of YHWH,

since Balaam is about to curse a nation which YHWH has chosen to bless (Gen. 12.2).

Balaam’s word will, therefore, be overturned, while Balak’s efforts to avoid Pharaoh’s errors will dramatically fail.

Balak’s recourse to magic will in fact make matters worse for him (just as Pharaoh’s did).

Courtesy of Balaam, Israel will not only turn out to be an ox who eats Moab’s grass, but a lion who drinks Moab’s blood (cp. 23.24, 24.17).

—————————

As we resume the story in 22.7, we find Balak’s men at the house of Balaam.

The men tell Balaam what is required of him and offer him a ‘fee’ in return for his services (קסמים).

Balaam is, of course, keen to take the job.

That is after all what he does (as long as the price is right: cp. 2 Pet. 2.15).

But Balaam doesn’t want to seem *too* keen.

He also wants Balak’s men to know he’s a serious practitioner of his art.

So Balaam tells Balak’s men to spend the night with him (in Pethor),

which, he says, will give him time to make contact with YHWH and come to a final decision (22.8).

Balaam then retires to his room, where he promptly falls sleep.

He could always contact YHWH later, once he’d worked out how to do such a thing.

Later that night, however, a remarkable event transpires: YHWH appears to Balaam and speaks to him! Balaam is as surprised as any one—and not a little unnerved.

When asked about Balak’s men, Balaam immediately seeks to distance himself from them, replacing Balak’s נַכֶּה־בּוֹ = ‘Let us smite them!’ with the more moderate אוּלַי אוּכַל לְהִלָּחֶם בּוֹ = ‘Perhaps *I*, Balak, will prevail in war against them’.

Balaam has clearly rubbed shoulders with a powerful deity, and one who does not want Israel to be cursed.

The next morning, Balaam arises, still rather shaken.

He tells Balak’s men what has happened, who relay his answer to Balak (22.12–14), and Scene I hence concludes.

And there the story could have ended. Indeed, there the story *should* have ended.

But the events of 22.12–14 are not as straightforward as they might first seem, since the force of YHWH’s words is lost in transition.

YHWH’s initial statement to Balaam is clear and explicit: Israel are a blessed nation, and to try to curse what YHWH has blessed is a non-starter—a fact which @DrPJWilliams has pointed out here:

https://twitter.com/DrPJWilliams/status/1057424662588809217

But what Balaam tells Balak’s men is less explicit.

Balaam doesn’t want to rule himself out of a potentially lucrative job, so he simply says, ‘YHWH won’t let me go with you’.

And Balaam’s message then becomes even less explicit when it is relayed to Balak, who is told, ‘Balaam wouldn’t come with us!’ (22.13).

As such, the impossible becomes the merely undesirable.

These last events (which mark the end of Scene I) are foundational to what follows in Balaam’s story.

Balaam has been rattled and is far from confident of his abilities to curse Israel.

As a result, the first thing he says when he finally sees Balak is not, ‘Behold, I am Balaam, the man who blesses and curses at will!’, but, ‘Okay, I’m here, but don’t think I can do or say whatever I want!’ (22.38).

Indeed, Balaam defines what he is able to do in remarkably narrow terms.

‘The word which God puts in my mouth’, he says, ‘that alone may I speak/do’ (הַדָּבָר אֲשֶׁר יָשִׂים אֱלֹהִים בְּפִי אֹתוֹ אֲדַבֵּֽר/אֶעֱשֶׂה)—a statement which Balaam repeats on three other occasions, and which (appropriately) reflects the primacy of God’s word in its order.

Balak, however, has no doubt at all in Balaam’s abilities to curse Israel, and interprets Balaam’s reluctance to come as haggling. Hence, at the start of Scene II, Balak sends a more impressive entourage of men to Pethor in order to offer Balaam a higher fee.

As before, Balaam declines the offer, though he does so in a rather tentative manner.

His initial response is clear and unambiguous. ‘Even if Balak gave me a house full of silver and gold’, he says, ‘I could not go beyond YHWH’s word!’.

But Balaam then asks Balak’s men to spend the night with him so he can determine ‘what *else* YHWH might have to say to him’ (מַה־יֹּסֵף יְהוָה דַּבֵּר עִמּוֹ),

which rather muddies the waters.

Unsure of what to expect, Balak’s men retire to their quarters.

Meanwhile, in Balaam’s quarter, another remarkable event transpires. YHWH appears to Balaam for a second time!

What YHWH *says* to Balaam is even more remarkable.

‘If the men from Balak have come to summon you (לקרֹא לך)’, he says, ‘rise up and go with them, though only do what I tell you!’ (22.20),

which Balaam takes to signify a change of mind on YHWH’s behalf.

(It is probably not unusual for deities to change their minds in Balaam’s world.)

Balak happily, therefore, sets off for Moab (22.21), in response to which YHWH is said to become ‘angry’ (22.22), and Scene II hence concludes.

Like Scene I, then, Scene II ends in unusual fashion.

Didn’t YHWH *command* Balaam to go with Balak’s men?

And doesn’t that make Balaam’s decision an act of obedience?

Why, then, is YHWH angry with Balaam?

My suggestion is as follows: because YHWH did not in fact command Balaam to go, since God’s statement in 22.20 does *not* in fact grant Balaam permission to do so.

My suggestion is based on two main considerations.

The first involves our text’s inner-Biblical connections, which we’ll come to later. The second is outlined below.

Recall the protasis of YHWH’s statement: ‘If the men have come to summon you’.

Why would YHWH preface his command with such a curious protasis?

Balaam is available for hire. *Of course* the men have come to summon Balaam. They are not there for social reasons.

Equally curious is YHWH’s final statement: ‘Rise up and go with them, though only do what I tell you!’.

How can Balaam do only what YHWH tells him to do if YHWH tells him different things from day to day (cp. 22.19)—a notion which our text later denies (cp. 23.19)?

In any case, why would YHWH’s command have changed when nothing about Balaam’s situation has changed (apart from his fees)?

YHWH’s statement in 22.20 must therefore, I submit, be read in a more contextually informed manner.

Specifically, its condition must be read in such a way as to make it false (or at least ambiguous and in need of further clarification).

Perhaps, for instance, it should be read as,

‘If the men have come not merely to request your services, but to *summon* you (לקרֹא לך)’, i.e., ‘If Balak has sent to heavies to escort you to Moab’,

which is not the case.

Alternatively, YHWH’s reference to ‘the men’ (הָאֲנָשִׁים) could be equated narrowly with his previous reference to ‘the men’ (הָאֲנָשִׁים: cp. 22.9), and 22.20’s conditional clause could hence be read as,

‘If the (same) men have come to summon you’,

which is also not the case. (They are different ‘more honourable’ men.)

Granted, these are not the most natural ways to read 22.20, but then they are not meant to be.

Indeed, that is the whole point of the second scene of our story.

YHWH’s statement requires clarification, but Balaam doesn’t *want* it to be clarified.

Balaam wants an excuse to go to Moab (and earn lots of money in the process), so YHWH provides him with one.

To put the point another way, Balaam didn’t like YHWH’s original command; he wants to be given a different command (cp. מַה־יֹּסֵף), so YHWH expresses himself in an ambiguous enough way for his statement to be interpreted as a different command.

He gives Balaam the ambiguity he wants.

As such, 22.20–22’s events highlight an important principle.

God does not always express things to us in the clearest possible way, since God’s concern is not always to avoid ambiguity,

but to test how much we *want* to understand what he has to tell us. As Pascale puts it, ‘God provides enough light for those who wish to see, but enough obscurity for those of a contrary disposition’.

That Balaam is indeed someone who does not wish to see the problems/obstacles associated with a journey to Moab is brought out very clearly in our story’s next scene.

——————

In Scene III, Balaam travels from Pethor to Moab.

His journey is, to put it mildly, an eventful one.

On three separate occasions, an angel comes and stands in the middle of the road (in order to block Balaam’s way).

Balaam’s donkey is able to see the angel and consequently veers off the road (in order to avoid it). But Balaam is unaware of the angel’s presence.

As a result, he becomes frustrated with his donkey’s behaviour.

In the end, he begins to beat his donkey with a stick,

at which point YHWH opens Balaam’s eyes and enables him to see: a] the angel in front of him, and b] his folly.

An aside: It is particularly nice to read Num. 22 in older translations, where Balaam’s donkey asks him, ‘Was I ever wont to do (thus) unto thee?’, to which Balaam responds, ‘Nay!’ (pun unlikely to have been intended).

Either way, the events of Scene III are deliberately humorous. But of course, from Balaam’s perspective, they are anything but humorous. They are a major humiliation:

🔹 The great Balaam—the man said to be able to direct the course of world history—proves unable to steer his donkey down a straight road.

🔹 The man who has been hired to ‘smite’ (להכות) an entire nation is waylaid by the need to ‘smite’ (להכות) his means of transport.

🔹 The man whose words are said to be able to humble the world’s kings is forced to trade words with a lowly donkey (and to come out second best).

🔹 And the great seer of Pethor is shown to have less spiritual awareness than his ass: he is unable to perceive the spiritual reality before his very eyes (an angel of YHWH) and is forced to hunt around in search of a sword when YHWH’s angel has one (unsheathed) in his hand.

The episode is a major embarrassment, and one which causes him to lose face in the eyes of his companions on the road (i.e., the princes of Moab).

As such, Scene III closes with Balaam brought very low.

The ‘swallower of nations’ (‘Balaam’ = בלע + עם) must swallow his pride.

——————

At the outset of Scene IV, however, Balaam is lifted up.

Balak takes Balaam to a high place and shows him the twelve tribes of Israel stretched out before him (22.41).

He expectantly commands Balaam to curse the twelve tribes.

But, much to Balak’s chagrin, Balaam *blesses* them instead!

Note: קָצֶה can designate either ‘an edge/extremity’ (Gen. 8.3) or ‘every extremity = the full extent’ (Gen. 19.4, Num. 11.1). In 22.41, the latter seems preferable. 23.13, where Balak shows Balam אֶפֶס קָצֵהוּ = ‘a fraction of the people’ then signals a change in approach.

Needless to say, Balak is furious. He has paid good money to procure Balaam’s services.

Balak therefore takes Balaam to two more high places, only for the same thing to happen: Balaam continues to bless Israel, while Balak becomes progressively more frustrated with him.

As such, Scene IV describes a remarkable turnaround.

Its events recapitulate those of Scene III, but with two important differences:

i] Balak assumes the role of Balaam, and ii] Balaam assumes the role of his donkey; that is to say, Balaam becomes Balak’s donkey.

Consider, by way of illustration, the parallels between the two scenes.

In Scene III, Balaam travels to Moab.

On three separate occasions his donkey veers off the road, and on each occasion Balaam chastises it and forces it back onto the road.

As such, Balaam’s donkey is forced to perform the same task three times over, which Balaam apparently expects to produce different results.

In Scene IV, Balak treats Balaam in almost exactly the same manner.

On three separate occasions he commands Balaam to curse Israel, and on each occasion Balaam blesses Israel instead, which provokes Balak’s chastisement.

Hence, as the two scenes unfold, Balaam and Balak become progressively more frustrated until, at the end of the scenes, the men can no longer contain their frustration, which our narrator describes with the words וַיִּחַר־אַף = ‘Then (their) anger was kindled’.

Both men’s frustration, however, betrays a significant lack of insight. Balaam should have recognised the extraordinary nature of his donkey’s behaviour. (‘Was I ever wont to treat thee in this way?’) Unusual forces were clearly at work in Balaam’s journey to Moab.

Balak should have come to exactly the same conclusion. Balaam was a mercenary. He would not have been able to survive if he routinely cursed those whom he had been paid to bless. Again, unusual forces were at work.

Just as the donkey could see things which Balaam couldn’t see—things which were a grave threat to Balaam’s future—, so Balaam could see things which Balak couldn’t see.

In sum, then, both men *should* have abandoned their missions, yet stubbornly refused to do so.

They instead made an enemy of Israel, which would ultimately result in their downfall (24.17, 31.8).

As such, Scene III and IV describe a remarkable reversal of roles, which brings out important aspects of Balaam and Balak’s attitudes.

The notion of role-reversal is also important for another reason (which we have hinted at above).

Balaam’s change of role reinforces the intertextual connections between his story and another story in Scripture,

namely the man of God’s encounter with a false prophet narrated in 1 Kgs. 13.

Consider some of the relevant parallels between Balaam and the man of God.

🔹 Both men are established prophets.

🔹 Both men have the power to curse as well as to bless (cp. 1 Kgs. 13.3, 6).

🔹 Both men make bold claims when they are tempted to disobey YHWH, and both men initially *look* as if they will stand firm. (Balaam is happy to decline a house full of silver and gold, while the man of God is happy to decline half of Jeroboam’s house.)

🔹 Ultimately, both men fall. They allow themselves to be swayed from what YHWH has told them by what appears to be a contradictory message. They *should* seek confirmation from YHWH, but decline to do so since is more convenient for them not to.

🔹 Both men’s errors are theological. They assume YHWH is like any other deity, i.e., apt to change his mind. As a result, they go where they have been told *not* to go—in Balaam’s case to Balak’s house, in the man of God’s to a false prophet’s house.

🔹 Both men are upstaged up by the behaviour of an animal. Balaam is unable to see what a donkey can see. Meanwhile, the man of God is unable to do what a nearby lion (left alone with a donkey and a carcass) can do, viz. decline a meal.

🔹 Both men’s stories make unusually frequent mention of ‘saddles’, ‘donkeys’, and ‘lions/lionesses’. In each story, these words occur a total of 19 times.

🔹 Both men’s stories have a similar shape/flow. When God is disobeyed, a pagan prophet suddenly and inexplicably receives a revelation from YHWH. As such, both men’s stories involve dramatic role-reversals.

Just as Balaam assumes the role of his donkey, so 1 Kgs. 13’s false prophet assumes the role of the man of God. He discerns what he could not possibly have known and pronounces judgment on his companion in YHWH’s name.

🔹 And both men are ultimately judged for their disobedience. They are slain by a lion-like enemy, and neither of them ends up buried with their own people (22.5, 31.5–11, 1 Kgs. 13.22).

These parallels are not merely of academic or literary interest. They are intended to shed light on the nature of Balaam’s error.

YHWH’s initial command to Balaam is clear and unambiguous.

And nothing to warrant its retraction takes place between Balaam’s first and second visits from Balak’s men. (What changes is Balaam’s level of reward.)

Balaam should, therefore, have thought more carefully when he received a message which appeared to contradict YHWH’s original command.

But, like the man of God, he did not want to.

As a result, he ended up on the wrong side of another man’s battle.

——————

FINAL REFLECTIONS:

A number of different lessons can be drawn from Balaam’s experiences, a couple of which are set out below.

First, ‘God is not a man who might lie, or a son of man who might change his mind’ (23.19). YHWH is a God whose word can be implicitly trusted.

*We*, however, cannot always be trusted.

Our interpretation of God’s word is inevitably influenced by our own desires and agendas.

We have a tendency to find what we want to find when we read Scripture. And, sadly, we often *want* to find ambiguity.

When passage X is inconvenient, our natural instinct is to set out in search of a more ambiguous passage—i.e., one ambiguous enough to accommodate a range of views—, and, more often than not, we find one.

God’s word, however, is written as it is *by design*.

When God’s word makes its point in what appears to be an ambiguous (or even contradictory) manner, it does so not in order to accommodate our desires (as Balaam assumed), but to draw us deeper into the text.

Ambiguity in Scripture should be met with care and caution. We should not seek convenience but clarification.

Second, YHWH cannot be manipulated.

Balaam and Balak view the world around them as there to be bent to their will.

As far as Balaam is concerned, his donkey is no more than a means of transport. Its job is to get him from A and B. And, if it fails to do so, it simply needs to be beaten until it does.

Balak views Balaam in much the same way. Balaam is a means to curse Israel. If he is reluctant to do so, he needs to be paid more. And, if he is unable to do so, he needs to be taken to another high place and made to try again.

Most remarkably of all, Balaam views YHWH as a means to an end. ‘Look!’, he says to YHWH, ‘I have prepared seven altars, and I have offered upon every altar a bullock and a ram’ (23.4), as if his actions deserve YHWH’s co-operation.

YHWH does not have a mind or agenda of his own; he simply needs to be approached in the right manner and convinced to collaborate with Balaam’s latest mission.

Thankfully, however, YHWH is not the deity Balaam takes him to be.

The God of Israel is not open to manipulation.

What he has blessed remains blessed, which is why the Bible is such a long book, and why it ends with redemption rather than annihilation.

THE END.

P.S. For those who prefer to read more than 280 characters at a time, a pdf is available here:

academia.edu/40572586/

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