Numbers 24:15-25 English Standard Version Balaam's Final Oracle 15 And he took up his discourse and said, “The oracle of Balaam the son of Beor, the oracle of the man whose eye is opened, 16 the oracle of him who hears the words of God, and knows the knowledge of the Most High, who sees the vision of the Almighty, falling down with his eyes uncovered: 17 I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near: a star shall come out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel; it shall crush the forehead of Moab and break down all the sons of Sheth. 18 Edom shall be dispossessed; Seir also, his enemies, shall be dispossessed. Israel is doing valiantly. 19 And one from Jacob shall exercise dominion and destroy the survivors of cities!” 20 Then he looked on Amalek and took up his discourse and said, “Amalek was the first among the nations, but its end is utter destruction.” 21 And he looked on the Kenite, and took up his discourse and said, “Enduring is your dwelling place, and your nest is set in the rock. 22 Nevertheless, Kain shall be burned when Asshur takes you away captive.” 23 And he took up his discourse and said, “Alas, who shall live when God does this? 24 But ships shall come from Kittim and shall afflict Asshur and Eber; and he too shall come to utter destruction.” 25 Then Balaam rose and went back to his place. And Balak also went his way. This is the last of the oracles of Balaam to Balak. We won't see Balaam's name again until Deuteronomy 23:4-5 where the LORD finally tells the people about this event that was going on behind the scenes.
Deuteronomy 23:3-5 English Standard Version 3 “No Ammonite or Moabite may enter the assembly of the LORD. Even to the tenth generation, none of them may enter the assembly of the LORD forever, 4 because they did not meet you with bread and with water on the way, when you came out of Egypt, and because they hired against you Balaam the son of Beor from Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse you. 5 But the LORD your God would not listen to Balaam; instead the LORD your God turned the curse into a blessing for you, because the LORD your God loved you. So we see that God knew what was going on and it actually was Balaam's intent to come and curse the people for a time. That is why the angel of the LORD stood against him on his way to see King Balak. Oh, how things have changed though as we saw with the third oracle that Balaam did not even need to consult the LORD about what to say, and was instead filled with the Spirit of God so that he could prophecy not just about the future of the nation of Israel, but about their future king who would have an everlasting kingdom that would crush all of the enemies of His people. Balaam will continue on that theme today in his final oracle (remember that Balak has said he's done listening at this point, but Balaam said he wasn't done talking yet). Balaam identifies himself again as one whose eyes are wide open. He can see clearly now. He "hears the words of God," and "knows the knowledge of the Most High," and "sees the vision of the Almighty." This is almost the same opening as the third oracle. In both cases we see that Balaam says he falls down in worship, but not because of what he can't see, but because of what he does see. He is going to continue talking about that future King (the King of Kings). I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near: a star shall come out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel; it shall crush the forehead of Moab and break down all the sons of Sheth. I'm going to take a sidetrack for a second. Could this be the prophecy that the wise men from the East knew that told them to look for a star for the one who would be born King of the Jews? Let's look at what Matthew 2 says. Matthew 2:1-2 English Standard Version The Visit of the Wise Men 2 Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, 2 saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” Most people wonder how it is the Magi knew of this prophecy, and many will try to point to Daniel being the head of the Magi during the time of the Babylonian Exile (we'll get there later when we get to the Prophets), but it's also likely that Balaam played a significant role in sharing what he knew with everyone when he got home and told everyone who imagined themselves to be wise to come and listen to the wisdom of the LORD that he had to share with them, for he had seen clearly what the plan of the LORD was for the future and it was about a Person (the Lord Jesus Christ) and a People (all of the children of the Lord, including the Church) who had been redeemed out of slavery and brought from death to life. It was about the gospel and though Balaam only saw and knew a bit of it, I'd imagine him wanting to tell anyone and everyone that he could tell about Jesus--even a foolish king like Balak who no longer cared to listen anymore. His obedience here all the way back in the book of Numbers is likely the catalyst that had the Gentile Magi from the East be some of the first to recognize Jesus as King of the Jews (the very title that would be hung over His head at His crucifixion that the Pharisees would argue over, but the Pharisees would understand that God was their King and that if Jesus claimed to be the Son of David, the Son of Man, and the Son of God, that He was claiming to be God in the Flesh). Balaam is not going to move along and prophecy that through the power of God all of the nations that are trying to stand in the way of Israel and what God has planned for them will eventually be destroyed. First comes the prophecy against the Moabites and the Ammonites who had hired Balaam to prophecy against the people of the LORD. We already saw what God said about these people groups in Deuteronomy. If you remember, these two kingdoms were the sons of Lot, the nephew of Abram (later called Abraham) who were born after Lot's wife died during the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah when she turned back and became a pillar of salt. His daughter decided that they did not want their father's lineage to die with them because their husbands and families had stayed behind in Sodom, so they had sex with their father and these two sons from that incest were the fathers of these two kingdoms that would plague the Israelites. God never told Lot to come with Abram and Abram probably should have sent Lot home when there was the dispute over the land which Lot was never supposed to inherit any of. We see Lot chose the area in the fertile Jordan River valley that was full of the cities of the Canaanites who were already extremely wicked and godless at that time, and that is where we see the Israelites encountering the Ammonites and Moabites right now, and God is going to return that land to the rightful heirs of Abraham as it is part of the land that was promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Next on the list is Edom who we also see has refused passage to Israel and we'll see that they continue to stand against them. I already mentioned King Herod from Matthew 2--did you know he was an Edomite? The Edomites almost always allied themselves with Israel's enemies, including Rome, and Rome set Herod and his family up as a puppet king and gave him the title "King of the Jews" which is why Herod was so distraught when he heard the wise men ask, "Where is He who was born King of the Jews?" because Herod knew that he was not the rightful king and that this meant that the rightful heir to the throne of David had been born and could challenge him. He may have even been aware of this prophecy against his people the Edomites and that there was a King coming who would eventually put an end to the kingdom that he belonged to. While we see Edom and its capital of Seir will be judges much earlier in the Old Testament, we won't see God's final vengeance on the people of this kingdom until the New Testament when God executes judgment on Herod the Great and his children for standing in the way of the gospel and the Church. Strangely enough it will be the fortifications of this kingdom that still exist today that the people of Israel will run to as a place of protection from God's wrath during the time of the coming Tribulation in the end times, for the mountain fortress at Petra is one of the most defensible positions and the people of God know if the end is coming that all of the nations of the world will be rising up against them--God will use this kingdom that stood against His people to protect them in the end as we see God continue to turn curses into blessings as He promised in the passage from Deuteronomy. Those were some pretty strong cities and kingdoms that Balaam just prophesied against, and I'm sure that has Balak scared already, but God is not done. Next on God's list is people group called the Amalekites. We don't know where they came from as they are not listed in the Table of Nations in Genesis 10, meaning that this tribe/kingdom is probably relatively new in this area and an offshoot of one of the families listed in Genesis 10. This is the people from whom Haman will come in the book of Esther--the people that God commands King Saul to completely destroy in 1 Samuel 15. We'll get to that story later and the possible implications it has down the road in the book of Esther. Suffice it to say this is another group of people that have refused to bless Israel and will continue to curse Israel and try to oppose them until the day that God commands that they be totally destroyed. Today is not that day, as God will give them enough rope to hang themselves like He did with all the Canaanite clans. This clan which was thought of as being the "first" or "greatest" among the nations would be brought to utter destruction because they tried to stand in the way of the Lord and His people. Next comes the prophecy against the Kenites. These people were in the land of Canaan during the time of Abraham as they are mentioned as being one of the peoples whos land would be given to Abraham and his descendants (see Genesis 15:19). Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, was a Kenite from the land of Midian, so it's likely that the Kenites were related to the Midianites in some way, and they are related to Ishmael as we saw in the book of Genesis that the word for Ishmaelites and Midianites was the same word (the slave traders that sold Joseph into slavery were Ishmaelites/Midianites). While it appears that this tribe of people was friendly with the Israelites this was only a temporary alliance as we'll see soon that God will command the Israelites to attack the Midianites. We'll also see that although Jethro will be offered a chance to become one of God's people and dwell in the Promised Land that he will refuse and say that he has no place there and will return to his gods and his people in the land of Midian--he would journey with them most of the way and then decide that he would turn back. This passage from 1 John comes to mind when thinking of Jethro/Reuel (though it is spoken of those who are apostate and leave the Church): 1 John 2:19 English Standard Version 19 They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us. What are the Kenites going to do that is so bad to deserve to be on the list? Likely the reason they are singled out here is that they allied themselves with the Amalekites and should have been destroyed with them in the incident we're talking about in 1 Samuel 15, but King Saul warns them to move away from the Amalekites so they will not be caught up in the judgment coming upon them, so God is showing that He already knows they will be judged separately, but that they should not feel like they have somehow escaped His judgment. God even prophecies that He will use Assyria (here called Asshur, because this was the name of the god of the Assyrians) to accomplish this. It will not be the Israelites that will destroy them, but another pagan nation. We'll also see this kingdom referred to simply by the name of its capital city, Nineveh later in the Old Testament (like in the book of Jonah where he is sent to the Ninevites--that would be the Assyrians). The Assyrians are the ones who would take the northern 10 tribes of Israel captive later and they are the ones who would come up with the idea of crucifixion, though it would be the Romans who would "perfect" that method of torture using the Roman cross. The Assyrians were seen by many as terrorists equivalent to how we would think to groups like Al-Qaeda and ISIS today (sorry if that is without context to those who read this years from now). I'm sure even at this time that this prophecy was meant to make them wish they would have just allied themselves with God's people for read as no one wanted to hear that the Assyrians were going to come to get them and take them captive as being taken captive by the Assyrians meant that if you survived, you would lose all of your ethnic identity as they would take your children away from you to be raised by people of different cultures, they would take the woman away and force them to intermarry with men of other cultures and they would do everything they could to break people of any identity that they would hold other than being Assyrian. Those whom they could not break, they would kill. Balaam is almost done. God has been pretty thorough in giving His judgment to those who were the Canaanites and the sons of Ham in general who were rebellious against God from early on in Genesis. He's also spoken judgment against some of the descendants of Shem who lived in this area who turned to the false gods of the Canaanites and allied themselves to them. Now God is making it clear that none of the other peoples descended from Shem other than the nation of Israel are part of the eternal kingdom that Balaam is talking about here. The two cities mentioned here at the end represent the eastern and western ends of the area in which the Shemites (many people say Semites because it was hard for certain people groups to say the "sh' sound, which is where we get the word anti-Semitic from) settled. God is saying that He is going to bring sons of Japheth from across the sea to judge these unfaithful Shemites and there will be none who oppose God who will not be judged, and we know ultimately from the book of Revelation that Jesus will have His victory over all the nations of the world who oppose Him and His people. "Even so, come quickly Lord Jesus." At this, Balaam told King Balak that he was now done and was going to return home (God decided when Balaam had said everything that Balak needed to hear, not Balak deciding when God should be done talking to him). Balak departs and no longer seems interested in pursing the threats that he made against Balaam. Comments are closed.
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Daniel WestfallI will mostly use this space for recording my "journal" from my daily devotions as I hope to encourage others to read the Bible along with me and to leave a legacy for others. Archives
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