3/27/11
Numbers 23-25
Balaam and Balak
Numbers 23:1 Then Balaam said to Balak, “Build me seven altars here, and prepare seven bulls and seven rams for me.” 2 Balak did as Balaam had said; and Balak and Balaam offered a bull and a ram on each altar. 3 Then Balaam said to Balak, “Stay here beside your burnt offerings while I go aside. Perhaps the Lord will come to meet me. Whatever he shows me I will tell you.” And he went to a bare height.
4 Then God met Balaam; and Balaam said to him, “I have arranged the seven altars, and have offered a bull and a ram on each altar.” 5 The Lord put a word in Balaam’s mouth, and said, “Return to Balak, and this is what you must say.” 6 So he returned to Balak, who was standing beside his burnt offerings with all the officials of Moab. 7 Then Balaam uttered his oracle, saying:
the king of Moab from the eastern mountains:
‘Come, curse Jacob for me;
Come, denounce Israel!’
8 How can I curse whom God has not cursed?
How can I denounce those whom the Lord has not denounced?
9 For from the top of the crags I see him,
from the hills I behold him;
Here is a people living alone,
and not reckoning itself among the nations!
10 Who can count the dust of Jacob,
or number the dust-cloud of Israel?
Let me die the death of the upright,
and let my end be like his!”
11 Then Balak said to Balaam, “What have you done to me? I brought you to curse my enemies, but now you have done nothing but bless them.” 12 He answered, “Must I not take care to say what the Lord puts into my mouth?”
Balaam’s Second Oracle
13 So Balak said to him, “Come with me to another place from which you may see them; you shall see only part of them, and shall not see them all; then curse them for me from there.” 14 So he took him to the field of Zophim, to the top of Pisgah. He built seven altars, and offered a bull and a ram on each altar. 15 Balaam said to Balak, “Stand here beside your burnt offerings, while I meet the Lord over there.‘ 16 The Lord met Balaam, put a word into his mouth, and said, “Return to Balak, and this is what you shall say.” 17 When he came to him, he was standing beside his burnt offerings with the officials of Moab. Balak said to him, “What has the Lord said?” 18 Then Balaam uttered his oracle, saying:
listen to me, O son of Zippor:
19 God is not a human being, that he should lie,
or a mortal, that he should change his mind.
Has he promised, and will he not do it?
Has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?
20 See, I received a command to bless;
he has blessed, and I cannot revoke it.
21 He has not beheld misfortune in Jacob;
nor has he seen trouble in Israel.
The Lord their God is with them,
acclaimed as a king among them.
22 God, who brings them out of Egypt,
is like the horns of a wild ox for them.
23 Surely there is no enchantment against Jacob,
no divination against Israel;
now it shall be said of Jacob and Israel,
‘See what God has done!’
24 Look, a people rising up like a lioness,
and rousing itself like a lion!
It does not lie down until it has eaten the prey
and drunk the blood of the slain.”
25 Then Balak said to Balaam, “Do not curse them at all, and do not bless them at all.” 26 But Balaam answered Balak, “Did I not tell you, ‘Whatever the Lord says, that is what I must do’?”
27 So Balak said to Balaam, “Come now, I will take you to another place; perhaps it will please God that you may curse them for me from there.” 28 So Balak took Balaam to the top of Peor, which overlooks the wasteland. 29 Balaam said to Balak, “Build me seven altars here, and prepare seven bulls and seven rams for me.” 30 So Balak did as Balaam had said, and offered a bull and a ram on each altar.
Balaam’s Third Oracle
Numbers 24:1 Now Balaam saw that it pleased the Lord to bless Israel, so he did not go, as at other times, to look for omens, but set his face toward the wilderness. 2 Balaam looked up and saw Israel camping tribe by tribe. Then the spirit of God came upon him, 3 and he uttered his oracle, saying:
the oracle of the man whose eye is clear,
4 the oracle of one who hears the words of God,
who sees the vision of the Almighty,
who falls down, but with eyes uncovered:
5 how fair are your tents, O Jacob,
your encampments, O Israel!
6 Like palm groves that stretch far away,
like gardens beside a river,
like aloes that the Lord has planted,
like cedar trees beside the waters.
7 Water shall flow from his buckets,
and his seed shall have abundant water,
his king shall be higher than Agag,
and his kingdom shall be exalted.
8 God who brings him out of Egypt,
is like the horns of a wild ox for him;
he shall devour the nations that are his foes
and break their bones.
He shall strike with his arrows.
9 He crouched, he lay down like a lion,
and like a lioness; who will rouse him up?
Blessed is everyone who blesses you,
and cursed is everyone who curses you.”
10 Then Balak’s anger was kindled against Balaam, and he struck his hands together. Balak said to Balaam, “I summoned you to curse my enemies, but instead you have blessed them these three times. 11 Now be off with you! Go home! I said, ‘I will reward you richly,’ but the Lord has denied you any reward.” 12 And Balaam said to Balak, “Did I not tell your messengers whom you sent to me, 13 ‘If Balak should give me his house full of silver and gold, I would not be able to go beyond the word of the Lord, to do either good or bad of my own will; what the Lord says, that is what I will say’? 14 So now, I am going to my people; let me advise you what this people will do to your people in days to come.”
Balaam’s Fourth Oracle
15 So he uttered his oracle, saying:
the oracle of the man whose eye is clear,
16 the oracle of one who hears the words of God,
and knows the knowledge of the Most High,
who sees the vision of the Almighty,
who falls down, but 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 borderlands of Moab,
and the territory of all the Shethites.
18 Edom will become a possession,
Seir a possession of its enemies,
while Israel does valiantly.
19 One out of Jacob shall rule,
and destroy the survivors of Ir.”
20 Then he looked on Amalek, and uttered his oracle, saying:
but its end is to perish forever.”
21 Then he looked on the Kenite, and uttered his oracle, saying:
and your nest is set in the rock;
22 yet Kain is destined for burning.
How long shall Asshur take you away captive?”
23 Again he uttered his oracle, saying:
24 But ships shall come from Kittim
and shall afflict Asshur and Eber;
and he also shall perish forever.”
25 Then Balaam got up and went back to his place, and Balak also went his way.
Worship of Baal of Peor
Numbers 25:1 While Israel was staying at Shittim, the people began to have sexual relations with the women of Moab. 2 These invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. 3 Thus Israel yoked itself to the Baal of Peor, and the Lord’s anger was kindled against Israel. 4 The Lord said to Moses, “Take all the chiefs of the people, and impale them in the sun before the Lord, in order that the fierce anger of the Lord may turn away from Israel.” 5 And Moses said to the judges of Israel, “Each of you shall kill any of your people who have yoked themselves to the Baal of Peor.”
6 Just then one of the Israelites came and brought a Midianite woman into his family, in the sight of Moses and in the sight of the whole congregation of the Israelites, while they were weeping at the entrance of the tent of meeting. 7 When Phinehas son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he got up and left the congregation. Taking a spear in his hand, 8 he went after the Israelite man into the tent, and pierced the two of them, the Israelite and the woman, through the belly. So the plague was stopped among the people of Israel. 9 Nevertheless those that died by the plague were twenty-four thousand.
10 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 11 “Phinehas son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, has turned back my wrath from the Israelites by manifesting such zeal among them on my behalf that in my jealousy I did not consume the Israelites. 12 Therefore say, ‘I hereby grant him my covenant of peace. 13 It shall be for him and for his descendants after him a covenant of perpetual priesthood, because he was zealous for his God, and made atonement for the Israelites.’ ”
14 The name of the slain Israelite man, who was killed with the Midianite woman, was Zimri son of Salu, head of an ancestral house belonging to the Simeonites. 15 The name of the Midianite woman who was killed was Cozbi daughter of Zur, who was the head of a clan, an ancestral house in Midian.
16 The Lord said to Moses, 17 “Harass the Midianites, and defeat them; 18 for they have harassed you by the trickery with which they deceived you in the affair of Peor, and in the affair of Cozbi, the daughter of a leader of Midian, their sister; she was killed on the day of the plague that resulted from Peor.”
Devotionals, Videos and more ...
by Bill Federer
He was the grandson of the sixth president, John Quincy Adams, and the great-grandson of John Adams, the second President. His name was Henry Adams, and he died this day, March 27, 1918. An American philosopher and historian, Henry Adams authored a nine volume work, entitled, History of the United States. With insight from his unique heritage going back to the founding of the United States, Henry Adams wrote: “The Pilgrims of Plymouth, the Puritans of Boston, the Quakers of Pennsylvania, all avowed a moral purpose, and began by making institutions that consciously reflected a moral idea.”
Federer, B. (2003). American minute. St. Louis, MO.: Amerisearch, Inc.
by D.H. Stern
A lazy man’s craving will kill him,
because his hands refuse to work—
he covets greedily all day long;
but a righteous person
gives without holding back.
Stern, D. H. (1998). Complete Jewish Bible-OE
: An English version of the Tanakh (OT) and
B'rit Hadashah (NT) (1st ed.). Clarksville, Md.: Jewish
New Testament Publications.
by Oswald Chambers
Vision by personal character
Come up hither, and I will shew thee things. --- Rev. 4:1. Chambers, O. (1993). My Utmost for His Highest
An elevated mood can only come out of an elevated habit of personal character. If in the externals of your life you live up to the highest you know, God will continually say—‘Friend, go up higher.’ The golden rule in temptation is—‘Go higher.’ When you get higher up, you face other temptations and characteristics. Satan uses the strategy of elevation in temptation, and God does the same, but the effect is different. When the devil puts you into an elevated place, he makes you screw your idea of holiness beyond what flesh and blood could ever bear. It is a spiritual acrobatic performance, you are just poised and dare not move; but when God elevates you by His grace into the heavenly places, instead of finding a pinnacle to cling to, you find a great table-land where it is easy to move.
Compare this week in your spiritual history with the same week last year and see how God has called you up higher. We have all been brought to see from a higher standpoint. Never let God give you one point of truth which you do not instantly live up to. Always work it out, keep in the light of it.
Growth in grace is measured not by the fact that you have not gone back, but that you have an insight into where you are spiritually; you have heard God say ‘Come up higher,’ not to you personally, but to the insight of your character. “Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do?” God has to hide from us what He does until by personal character we get to the place where He can reveal it.
the Poetry of R.S. Thomas
Marriage
I look up; you pass.
I have to reconcile your
existence and the meaning of it
with what I read: kings and queens
and their battles
for power. You have your battle,
too. I ask myself: Have
I been on your side? Lovelier
a dead queen than a live
wife? History worships
the fact but cannot remain
neutral. Because there are no kings
worthy of you; because poets
better than I are not here
to describe you; because time
is always too short, you must go by
now without mention, as unknown
to the future as to
the past, with one man's
eyes resting on you
in the interval of his concern.
Thomas, R. S.
The Star
I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not nigh: a star shall come forth out of Jacob. -- Numbers 24:17
No star is visible except at night,
Until the sun goes down, no accurate north.
Day’s brightness hides what darkness
shows to sight,
The hour I go to sleep the bear strides forth.
I open my eyes to the cursed
but requisite dark,
The black sink that drains my cistern dry,
And see, not nigh, not now, the heavenly mark
Exploding in the quasar-messaged sky.
Out of the dark, behind my back, a sun
Launched light-years ago, completes its run;
The undeciphered skies of myth and story
Now narrate the cadenced runes of glory.
Lost pilots wait for night to plot their flight,
Just so diurnal pilgrims praise the midnight.
Peterson, E. H. (1989). The Contemplative Pastor: Returning to the Art of Spiritual Direction
Pesaḥim 112a
A couple has been planning a vacation for months. The day of the departure finally arrives. They finish packing their suitcases, hail a cab, and head for the airport. But upon checking in, they notice a flashing message next to their flight number on the departure screen: “Delayed.”
A woman has been scheduled for surgery to determine if the lump in her breast is benign or malignant. She has had two weeks to prepare herself mentally and physically for this traumatic moment. And then, an hour before checking into the hospital, the surgeon’s office phones: The doctor has been called away on a family emergency. The procedure has been postponed until the end of the week.
The family of a murder victim has been waiting for their day in court when they can, at last, confront the men who killed their daughter. They have gotten themselves emotionally ready for reliving all the pain and anguish of a year ago. And then, the night before the trial is to begin, they receive a call from the district attorney that the judge has granted the defense motion to delay the trial for another month.
We have all learned how important timing can be. It is not just that we are disappointed when things do not happen when we want them to. Many things in life require a great deal of preparation, either of a physical kind or of an emotional nature. We need to “psyche” ourselves up for certain events and experiences. An unexpected delay can be devastating, throwing our bodies and minds completely out of kilter.
Often, these matters are simply out of our control. Outside forces and events dictate where and when things will occur, and we are powerless to do anything but react—after the fact. On other occasions, things seem to come together at precisely the perfect moment. How wonderful it is when the timing is just right, when there are no delays, when things we have waited for and planned for take place at exactly the right moment.
But sometimes, it is more than just luck that determines when things take place. The Gemara shows us that the calendar dictated that Pesaḥ would begin on Saturday evening, right after Shabbat; the Torah determined when particular things had to be done; but it was the Rabbis who decided that certain mitzvot could be performed sooner, rather than later.
So it is in our lives: When it comes to timing, much is out of our hands. But there is also a great deal that we can determine. We do not have to remain totally passive. By being sensitive to time, by understanding the possibilities, and by stepping forward to make critical choices, we are able to shape many of the moments of our lives. And then we, too, with Rabbi Shimon, can say: “How precious it is!”
The cow wants to nurse more than the calf wants to suckle.
Text / Rabbi Akiva taught Rabbi Shimon bar Yoḥai five things while he was being held in prison. He [Shimon] had said to him: “Master, teach me Torah!” He [Akiva] said: “I will not teach you.” He said: “If you do not teach me, I will tell my father, Yoḥai, and you will be handed over to the government.” He said to him: “My son, the cow wants to nurse more than the calf wants to suckle.” He said to him: “And who is in danger? Is not the calf in danger?”
Context / Once the evil government decreed that the Jews should not learn Torah. Papus ben Yehudah came and found Rabbi Akiva gathering groups in public and teaching them Torah. He said to him: “Akiva, are you not afraid of the government?” He said to him: “I will give you a parable to show you what this is similar to: A fox was walking by the river; he saw schools of fish going from one place to another. He said to them: ‘What are you fleeing from?’ They said: ‘From the nets that humans throw.’ He said to them: ‘Why don’t you come up here on the dry land, and we’ll live together.’ They said: ‘Are you the one they call the wisest of the animals? You are stupid! If in our own element we are afraid, how much more so will we be in a place of death?’ So too with us. If, when we sit and study Torah, of which it is written ‘For thereby shall you have life’ (Deuteronomy 30:20) it is thus: when we go and neglect it, how much worse off will we be?” They said: It was not long after that Rabbi Akiva was captured and thrown in prison. (Berakhot 61b)
Shimon bar Yoḥai was one of Rabbi Akiva’s most zealous students. He was so committed to learning the Torah that he visited his teacher in prison and asked Akiva to teach him right there! Akiva at first refused to do so, knowing that it would place his student at great risk: Should the Romans discover them, Shimon, as well, would surely be thrown into prison. Shimon bar Yoḥai’s zeal for Torah is seen in the threat he hurls at his teacher: Either teach me, or I will see to it that the Romans get you in even more trouble! (It is hard for us to take this threat seriously. Shimon’s hatred for the Romans was as great as his love for Torah and for his teacher.) Akiva explains his reluctance: He would love nothing more than to teach Torah to Shimon, but he is trying to protect his beloved student. Akiva tells him: I want to teach you even more than you want to learn from me. The metaphor is a touching one: The teacher is like the mother cow, whose udder is filled with milk. The calf (Shimon) may be hungry for milk (Torah), but the cow (Akiva) has an even stronger desire to nurse the young one. The udder is heavy, and only by feeding her young can she find relief. More importantly, as a mother, the cow has an instinct to feed and nourish her precious calf.
Shimon answers: I am the calf, and it is the calf, not the cow who is at risk. I am willing to take my chances. Akiva relented and taught five lessons to his pupil.
Katz, M., & Schwartz, G. (1998). Swimming in the Sea of Talmud: Lessons for Everyday LIving
. Philadelphia, PA: The Jewish Publication Society.by Diana Wallis
About midnight Paul and Silas were… singing hymns to God. --- Acts 16:25
This story reveals that which is peculiarly Christian, the victory of the soul over adverse circumstances and the transmutation of opposing forces into allies. Paul who sang that night, in paraphrase, says, “Tribulation works patience, therefore rejoice in tribulation.” He says, “Troubles work an eternal glory that far outweighs them all, therefore we will rejoice in our troubles.” He says, “Godly sorrow brings repentance.” These are things from which the human soul shrinks—tribulation, troubles, sorrow. These things are made the allies of the soul, they work on behalf of the soul. This is the central truth concerning Christian experience: God compels all things to work together for good to those who love him.
The Christian does not say, “What cannot be cured must be endured.” Christianity says, rather, that these things must be endured because they are part of the cure. They have the strange and mystic power to make whole and strong and so to lead on to victory and the final glory. Christianity is never the dour pessimism that submits. Christianity is optimism that cooperates with the process because it sees that, through suffering and weakness, joy and triumph must come.
Two men were in Philippi, in the inner prison, in the stocks, in suffering, in sorrow. But they were in God! Their supreme consciousness was not of the prison or the stocks or the pain but of God. They were not indifferent; pain was pain to them, but they realized how all these things were held in the grasp of the King of the perfect order, whom they knew as their Lord and Master, and, consequently, they sang praises.
All this took place at midnight. That accentuates the difficulty, the loneliness and weariness and pain. Yet the phrase is not really “at midnight.” “About midnight”! To these men midnight was not a definite moment. Midnight is never a stopping place. It is coming, and lo! it is gone.
Midnight, that most terrible hour; but for these men there was no such actual time. It was about midnight, and then they sang, and they sang praises to God. --- G. Campbell Morgan
(27). Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications.No Enchantment Against Israel
With Numbers 21 we begin a new and positive chapter in the history of redemption.
God’s people are not suddenly perfect. They still fail. But a new generation takes over from the old. The generation that would not trust or obey is dying out. In Numbers 26 we read about “those numbered by Moses and Aaron … in the wilderness of Sinai. For the Lord had said of them, ‘They shall die in the wilderness.’ There was not a man left of them, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun” (Numbers 26:64–65).
The new generation began to respond to God’s voice. And they made a great discovery. When God’s people live in right relationship with Him, they are fully protected!
Hope. There are two Hebrew words translated “hope” in the Old Testament. Each invites us to look ahead eagerly, with confident expectation. Each also calls for patience; the fulfillment of hope lies in the future. “Hope” in the Old Testament is based on relationship. It affirms trust in God. We are confident, not because we know the future, but because we know God is wholly trustworthy. The new generation we meet now in Numbers is confident, expecting victory, for this is a people with trust in the Lord.
The Story of Redemption. The last four books of Moses tell a single story: the story of redemption.
Commentary / There is a definite unity to the story of redemption related in the events of the Exodus. The experiences of God’s Old Testament people, in fact, parallel our individual experiences with God. The redemption they knew is ours too. And just as the new generation of Israel that we meet in Numbers 26 learned to anchor its faith in redemption history, we too need to anchor our faith in an understanding of what God has done for us.
So before we move on to look carefully at Numbers 21–36, we can profit from an overview of the four Old Testament books that tell redemption’s story, and an overview of their messages to you and to me.
Transition: Numbers 21–25
Lessons from the recent history of Israel provided a firm foundation for the new generation’s view of God. Yet there were still struggles. The old, untrusting generation was still with the new. In these transition chapters we see struggle: a struggle in which the tendency to reject God’s ways is matched against a tendency to respond. Sometimes the nation sins, sometimes it obeys. In the outcome of each course of action, the new generation is taught the results of sin—and given a taste of the fruit of obedience.
Numbers 21 shows the uncertainty and the fluctuations. First Israel vows to do battle “if You will deliver these people into our hands.” Confidently they go into battle—and win (Numbers 21:1–3).
Yet shortly after that the people became impatient and returned to their old habit of murmuring against Moses. In discipline God sent poisonous snakes among them. Many died. Then the Lord told Moses to erect an image of a serpent and lift it high up on a pole. Moses was to announce to all that anyone bitten could look at the bronze serpent and live (Numbers 21:4–9).
There was no healing power in the image. Clearly the healing was from God—and any individual who trusted God enough to seek out what must have seemed a ridiculous remedy actually was healed. Individuals as well as the nation had the power to choose.
The new generation was being taught that they had to take their destiny into their own hands!
(323). Wheaton, Ill.: Victor Books.