Balaam's donkey

Numbers 22 ^2-4 Balak, son of Zippor, who was king of Moab at that time, heard what Israel had done to the Amorites. The Moabites were extremely afraid of the people of Israel because they were so numerous.

They panicked and said to the elders of Midian, "This horde will devour the whole region, like cattle grazing in a field."

Adapted from Numbers 22:5-35

Balaam, son of Beor, was a prophet of YHWH. King Balak sent messengers to him with much money and this request: "Curse Israel, so that I may defeat them with God's help."

"Stay here tonight," Balaam said, "and tomorrow I will tell you what YHWH will reveal to me."

The next morning, Balaam said to Balak's messengers, "Return to your country. YHWH will not allow me to go with you."  

Once again, Balak sent messengers, more than the first time and with greater prestige.

                  Balaam replied, "Even if Balak gave me all the silver and gold in his palace, I could not do anything that goes against the command of Yahweh, my God. ¹⁹ But stay here tonight, and I will hear what Yahweh will say to me this time."

That night, God appeared to Balaam and said, "If these men have come to summon you, go with them. But you may only do what I command you."

The next morning, Balaam set out, riding on his donkey. Soon they came to a place where the donkey turned aside, off the road into the field. Balaam struck the donkey, and they continued on their way.

They traveled along a narrow road between vineyards. There was a wall on both sides. The donkey pressed herself against the wall, trapping Balaam's foot. Again he struck her, and again they continued on their way.

A little further on there was a narrow passage where there was no room to turn left or right. There the donkey lay down, with Balaam still on her back. Balaam became furious and struck the donkey with a stick.

Then Balaam heard the donkey say:

"What have I done to you that you have struck me three times?"

"You are mocking me," said Balaam. "If I had a sword with me, I would have killed you by now!"

The donkey asked Balaam, "Am I not the donkey you have ridden all your life? Have I ever behaved like this before?"

"No, never," he replied.

Then Balaam saw what had frightened the donkey. On the road he saw an angel of the LORD standing in the way with his sword drawn. Balaam knelt and bowed low.

"Why have you beaten your donkey three times?" asked the angel. "If she had not moved aside, I would have killed you long ago."

"I have sinned," Balaam replied, "for I did not know that You were standing in front of me. But if what I am doing is wrong in Your eyes, I will go back home."

"Go with these men," he heard, "but you may only say what I command you."

So he came to an impatient Balak.

Balaam's misfortune

Adapted from Numbers 22:36-24:25

 Balak took Balaam to Bamoth-Baal, a high place, from where he could see a small part of the Israelites. Balaam instructed Balak to build seven altars there. Then they sacrificed seven bulls and seven rams.

 Then Balaam said to Balak, "Stay here with your burnt offerings while I go a little further. Perhaps YHWH will come to me. I will tell you what He shows me."

He went up a bare hill (he was looking for a "nachas," an omen), where God came to him.  When Balaam returned, Balak was still standing by his burnt offerings.

Balaam said, "How can I curse those whom God has not cursed? How can I condemn those whom Yahweh has not condemned? I see them from the top of the rocks, I observe them from the hills, a people who live apart, who do not associate with other nations. May I die like those righteous ones, may I go as they go."

Balak said to Balaam, "What have you done! I brought you here to curse my enemies, and now you bless them."

Balaam replied, "I speak only what the LORD puts in my mouth."

 Balak took him to the top of Pisgah, built seven altars, and sacrificed a bull and a ram on each one.

Balaam said to Balak, "Stay here with your burnt offerings, and I will go over there and wait for the LORD to come to me."

And Yahweh came to Balaam. When Balaam returned, Balak was still standing by his burnt offerings.

Balaam spoke: "God is not a man, that He should break His word or change His mind. Would He promise and not fulfill, give His word and not keep it? No disaster is seen for Jacob, no calamity is seen for Israel. The LORD their God is in their midst; the shout of a king is among them. Behold, a people rises like a lion; it lifts itself up in majesty. It will not rest until it devours its prey and drinks the blood of its victims."

Balak took him to the top of Peor, built seven altars, and sacrificed a bull and a ram on each altar. Balaam understood that it was good in the eyes of YHWH if he blessed Israel. Therefore, he did not go in search of "nachas," omens, as he had done before, but turned his face toward the desert. When he saw Israel encamped there, tribe by tribe, he was seized by the spirit of God:

"How beautiful are your tents, Jacob, how beautiful your dwellings, Israel. Blessed are those who bless you, cursed are those who curse you!"

Then Balak became furious with Balaam. "Go away, go back to where you came from. I promised to reward you richly, but you will miss out on that reward—because of YHWH."

Balaam replied: "Thus says Balaam, son of Beor, thus says the man whose eye is open, thus says he who hears the words of God, who knows what the Most High knows and sees what the Awesome One shows, in rapture, with eyes unveiled:

"What I see is not in the present,

what I perceive is not near.

A star shall come out of Jacob,

a scepter from Israel."

After this, Balaam returned to his home, and Balak also went home.

The sacrifices of Baal

Psalm 106 ²⁸ They joined themselves to the Baal of Peor and ate sacrifices offered to the dead.

²⁹ They grieved Him with their behavior, and a plague broke out among them.

³⁰ Phinehas stood up and intervened, and the plague was stopped.

³¹ It was credited to him as righteousness, from generation to generation, forever.

Adapted from Numbers 25:1-18

 When the Israelites stayed in Shittim, in the plains of Moab, for all those months, the men were invited by the Moabites who lived there to the sanctuary of Baal on Peor.

            It was a feast of sacrifice. They ate and drank. And they drank and sang. Young girls danced naked and invited them to dance with them. They danced with them and became entangled in their eyes, their arms, their legs. They did what Baal and Astarte do: they made love with whomever and whatever they could.

The men came home sick, and the plague left a trail of destruction through the camp of Israel.

"Have all the heads of the people publicly executed and hanged," YHWH said to Moses.

That was too much even for Moses. He instructed the judges of Israel to kill all those under their authority who had given themselves to the Baal of Peor. Meanwhile, Moses and all Israel mourned at the entrance to the sanctuary of YHWH. 

While they were lamenting, one of the Israelite men brought a Midianite woman into his tent before their eyes. It was Zimri, the son of Salu, a leader in the tribe of Simeon.

When Phinehas, the son of Eleazar the priest, the head of the gatekeepers, saw this, he became furious. He stood up, grabbed a spear, followed the Israelite into his bedroom, and pierced him and the woman, like lambs on a skewer, right through their lower abdomen.

The Midianite woman who was killed was named Kozbi. She was the daughter of Sur, a Midianite chieftain.

YHWH said to Moses, "Treat the Midianites as your enemies and kill them, for they have treated you as their enemies by devising cunning plans against you."

"The proof has been provided," said Moses. "They seduced our men at Baal Peor to prevent YHWH from dwelling among us any longer. They hate us so much that they even sacrificed Kozbi, the daughter of a Midianite leader, to draw our leaders away from YHWH."

Zipporah saw this and wept. She wept for Kozbi and Zimri, who had paid for their love with their lives. She wept for the young Israelites and Moabites who would soon die in battle. And she wept for Moses and for herself, for their inability to understand the voice of YHWH clearly together.

            Treat the Midianites as your enemies and kill them, YHWH is said to have said.

            "Me too, Moses?"

Zipporah's lament

 A lament spoken in silence.

Habakkuk 3 ² YHWH, I have heard your proclamation.

I am in awe of what you are going to do, YHWH.

Bring it about in this time,

make it known in this time,

but show your compassion in the turmoil.

³ God comes from Teman,

the Holy One comes from the mountains of Paran. sela

His glory shines in the heavens,

the earth is full of his fame.

⁴ There is radiance like sunlight,

rays come from his hand,

in which his power is hidden.

⁵ Before Him goes the plague,

fever follows close behind Him.

⁶He stands and makes the earth tremble,

He looks and the nations leap up.

The ancient mountains are shattered,

the eternal hills collapse,

He goes about as in former times.

⁷ I see the tents of Kushan groaning under the calamity,

how the tent cloths of Midian flutter.

¹³ To save your own people, you go forth,

You come to the rescue of your anointed one.

(…) ¹⁶ I heard all this and trembled within,

I learned it and my lips trembled.

My bones were gnawed away,

I stood trembling on my legs,

waiting for the day of disaster,

which will come upon the people who attacked us.

¹⁷ Though the fig tree does not blossom,

though the vine yields no fruit,

though the olive tree yields no fruit,

though there be no corn in the fields,

though there be no sheep in the fold

and no cattle in the stalls—

¹⁸ yet I will rejoice in the LORD,

I will rejoice in the God who saves me.

¹⁹ God, YHWH, is my strength,

He makes my feet swift as deer,

He lets me walk on the tops of mountains.

Midian's Day

Numbers 31 ¹ YHWH said to Moses: ² "Let the Israelites take revenge on the Midianites, then you will be united with your ancestors." (...)

 ⁶Moses sent out the men, a thousand from each tribe, along with Phinehas, the son of Eleazar the priest, who carried the sacred objects and the war trumpets. ⁷They went to war against the Midianites, as the Lord had commanded Moses, and killed all the men, ⁸including the kings of Midian: Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur, and Reba. In addition to the five kings of Midian, they also killed Balaam, the son of Beor.

⁹ The Israelites took the Midianite women and children captive, seized the Midianites' cattle and other livestock and all their possessions, ¹⁰ and burned the cities where they lived and their tent camps to ashes. (...)

¹⁴ Then Moses became angry with the commanders, the captains of thousands and the captains of hundreds, who returned from the battle.

¹⁵ "You have spared the women's lives!" he said. ¹⁶ "It was they who, on Balaam's advice, seduced the Israelites into unfaithfulness to the LORD at Peor, and that caused the plague that struck the community of the LORD. ¹⁷Therefore, kill all the male children and all the women who have slept with a man, ¹⁸ but let the girls who have never slept with a man live."

Deuteronomy 21 ¹⁰ When you go to war against your enemies, and YHWH your God delivers them to you, ¹¹ and you see among the captives a beautiful girl who pleases you and you want to make her your wife, ¹² and you take her home, she must shave her head, cut her nails ¹³ and take off the clothes she wore as a captive. For a month she may mourn her father and mother in your house. After that you may sleep with her and marry her, and she shall be your wife. ¹⁴ If at any time you no longer desire her, you must let her go wherever she wishes. You may not sell her or treat her as a slave, for you have taken away her honor.

In 1967, a Dutch expedition in Jordan found a plastered temple wall with a three-thousand-year-old text about Balaam, the son of Beor. He foresees a period of drought and famine and prays to a god and a goddess to bring back the rains and the fertility of the land. Apparently, he served YHWH under many names, and perhaps that is why he was a threat to the Israelites.

Moses sent the combative Phinehas with the army to take revenge. He himself was no longer strong enough for that; he felt his end approaching. But he became angry again when he saw the women and children his men had brought back as spoils of war. As if they never learned.

            "Kill them all!"

What would Zipporah have said?

"But Moses, the children!"

"All the girls who have never slept with a man may live."

"And the boys?" she asked.

"They must die."

"Like you should have drowned in the Nile?"

Moses would have looked at her angrily. And she would have asked him with that accusatory look what the men were going to do with the girls they had captured.

Strangers in a strange land

Zipporah called her boys to her. They were now in their twenties and would soon be going their own way.

            "I know," she began, "that you will not have the opportunities your cousins have had. They will want you to behave modestly, and then perhaps you may serve the priests as Levites."

            Eliezer nodded, but Gershom stared straight ahead.

"You must not be ashamed of me," she continued, "because I am a Midianite."

            Eliezer looked down, but Gershom stood up: "You are the last person I would be ashamed of. You are the daughter of Abraham that he himself would have wanted."

            "Come here," she said, and she embraced her sons. "Listen to your mother: You don't need permission from others to be a priest of God. You don't even have to be an Israelite or a child of Abraham to hear his voice. God wants to protect us all from evil. But you do have a task: do you cause each other to stumble, or do you pray for each other? And even if we, the children of Abraham, make mistakes, we still have the task of being prophets and priests to each other."

And then she told them the story of Abimelech of Gerar, the Philistine king who was protected by God when Abraham almost caused him to stumble, because Abraham had lied out of prejudice and fear.

Genesis 20 ¹Abraham set out and went to the Negev, where he settled between Kadesh and Sur. When he was staying as a stranger in Gerar, ²he said that his wife Sarah was his sister. As a result, Abimelech, the king of Gerar, had Sarah brought to his palace. ³ But during the night, God appeared to Abimelech in a dream and said to him, "You are as good as dead because you brought that woman into your palace: she is married."

⁴ Now Abimelech had not yet slept with her. "Lord," he cried out, "will you kill people who are innocent? ⁵ Didn't he tell me she was his sister? And she herself said he was her brother. I did this with a clear conscience; I am not to blame."

⁶God answered him in his dream: "I know very well that you have done this with a clear conscience. That is why I have prevented you from sinning against me and have prevented you from touching her. ⁷But now return her to her husband, for he is a prophet and can pray for you, and you will live. But if you do not return her, know that you will surely die, you and all who belong to you."

⁸Early the next morning, Abimelech summoned his servants and told them what had happened; they were terrified. ⁹Then he called Abraham and said, "What have you done to us!" he said. "What have I done to you that you have brought such a serious offense upon me and my kingdom? The way you have treated me is unacceptable. ¹⁰ What was your purpose in doing this?"

¹¹Abraham replied, "I thought that perhaps the people of this region do not fear God and would kill me for my wife. ¹²Besides, she is indeed my sister: she is my father's daughter. She is not my mother's daughter, and so she could become my wife.

*      *      *

Suggestions for reading groups  

• Check in with the group and with yourself, seek stillness/humility.

• First share the story. This chapter focuses on the urge for purity and holiness, even if that leads to conflicts with people of other faiths in the area. Zipporah is critical of the conflicts: are they really necessary and do they come from God? For Moses, the temptation of Baal-Peor is a threat to Israel. What did you read?

• Encourage, comfort, inspire. How do you experience the struggle against idolatry in these chapters? In what ways do you admire Moses, and in what ways do you admire Zipporah? What would you do differently?

Reflecting on Numbers 22-36 and Deuteronomy 16-26, society and what threatens it  

In addition to the story of Balak and Balaam, these Bible passages mainly deal with very specific laws that are intended to lead to a just and strong society.

• Encourage, comfort, exhort. Which laws stand out to you or challenge you? Feel free to share your criticism, but try to find at least one rule that you want to try out in your own life. Make a conscious choice, share it with the group, and ask each other how it went next time.

• Leave room for silence and contemplation. Perhaps you will "see" or "hear" something from "God." Like Moses and Zipporah, do you dare to enter into conversation with that voice? What answer wells up within you? How do you test that answer?