The Balaam Balak Backstory

I have resisted writing this post for 3 weeks.
Ever since the covid-19 quarantine began, I've been in a strange sort of paralysis, reverting to "survival mode".  It has been one of the oddest things I've ever walked through.

So, finally, Balaam?
What do you know about him?
The infamous donkey-beating incident, right?
That's the "Bible story" we hear in Sunday School: Balaam was not a nice man because he beat a donkey.  I was amazed at what I found, digging deeper.

The story takes place just before the Israelites had crossed the Jordan River into the Promised Land.  On the "wilderness side" of the Jordan, God had just given them a huge military victory over Kings Og and Sihon, of the Amorites.  Word of these major wins spread to the land all the way to the Mediterranean coastline.  All peoples in the Levant became filled with dread and terror over the Israelites.  King Balak of Moab was one such king thus affected.

During this time period, the following territories east of the Jordan ran north to south, like pearls on a string:

• Amorites (Og and Sihon) - - present-day Syria
• Ammonites - not to be confused with the Amalekites (who were a Canaanite people west of the Jordan)
• Moabites - where Ruth was from
• Edomites - Esau's descendants
• Midianites - - present-day Sinai Peninsula

Balaam was a non-Israelite prophet who lived in the city of Pethor, in Mesopotamia, north and east of these aforementioned territories - - over by the Euphrates River.  (This was the general area the Wise Men of nativity fame were from.)  Balaam apparently had some fame as a prophet, because the king of Moab knew about him.  So, the king of Moab, Balak, sent a delegation with riches to entice Balaam to come to Moab and curse the Israelites.

Now, here's the curious thing:  Balaam knew who Yahweh was, and he HEARD from him!  So, Balaam was not a false prophet, as far as receiving actual, genuine prophecies from God was concerned.  God chose to reveal Himself to him.
But, he was a wicked prophet1 (and not just because he beat the donkey).

To make a long story short(er), Balaam received permission from God to go with Balak's representatives, but it was one of those "I'll give you what you want, but you will regret it" types of scenarios.  To express His displeasure, God sent an angel to block the road Balaam and the ambassadors were traveling on.  The donkey could see the angel and, quite rightly, stopped, refusing to go on.  Balaam could not see the angel, and so beat the donkey in frustration.  Here we see the odd "talking donkey" of the Bible, because God allowed the donkey spoke to Balaam in an effort to save her life.
Well, Balaam went on to Moab and tried three times to please the king by cursing Israel, but God only sent blessings to be pronounced by this wicked prophet.
The highly displeased king sent Balaam home empty-handed (no riches).  Before he left, he graced the Moabite king with four more prophecies about Israel, all of them favorable, and one of them "famous".  Did you know Balaam spoke these words?!  (I didn't.)

I see him, but not now;

I behold him, but not near.

A star will come forth from Jacob,

and a scepter will arise from Israel.

Numbers 24:17

This is a Messianic prophecy, a prophecy about the coming of Jesus Christ.  Wow, God truly can use any human, and He uses whom He wishes to accomplish His purposes and bring Himself glory! (I find it curious that, like the natal "Wise Men of the East", Balaam studied astronomy....hmmmm...)

So, you probably think Balaam went home after blessing Israel 7 times, and that was that, right?  I mean, that's what it says in Numbers 24:25!  When you move ahead into the next chapter, you find the Israelites committing idolatry by marrying Moabite women and polluting their households with the Moabite idols.  This led to the infamous Peor incident, which reached epic proportions of grossness in Numbers 25.

Ahhhh, but between chapters 24 and 25 key information is left out, information explaining how the Israelites got to that point.

Look at Numbers 31:8.  Here it is recorded that the Israelites killed Balaam with the sword.  The logical question is, "Whoa...wait a minute, WHAT?!"  The last time Balaam was mentioned chronologically in Numbers he had passed along prophecies of blessings, seven of them, on Israel.
What happened?!

To get the answer we must look at the Talmud, an ancient rabbinical book of history and theology, as well as two other key verses of Holy Scripture.  Let's start with the Scripture.

This is the Lord Jesus speaking, in the Spirit, via John, to the Church at Pergamum:

But I have a few things against you, because some of you hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to place a stumbling block before the Israelites so they would eat food sacrificed to idols and commit sexual immorality.

Revelation 2:14 (BSB)

They have left the straight way and wandered off to follow the way of Balaam son of Beor, who loved the wages of wickedness.

2 Peter 2:15 (BSB)

From these two verses,
it's reasonable to conclude that, perhaps when he was with Balak on Mt. Peor (Numbers 23:28), looking out over the "wasteland" (wilderness of Jeshimon), Balaam hatched an idea to infiltrate the Israelites from within.  Make no mistake, Balaam desired God to deliver through him a curse on the Israelites, because he wanted "the wages of wickedness" from Balak.  When God did not "come through", wicked Balaam at some point advised Balak to entice the Israelites to marry the Moabite women of the area.  Over a course of years, this occurred, leading up to the utterly vile idolatry associated with the false god (ba'al) of Peor.

Here's where the history books like the Talmud become helpful.  In Hebrew, the root of the word Peor is p'r, which means "opening".  It can either allude to the one that speaks words or the one that expels waste.  The Talmud recounts that Ba'al of Peor was a false, demonic god that required public defecation as an act of worship.  It is said that in front of a huge statue of the demon "god" on Mt. Peor was the equivalent of a huge "poop pit", to facilitate this particular form of worship.2
I ... kid you not.  Perhaps Balaam, from Mt. Peor, was looking out over a "wasteland" in more than one sense of the word....

Let's back up and look more closely at those three places Balak took Balaam, to have him curse Israel.  All three were mountain peaks, and all three were sites of pagan worship.  At each site, Balaam ordered an altar be built and sacrifices offered to the One, True God, Yahweh, the God of Israel.  Each time, a sacrifice offered, but surrounded by pagan altars.  God is a jealous God, which means He does not share His glory with false gods, nor does He like syncretism, the toleration/mixture of true and false religion.  (Our home Bible study is currently studying this phenomenon in our study of the book of Hosea, although it is rampant throughout the Bible, actually.)

Now, given what you have learned about Ba'al of Pe'or, does God's wrath toward the Israelites seem misplaced?  Or, does it appear entirely justified?  You decide, but I know what I think.  What a repulsive form of idolatry!  No wonder God's anger burned hot!

And, no wonder the Israelites later killed Balaam when given the chance.

During this coronavirus confinement I've seen our household lose money, lots of it.  And, I've been confronted with my responses to those financial blows.  They were not always godly ones.  Balaam lost everything because he was seduced by "the wages of wickedness".  Money meant more to him than it should have.  That is a sobering lesson to me.

That being said, I pray for those who are not just losing money, but that are losing their entire livelihoods as a result of this national crisis.  Not to mention those who are losing their very lives!  Story after story on the news, on Twitter, on Facebook here locally...  Please join me in praying for them too, because our idols can't get us through this.  There's only one, true God, who can.

Sources:

1  https://www.gotquestions.org/Balaam-in-the-Bible.html
2   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heresy_of_Peor