Balaam is one of the more interesting characters in the book of Numbers.
King Balak of Moab sends for Balaam, a pagan prophet, to ask him to
curse Israel out of fear of their recent military and territorial
conquests. Balaam asks God for permission to go and is initially turned
down, though eventually God allows him to go on the condition that he
only say and do what God tells him (a condition Balaam initially will
have trouble meeting).
The episode with Balaam's donkey is especially noteworthy. For starters,
Balaam doesn't find it remotely strange that his donkey begins talking
to him (Numbers 22:30). Secondly, it is only by dint of the animal's
aversion to the angel that God did not destroy Balaam on the road
(Numbers 22: 33-34). Fortunately for Balaam, the new lease on life his
donkey gave him was adequate to temporarily allay God's wrath (though
Balaam is later condemned as a false teacher in 2 Peter 2:15, Jude 1:11,
and Rev 2:14).
So what are we to learn from this episode? The obvious answer is "Don't
oppose God," which is certainly a meritorious precept, but there's a
deeper truth at work too: God knows our hearts. And even beyond that,
God is concerned less with what we do than the condition of our hearts
as we do it (Amos 4: 4-6, etc.). Doing right for selfish reasons is
never preferable to a humble, whole-hearted pursuit of our Creator.
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