THE SECOND PROPHECY. BALAK'S STATE OF MIND
Balaam has cursed where he was expected to bless, he has said things very hard to listen to and keep presence of mind, but Balak has not by any means lost faith in Balaam and his resources. He rather takes the blame to himself than to Balaam. If there be wrath in his heart with the speaker, who, instead of cursing Israel, has blessed it altogether, he manages to conceal the wrath. He cannot afford to quarrel with Balaam, the only known resource he has. He suggests, therefore, as the great cause of failure that the place of cursing has been badly chosen. Remove the cause, and the effect will disappear. Let the prophet come away from the top of the rocks to where his mind will not be filled with the presence of this bewildering multitude; and Balaam, whatever his private thoughts, consents to the experiment. It is the way of the blind, deluded world; all reasons for failure are accepted and acted on save the right one. Balak cannot yet see, will not see for a while, perhaps will never really see, that there is no place on earth where such requests can be granted. He is showing himself now, as Balaam had done before, unsatisfied with the first intimation. Balaam had been told plainly at the very first that Israel was blessed, yet here he is dabbling in superstitions, in enchantments and divinations, with no clear perception of the nature and character of God. Thus, all the narrative through, we see what egregious and scarcely credible blunders men make when they are left to themselves to make discoveries of God. What a proof that revelation in all the large extent of its Scriptural fullness is absolutely indispensable! God must not only give us the truth concerning himself, and the proper relation of men to him, but must also open our hearts and our eyes, and give us light whereby we may see the truth already given. How constantly we should remember the inevitable ignorance of those to whom gospel truth, light, and perceptive power have not yet penetrated! Take pity on them and help them—such darkened minds—as you think of Balak stumbling from one blunder to another, from one discredited resource to another, from one disappointment to another, only to find at last that all his schemes are vanity. And now we advance to consider the second prophecy. It is not only spoken in Balak's hearing, but is a direct appeal to himself. We are to imagine Balak standing with strained and eager look, already full of excitement and expectation, before ever a word is spoken. But this is not enough; he must be solemnly exhorted to attention.
"Things are about to be said directly concerning you, and it may be that when you have heard them, and allowed them to have full effect on your mind, you will cease from these foolish attacks on the established purpose and counsel of Jehovah." That this call upon Balak for attention was not a superfluous one is shown by the fact, that after hearing the prophecy he nevertheless made a third attempt, modified indeed, but still such as to show that he had not taken in the prophecy to anything like its full extent. We know how the Scriptures abound in expressions of which "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear," and "Verily, verily, I say unto you," are representative. Such expressions do not make truth any truer, but they do throw on us a great responsibility, and involve us in unquestionable blame for neglect of the things which belong to our salvation.
I. THE PROPHECY BEGINS BY CORRECTING BALAK'S FATAL MISAPPREHENSIONS CONCERNING GOD. Balak having failed the first time he tried Balaam, succeeded the second; having failed the first time he tries Jehovah, it is natural for him to think he may succeed the second. Hitherto he has known only the idols of Moab, and these of course only in such aspects as the priests presented them. As the priests were, so were the gods; and Balak, having experienced Balaam's final compliance, might excusably argue from Balaam to that Being whom he took to be Balaam's God. And now there falls out of a holier sphere some unexpected and much-needed knowledge for poor Balak, whose chief experience had been of equivocating, vacillating, unstable men. "God is not what you think him to he; he is true and steadfast, neither changing his purposes nor failing in them." Notice the way in which this all-important statement is put. God puts himself in contrast with his fallen, unfaithful, and disgraced creature, man. "God is not a man;" and, as if to emphasize this matter, he speaks the word of truth concerning his own truth through lying lips. "Men change their minds, and therefore break their words; they lie because they repent." What a hint then for us all to change from deceitful hearts to sincere ones, from lying lips to truthful ones, from vain purposes that must some day be relinquished, engendered as they are in our own selfishness and folly, to such purposes as are inspired by the unchanging God himself! Changing thus, we shall get into a state partaking somewhat of God's own steadfastness; or, rather, the only change will be from good to better and better to best. Man may become such that it shall no longer be his reproach that he lies, either carelessly, ignorantly, or maliciously, and repents, playing the weathercock to every wind that blows. God, we may be sure, desires the day to come when, instead of finding in man this awful and humiliating contrast to himself, he will rather be able to say, "Man is now true, clear from all belief in lies, from all deception and evasion, and steadfast in all the ways of righteousness, holiness, and love.
II. THE PROPHECY GOES ON TO REVEAL STILL MORE OF ISRAEL'S STRENGTH. The unchangeable God, having purposed to bless Israel, must go on blessing them. lie does it in word continually through the great official channel (Numbers 6:22-27), and now it is Balaam's lot (strange expositor of the Divine goodness!) to show clearly that the blessing of God is anything but a nominal or a secondary one. Much has been done to show this in the first prophecy, but a great deal more is done in the second. God has not only put Israel by themselves and made them into this vast multitude, which was a great deal to do, for Jacob's posterity is likened to the dust in number; but now through Balaam he shows quality as well as quantity. The people are not only separated outwardly and visibly, but separated still more by some great peculiarity in their inward life. Their vast numbers are but the most easily perceptible result of the vigorous, abundant vitality within. When Balaam got his first glance from the top of the rocks he saw the most obvious fruit of Israel's peculiar relation to God. Now in the second survey he comes as it were nearer, and sees the root and trunk and branches, the sap and substance whence these fruits take their origin.
1. There is the righteousness of the people. God, who searches into all secrets, and to whom the darkness and the light are both alike, has beheld no iniquity in Jacob, no wrong in Israel; that is to say, putting the thing plainly, there was no iniquity in Jacob. And though it seems a strange thing to say, considering God's late dealings with the people, we feel at once that it must not only be true, but very important, or it would not be put so prominently forward. God looks upon the ideal Israel which lies yet undeveloped in the midst of all the unbelief and carnality of the present generation. Though at the present moment any dozen Israelites might be as debased as any dozen Moabites, yet in Israel there was a seed of holiness, a sure beginning of the perfect and the blessed, which was not to be found anywhere in Moab. God, bear in mind, sees what we cannot see. God is not a man, that he should lie; neither is he a man that his eye should be stopped by the surface and first appearance of things. Jesus sought a solid ground for the future of his saving work in the world, and he found it not amidst the world's wisdom, but where we assuredly should never have looked—among the stumbling, ignorant disciples whom he gathered in Galilee. Looking with other eyes than men, and where proud men never look, he finds what they never find.
2. There is the presence of God with them, and that not only as God, but as King. "When you attack Israel, O Balak, you attack the kingdom of God. You, the king of Moab, appeal to the King of Israel to curse his own people." His sanctuary is also his throne, and where he is worshipped, there he also rules. Every act of worship is also an expression of loyalty. Balak described Israel as a people come out of Egypt (Numbers 22:5); he is now to learn that they came because they were brought; because that very God brought them whose curse he had so laboriously and patiently sought to invoke. "Does it stand to reason, O Balak, that God can have brought them so far now to leave them for the sake of your sacrifices and Balaam's enchantments?" Thus also we may gather that as God in all the fullness of his being, Father, Son, and Spirit, has so long given his indubitable presence to his Church, he will assuredly for this very reason continue it to the end. God indeed looks on that Church in its actual coldness, indolence, and carnality,—and the Israel of God to-day is quite as far away from the fullness of its privileges, the perfection of its faith, and the exactness of its service as was Israel in the wilderness,—but he regards the ideal still. It is through the believers in Christ alone, the spiritual children of the faithful Abraham, that the nations are to be truly blessed. The ideal believer is the ideal man. Where the faithful and true God finds germs of faithfulness and truth in man, there he will abide and never depart.
3. There is strength for all required service and toil. "He hath as it were the strength of the unicorn (or buffalo). "Much increase is by the strength of the ox" (Proverbs 14:4), but an animal stronger even than the ordinary ox is needed to set forth the extent of Israel's advantages. We may take it that the figure here is intended to set forth strength pure and simple. Israel will have power to do whatever the course of events,nay bring to be done. It is strong to do God's work as long as it is left to the peaceful pursuit of that work, and it is also strong to make a complete defense whenever it may be attacked. "Rouse Israel by your attacks, and the force that has hitherto been used for internal progress will become a wall against you; and not only so, but you,nay be swept away in the rush of the roused and maddened unicorn." There is thus a warning to Balak not to provoke. It is when the Church has been provoked by persecution that her true strength has been shown to the world. What a mockery of this world's boasted resources, when all its persuasions, cajoleries, threats, and torments have failed to shake the faith of humble believers! It can burn, but it cannot convert. It is marvelous, the strength, energy, and patience which God has bestowed on some of his servants. Paul toiling on among infirmities and persecutions is a proverb; but, to come nearer home, consider John Wesley, hardly ever out of the saddle except when he was in the pulpit, amply furnished for all the weariness of travel and the work of incessant preaching till long past his eightieth year; and in matters of defense so wonderfully strengthened with the strength of the unicorn that he passed unharmed through all physical perils and social opposition. It is one of the most remarkable of all his remarkable experiences that he could say in his seventy-fourth year, "I have traveled all roads by day and by night these forty years, and never was interrupted yet."
4. God gives his people certain, authoritative, regular knowledge as to his will and favour. He does not leave them to auguries and divination. These things indeed were not only useless, but forbidden (Le John 19:26). Whatever he has to say he says through appointed and recognized channels, and confirms and illustrates it by suitable acts. There was place and need for lawgivers, prophets, and priests in Israel, but no room for men like Balaam, augurs, magicians, and priestcraft in general. Enchantments and divination had been the mainstay of Balak's hope, and though Balaam's experience may have prevented him from trusting so fully in them, he nevertheless considered them a very important element in propitiating Jehovah. Man's ways of reaching God are all vanity. God himself has to come down and lay a way very clearly marked and strictly prescribed. In that way, and in that alone, there is certainty and sufficiency of knowledge, safety, and blessedness of life. "The law of his God is in his heart; none of his steps shall slide" (Psalms 37:31).
III. THE PROPHECY CLOSES BY INDICATING HOW THERE WILL BE IN ISRAEL THE SPIRIT OF DESTRUCTION AND THE STRENGTH TO DESTROY. Israel has not only the strength of the buffalo, but the spirit and propensities of the lion. This is the first intimation of threatening. The prophecy closes with, as it were, a growl and menace from the lion of the tribe of Judah. Up to this time God has told Balak to go round about Zion and tell the towers thereof, and mark well her bulwarks (Psalms 48:12, Psalms 48:13), that he might see how God's ideal people are invulnerable to all enemies. But now the defensive is suddenly turned into the offensive. Israel is a lion. We know from the frequent references to the lion in the Old Testament that this figure must have been a very impressive one to Balak. In Isaiah's prophecy concerning Moab we find these words: "I will bring lions upon him that escapeth of Moab" (Isaiah 15:9). The roar, the spring, the resistless attack, the sudden and complete collapse of the victim, all rise to our minds the moment this majestic animal is mentioned. The idea of defense scarcely enters into our minds in connection with the lion. His resources are those of attack. What shall Balak do if he has to meet a foe whose strength is that of the unicorn, and whose ardour is that of the lion? The figure, remember, is suitable to the occasion. There is a time to compare the people of God to the sheep whom the shepherd leads out and in, and gathers within the protecting fold, but there is also a time to compare them to the restless lion, seeking for his prey, and not lying down till he drinks its blood. The Church of Christ is a destroying institution, and this part of its work must not be concealed and softened down to suit the prejudices of the world. The claws of the lion must not be clipped when it is dealing with vested interests and established iniquities. As it is not the way of the lion to make compromises with its prey, so neither must we make compromises with any evil. We have nothing to do with evil, save, in the name of the God of righteousness, to destroy it as soon as we can. Nor need there be any fear of carrying the comparison too far. He who has taken in the meaning of those words, "Be wise as serpents, and harmless as doves," will well understand how to be ardent, enthusiastic, uncompromising, almost fierce and lion-like, against monster evils, yet at the same time gentle as the lamb, pitiful as God himself, towards the men whose hearts have been hardened and their consciences blinded by the way in which their temporal interests have become intimately mixed with wrong. Wilberforce was one of the most gentle, affectionate, and considerate of men, always on the alert to say a word or write a letter for the spiritual good of others, yet his greatest work took the form of destroying evil. For many long years he had to look in the sight of the world a combatant more than anything else. When the slave trade was abolished in 1807 it is reported of him that he asked his friend Thornton, "What shall we abolish next?" a playful question, of course, but capable of a very serious meaning. No sooner does one great evil vanish from the scene than another becomes conspicuous. Evil seems continually growing as well as good. It is perhaps not without significance that so many associations clamouring for the attention of good and patriotic men have in the names of them such words as these: "abolition," "repression," "prevention." It must needs be so, even to the end. The devil well knows how to make the selfish interests of one half the world dependent on the sufferings and miseries of the other half.—Y.
Verse 27- Numbers 24:14
THE THIRD PROPHECY
I. THE CIRCUMSTANCES IN WHICH IT WAS UTTERED.
1. With regard to Balak. After hearing the second prophecy, and especially its menacing conclusion, he is naturally much irritated. It is bad enough to have been disappointed even once, but kings like worse to have threatening added to disappointment, and at first Balak makes as if he would have nothing more said on the subject, one way or another. If Balaam cannot curse the people, neither shall he bless them. But becoming a little calmer, Balak determines to try a third time, and from a still different place; so little did he need the solemn assertion of God's unchangeable purposes to which his attention had been specially called. The conduct of Balak is a warning to us to keep our hearts right at all times with regard to the reception of Divine truth. Truths stated very clearly and emphatically, and in critical circumstances, may yet be utterly neglected. That which is necessary to be known will, we may be quite sure, have a clearness corresponding to the necessity. However clear and simple statements are in themselves, they must needs be as idle breath if we refuse to give humble and diligent attention to them.
2. With regard to Balaam. He no longer goes out seeking for enchantments, although be still clings to the inevitable sacrifices. This forsaking of the enchantments and clinging to the sacrifices, is it not a sort of testimony out of the very depths and obscurities of heathenism that God cannot be approached without something in the way of vicarious suffering? Balaam saw that it pleased the Lord to bless Israel. It had taken him a long time and caused him a great deal of trouble to see this, and yet the sequel proves (Numbers 31:8, Numbers 31:16) that, after all, seeing, he did not perceive, and hearing, he did not understand. Nevertheless, at this time he saw sufficient to convince him how vain were Balak's hopes of a curse from Jehovah. If Israel was to be overthrown, it was not in that way. Observe that in uttering this prophecy Balaam is thrown into a higher state of receptivity than before. When Balak refused to be satisfied with the first prophecy, he got a second one, specially addressed to himself, and fuller; more indicative of Israel's resources, varied, ample, and unfailing as they were for every possible need. But now he does not so much get a prophecy fuller in itself; it is rather a clearer proof that Balaam is indeed employed by God as a prophet. He is thrown into an ecstatic state, His eyes are closed to the outward world, but the mind's eye is opened, and a picture, first beautiful, and then terrible, is presented to his vision. We see from this how much God can do in controlling the powers of carnal and unsympathizing men. God not only puts his own words into Balaam's lying lips, but he makes him see such visions as were customarily confined to men who were spiritually fit for them. Balaam doubtless, looking away into the distance of time from the present encampment of Israel in Moab to their future life in Canaan, would rather have seen ruin, confusion, and desolation—something to rejoice the heart of his employer, and bring to himself the promised rewards. But he could only see what God showed him. If then God held this ungodly Balaam in such control, what may not his power be over those who submit to him with all their hearts? There is a sort of proportion in the matter. As the unwilling Balaam is to the completely submissive believer, so what God did to Balaam is to what God will do for such a believer. The more you give to God for working on, the more, by consequence, he will give to you in return. Yield yourselves to God, that he may not only work through you by his mighty power, but in you and for you according to the purpose of his love and the riches of his grace. The sad reflection is that Balaam allowed himself to be an evidence of the power, but not the grace; allowed God's blessings to go through him, yet, in spite of his own expressed wish, made no attempt to keep blessings for himself.
II. THE PROPHECY ITSELF. Here are set before us two pictures, as it were, a beautiful one and a terrible one. Picture the first. A spectator in an ordinary state of mind, looking down with his natural vision on the Israelite camp, sees long ranges of tents, set in four divisions, and at a reverent distance from the tabernacle in the midst of them. The people dwelt "not in stately palaces, but in coarse and homely tents, and those, no doubt, sadly weather-beaten." But Balaam in his ecstasy, when the Spirit of God came upon him, looked upon a more attractive and respiring scene. What he gazed upon at first was indeed these rows of tents, but, just as if in a dissolving view, they faded away before his eyes, and in place of them, valleys, gardens by the river-side, aloes of Jehovah's planting, and cedars beside the waters were spread out before him. Everything is suggestive of quiet, steady prosperity, of fruitfulness, peace, and beauty. This is the internal life of the Church of Christ, when his people are living to the extent of their privileges. This is the difference between the external appearance and the inward life and experience, Just at that moment when the lot of the Christian looks least attractive to the casual and uninstructed glance, it may be rich in all the great elements of true blessedness. The position of the Christian in this world is not seldom like that of the kernel within the shell: outside, the rough, repulsive, unpromising shell; inside, the precious kernel, with "the promise and potency" in it of a tree like that from which it was taken. "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit" (1 Corinthians 2:9, 1 Corinthians 2:10). And thus it is here. It was not possible for Balaam to describe the blessed circumstances of Israel in direct language. He had to fall back on the comparison to certain visible things, such things as would raise in the mind of a dweller in Moab or Canaan, or anywhere round about, a picture of the highest satisfaction and success. Picture the second. The first picture is beautiful, and very beautiful; it is Eden raised in the waste wilderness. The second picture is terrible, and very terrible; yet what else could be expected? If Balak will go on presumptuously defying the sacred and beloved people of God, undeterred by the menaces to which he has already listened, then those menaces must be repeated with all the force and thoroughness of expression that can be thrown into them. The sudden transition from such a peaceful, beautiful scene as goes before heightens the effect, and probably was meant to do so. On one side is Israel engaged in tilling, the garden, the work to which man was set apart in the first days of innocence, watering his far-spread crops and enjoying his fragrant aloes and his cedars; on the other side is Israel the Destroyer, emphatically the Destroyer. The qualities of no one animal, however destructive, are sufficiently expressive to set him forth. Fierce, furious, strong, resistless as the lion is, the lion by himself is not enough to show forth Israel, and you must add the unicorn; and there you are invited to gaze on this unicorn-lion, strong in power, thorough in execution, leaving not one of his enemies unsubdued and undestroyed. Let Balak well understand that Israel, under the good hand of God, is climbing to the highest eminence among the nations. The repetition of the references to the unicorn and the lion shows how important the references are, and how needful it is to let the mind of the Christian dwell encouragingly on them. Balak sets forth the intolerant and suspicious spirit of the world in all its kingdoms; and the world does not heed prophecies; it does not take them to heart, else it would cease to be the world. These prophecies, though they were first spoken by a Balaam and listened to by a Balak, were meant in due course to reach, guide, assure, and comfort Israel. If there are times when we are tempted to fear the world, with its designs, its resources, and the might of its fascinating spirit, then we shall do well to recollect that, by a double and enlarged assurance, God reckons his Church to have the strength of the unicorn and the spirit of the lion, utterly to subdue and destroy all those kingdoms of the world which, to keep up the figure, are considered as the natural prey of the Church.—Y.
HOMILIES BY J. WAITE