"8 And he said to them, “Lodge here tonight, and I will bring back word to you, as the Lord speaks to me.” So the princes of Moab stayed with Balaam. 9 And God came to Balaam and said, “Who are these men with you?” 10 And Balaam said to God, “Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab, has sent to me, saying, 11 ‘Behold, a people has come out of Egypt, and it covers the face of the earth. Now come, curse them for me. Perhaps I shall be able to fight against them and drive them out.’” 12 God said to Balaam, “You shall not go with them. You shall not curse the people, for they are blessed.” 13 So Balaam rose in the morning and said to the princes of Balak, “Go to your own land, for the Lord has refused to let me go with you.” 14 So the princes of Moab rose and went to Balak and said, “Balaam refuses to come with us."
Numbers 22:8-14
One of the impressive lessons of the story is the way in which God overruled this at- tempt to bring evil on Israel, and turned the curse into blessing (12, and cf Deuteronomy 23:4, 5). This serves to emphasise just how sovereignly God was determined to protect and preserve this people, in spite of all their waywardness and rebellion. It reveals the strength of the bond that existed between God and Israel. His mercy was ever toward them, and it went ill with any who tried to harm those whom He was determined to bless. Perhaps the chief les- son, however, that the incident has to teach us, and that which the New Testament writers take up in their application, is the character study it gives of Balaam himself, and of the battle that went on in his own heart a battle for integrity of character, a battle which he eventually lost, if we interpret the last stage of the story aright. Thus, within the battle to harm and hurt Israel, there was also this hidden battle for the soul of a man. Balaam was not a Hebrew; yet he was a worshipper of the living God. He was one of those outside the covenant who 'found' the Lord and served him, like Jethro, the priest of Midian, and others. He was clearly known to Balak of Moab as a man with a reputation for spiritual power. It is an interesting commentary on the misunderstanding of spiritual power that can grow in a man's mind to think that it could be exercised thus unscrupulously and wantonly, without reference to the moral nature of the God Who was supposed to be the source of it! How little some men dis- cern about the nature of God!