Numbers 23:21-24 He has not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither has he seen perverseness in Israel: the LORD his God is with him… That must have been a wonderful glimpse into the ways of God with men which led a diviner to deny his own art, and to confess that to wait with childlike confidence on God till in due time He reveals His will is a far greater and more precious gift than to force or surprise the secrets of the future and to pass in spirit through the times to be. God "met" Balaam to purpose when He taught him a truth which men, and even Christian men, have not yet learned — that a little trust is better than much foresight, and that to walk with God in patient and loving dependence is better than to know the things to come. And this insight into the real value of his special gift was part of that training, that discipline, by which, as we have seen, God was seeking to save His servant from his besetting sin; for Balaam was proud of the gift which set him apart from and above his fellows, of the eagle eye and unyielding spirit which made the supernatural as easy and familiar to him as the natural, while they were trembling before every breath of change and finding omens of disaster in the simplest occurrences of daily experience. He was apt to boast that he was the man of an open eye, hearing the voice of God and seeing visions from the Almighty, falling into trances in which the shadows of coming events were cast upon his mind, and that he could read all secrets and understand all mysteries. Unlike the great Hebrew prophets, who humbly confessed that the secret of the Lord is with all who fear Him, and so made themselves one with their fellows, he was perverting his high gifts to purposes of self-exaltation and self-aggrandisement. Was it not, then, most salutary that he should be checked and rebuked in this selfish and perilous course? And how could he be more effectually rebuked than by being shown a whole race possessed of even higher gifts than his own, possessed above all of the gift of waiting for God to reveal His will to them in due time, and so raised out of all dependence on divinations or enchantments? At this spectacle even his own high and sacred endowment seemed but a vulgar toy, and the aspiration was kindled in his breast for that greater good, that greatest of all gifts, the power to walk in ways of righteousness, and to leave the future, with simple trust, in the hands of God. It is a lesson which we still need to learn; for which of us would not rejoice had he prophetic raptures and trances of which to boast, if men looked up to him as possessed of a solitary and mysterious power, and resorted to him that he might forecast their fate and interpret to them the mysteries by which they were perplexed? Which of us does not at times long to pierce the veil and learn how it fares with those whom we have loved and lost awhile, or even what will be the conditions of our own life in years to come or when death shall wear us away, instead of waiting until in due time God shall reveal even this unto us? Let us, then, learn from Balaam, if we have not yet learned it from David or St. Paul, that to rest in the Lord and to wait patiently for Him is a higher achievement than to apprehend all mysteries; and that to do His will in humble trust is a nobler function and power than to foresee what that Will will do. (S. Cox, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel: the LORD his God is with him, and the shout of a king is among them. |
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