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Balaam was certainly a heathen soothsayer and diviner (Joshua 13:22). But he was more than a mere soothsayer. He had certainly, for one thing, a very full knowledge of the character of God. Thus, he again and again employs, in speaking of God, that covenant name "Jehovah" (Numbers 22:8, 13, 18, 19; Numbers 23:3, 8, 12, 21, 26; chap. Numbers 24:1, 6, 13), by which He was specially made known to Israel (Exodus 6:2, 3). And such terms as, "the Lord my God" (Numbers 22:18); the "Almighty" (Numbers 24:4); "the most High" (Numbers 24:16), also occur in the course of his utterances, implying, by the variety of expression so easily adopted, a very much wider acquaintance with the Divine character than is commonly supposed to belong ,to ordinary heathens. Nor was the knowledge which Balaam possessed of the character of God a merely verbal or speculative knowledge. It is manifest that he stood in certain intimate personal relations with Jehovah. He speaks of the Lord as "the Lord his God" (Numbers 22:18); and the whole tenor of his intercourse with Jehovah, on this occasion, implies a previous acquaintance with God — such an acquaintance with God, indeed, as almost presupposes previous immediate communications between God and himself. And it may have been, that his extraordinary reputation as a prophet had arisen from the fact that God had, from time to time, "put words into his mouth," which he had spoken, and which had also come to pass. Nor is there wanting in the character of Balaam a certain tone of high religious feeling also. He has the profoundest reverence for the authority and word of God. The word that God putteth into his mouth, that will he speak! Nay, nor would he, though Balak should give him his house full of silver and gold, go beyond the word of the Lord, &c. Nor must we deny to Balaam a certain personal and spiritual sympathy with the truths he uttered in God's name. (See Numbers 23:10; Numbers 24:23.) "He, too, is borne away, at least for a time, by the grandeur of the announcements he is making. There is that in him which reaches out with a true, although too transient, yearning after the coming triumphs of the people and kingdom of God." We must not paint this portrait wholly black. An honest and a truthful man; an independent and (in a certain sense) high-minded man; a Godfearing and religious man: such is Balaam, the son of Beer, of Pethor, on one side of his character. And yet he is a bad man, despite his many virtues, and a man who finally perished miserably with the enemies of God's people. A strange phenomenon, indeed, this Balaam! a heathen soothsayer and an inspired servant of the Lord; a man full of richest endowments, animated by many very noble impulses, uttering the most exalted sentiments; and yet a man whose heart was rotten at the core, whose life is only written as a warning against sin, whose death was an unmitigated tragedy.

I. WE SEE HERE, IN THE FACT OF BALAAM'S INSPIRATION, ALTHOUGH HE WAS A HEATHEN SOOTHSAYER, AN EVIDENCE AND WITNESS TO THE WIDER RELATIONS THAT GOD HOLDS WITH MAN THAN IS SOMETIMES SUPPOSED. The fact is, it hath pleased God, for His own most wise and gracious purposes, gradually and slowly to mature His final plan of mercy for the world in Jesus Christ; and, with a view to its completeness and maturity, to confine it, at the first, within restricted lines of influence. But it is a monstrous, heathen notion to suppose that all the while this final plan of mercy was in course of development, the great, wide world, without the parallels in which it moved, was utterly neglected and forsaken of its God. No! the world was also being educated, in its way, as well as the Church: educated on a humbler method, and with more "rudimentary" instruction, but educated; and educated of God. Two lines of culture, then, have been going on in the world, side by side, under the providential direction of the Most High God, and with a view to the ultimate salvation of the world. A primary and rudimentary culture, under what Paul calls the "elements of the world," consisting of the ordinary course of Providence, with occasional interpositions of sovereign grace and special instances of inspiration; and a systematic and formal culture for a selected portion of the human family, under the written law of God, with constant interpositions of sovereign grace, and almost constant inspiration.

II. THAT, IN DEALING WITH MEN BY HIS SPIRIT, THE LORD HAS REGARD TO THE MORAL AND SPIRITUAL STANDPOINT AT WHICH EACH MAN MAY BE FOUND. Balaam is a soothsayer, and yet he is inspired of God! Balaam seeks the Lord by means of enchantments, and yet the Lord does not refuse to come to him, but responds to his appeal again and again I But, then, it is to be considered that Balaam was a heathen, and that he had been brought up in the midst of the practice of divination, if he had not, indeed, inherited his position as a diviner from his father. It was plainly one thing for such a man as Balaam to employ enchantment, and quite another for an Israelite to do so. For to Israel, if I may so speak, was given a diviner augury — in God's law, and in God's presence in their midst; and so to them the use of all these heathen arts was absolutely interdicted (Deuteronomy 18:9-14). But, as the art of divination was the highest point to which the heathen world had been able to attain in their pursuit of the unseen, so God condescended to meet Balaam, at that special point of spiritual culture, that He might lead him thenceforth to higher forms of truth and nobler modes of worship.

III. HOW BROAD IS THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN SPIRITUAL ENDOWMENTS AND SPIRITUAL CHARACTER. Balaam was both an inspired man, and also, at the same time, a very wicked man. He gave expression to the noblest sentiments, and yet performed the basest deeds. See, then, how little mere endowments, even of the highest kind, can do for us; how widely separated from each other are gifts and graces. The gifts which we receive from God are, in reality, no proper part of us, until we make them ours by a light use of them. And our character is measured, not so much by the number of talents we have received, as by the fidelity we have exhibited in the employment of the talents we have. It by no means follows because we have spiritual faculties that we are spiritual men. These faculties are given to us beforehand to aid our usefulness, if we become spiritual men, and in the hope, as one may say, that we shall become spiritual men. But, for all our gifts, we may still be "in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity." It is quite possible for divinely-bestowed gifts to miss their object and intention!

(W. Roberts.)

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KJV: And Balak the son of Zippor saw all that Israel had done to the Amorites.

WEB: Balak the son of Zippor saw all that Israel had done to the Amorites.