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Balaam is one of those instances which meet us in Scripture of persons dwelling, to a certain extent, in the gloom of heathenish practices, while preserving at the same time a certain knowledge of the one true God. He was endowed with a greater than ordinary knowledge of God; he had the intuition of truth, and could see into the life of things; he was, in fact, a poet and a prophet. Moreover, he confessed that all these superior advantages were not his own, but derived from God, and were His gift. Thus, doubtless, he had won for himself among his contemporaries a high reputation not only for wisdom and knowledge, but also for sanctity. And although his sanctity comes to very little in the end, when his besetting sin overmastered him, yet it may be readily understood that, judged by the standards which prevailed among the heathen nomad tribe which sent for him to curse the nation of Israel, he would appear to be an eminently holy man, so much so that, as Balak said to him at their first interview, "I wot that he whom thou blessest is blessed, and that he whom thou cursest is cursed." But then, it may be asked, if Balaam was looked upon as a holy man and as a worshipper of Jehovah, how came Balak to send for him and to offer him vast rewards to curse the people of Jehovah? The answer is, that it was not uncommon among those heathen nations — nor is the practice even now unknown among pagan tribes — to offer sacrifices to the gods of the enemy to propitiate them to themselves. The ancient Romans repeatedly did this. Doubtless there were many professed enchanters and soothsayers in the land of Moab; but king Balak — perhaps having previously tried these without success — may have preferred sending five hundred miles for a renowned prophet who had the reputation of more than mortal wisdom and power, who was also a worshipper of Jehovah, and who might for that reason be all the more likely to propitiate His anger, or to turn Him against that strange people which had "come out of Egypt," and now, marching with unearthly tokens along the desert, had pitched their tents within sight of the strongholds where Balak had his habitation. Consider now the first message which the renowned soothsayer received from the terrified king. Clearly he wished to go, and was disappointed and chagrined at being prevented. But why should he feel any disappointment? We might have been at a loss to know, had it not been for the ray of inspired light shed upon the whole narrative by a single line from the pen of the Apostle Peter. That apostle tells us that "he loved the wages of unrighteousness." He did not particularly like the work, but he loved the wages. Like many another covetous soul, if he could have grasped the wages without doing the devil's work, he would have preferred it; and he loved the wages so well that, although he at first refused to go, yet presently we find him venturing on the work for the sake of getting the pay.

1. Mark here, then, the first, the earliest effect of cherishing any besetting sin. It is that God is served reluctantly. Sin is looked at with a longing eye. The prohibition seems hard and unreasonable.

2. Mark now the second application made by Balak, in which the unhappy prophet, who has begun by grumbling at God's will, is placed in further and severer temptation. I cannot but pity him here, as we pity many another poor slave who makes just one momentary effort to break off his chains. Or perhaps the speech with which he met the second deputation from Moab was artfully intended to enhance the value of subsequent compliance — we cannot certainly tell. But at all events he protests manfully: "If Balak would give me his house full of silver and gold, I cannot go beyond the word of the Lord my God, to do less or more." So also Peter valiantly protested when his Master was about to be betrayed: "Though all men should deny Thee, though I should die with Thee, I will not deny Thee." Yet within a few short hours Peter had denied his Master thrice; and within a few short hours Balaam was on his way to the borders of Moab. The difference between the two cases is that Peter at once went out, wept bitterly, and received forgiveness; whereas Balaam, having started on a career of covetousness, never retraced his steps, and is set forth to us in the lurid light portrayed by St. Jude, "suffering the vengeance of eternal fire." We have seen that the first effect of besetting sin is that the Lord is served reluctantly. The next effect is that pretences are sought for its indulgence, or at least for putting ourselves in the way of it. The second time that God appears to Balaam there seems to be a permission to go, though coupled with a warning that he would say nothing but what the Lord should command. It by no means follows that because Balaam received a kind of permission to go, that his journey had the Divine approval. The Lord answers our prayers sometimes as He answered the prayers of Israel for a king, in His anger; nor is it easy for a greater curse to come upon a man than to be left to the gratification of his own selfish and sinful desires. Let us pray that God Almighty would cross our most cherished purposes, and defeat our darling projects, rather than suffer us in our own self-willed perverseness to enter upon a path in defiance of His holy will. St. Peter speaks of Balaam's going with the princes of Moab as madness and iniquity: he "was rebuked for his iniquity; the dumb ass, speaking with man's voice, forbade the madness of the prophet." And is this the man who so boldly declared that he would not turn aside from the will of God one hair's-breadth if Balak would give him his house full of silver and gold? Poor human nature! How little do even great men know themselves! How small the importance to be attached to mere profession! How are people likely to deceive themselves and to deceive others when speaking what is called their experience, but which is sometimes only a strong emotion of the moment, to be displaced or destroyed by the first attack of temptation! How often has it happened that those who make the loudest profession of their virtue, and of their love to the cause of God, are the first to succumb to covetousness or other besetting sin I And now the narrative, in opening before us a fresh scene, suggests at the same time a further view of the progress of a besetting sin. How striking is the circumstance that, although the ass, on three several occasions, saw the Angel with drawn sword standing in the way, Balaam saw Him not! God, says St. , had punished his cupidity, by according to him a permission conformable to his wicked inclination; and we see in him all the corruption of the human heart, and all the depravation of a will enslaved to a dominant lust. Other interpreters maintain that his permission to go was on the understood condition that he was not to curse Israel; and that it was because his heart, craving after the gold, was already wavering from this purpose, that the Angel of the Covenant accused him of perverseness, and having given him a striking and solemn warning, suffered him again to go forward. I confess that this view of the case commends itself to my own judgment.

3. But whichever view you adopt, the blindness of this perverse prophet is equally monitory. He appears before us a type of those well-instructed sinners whom every one except themselves sees to be running to their own ruin, blinded by the fascination of covetousness or some other master sin. After this Balaam is given up to his own heart's lust — the last and most terrific result, in this life, of the indulgence of besetting sin. "Go with the men," the Lord says to him, giving him up to his own heart's lusts, which he followed to his destruction. "Go with the men" — when neither the first words of God who forbade him, nor the signs and dangers which met him by the way, could turn his heart or deliver him from his error, the Lord bids him to go on — as Jarchi, the Jew, well paraphrases the words — "Go with the men, for thy portion is with them, and thine end to perish out of the world."

(L. H. Wiseman.)

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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.