They Have Rushed for Profit into Balaam’s
Error (Num. 22-24)
After Israel defeated the Amorite kings on their
journey to Canaan, Balak, king of Moab, lured
enigmatic Balaam with a large sum of money,
to curse Israel. God exposed Balaam’s evil intent for greedy gain by opening his donkey’s
mouth to speak to the ‘mad’ prophet. God overturned Balaam’s wicked intention and uttered
three blessings on Israel through Balaam! Subsequently Balaam returned home and we think
that the episode is over. But in the next incident
we read that Israel committed sexual immorality
with Moabite women, and worshiped their god.
The Lord killed 24,000 Israelites by a plague
(Num 25:1-9)! So what has this occurrence to
do vis-à-vis Balaam? We may ask.
Consequent to the plague God commanded Moses to take vengeance on the Moabites for His
sake for what they did at Baal Peor (Num. 31).
Israel killed all the Moabite men and lo among
the slain was Balaam! However, Israel spared the
women and children. Moses was irate, ‘Have you
allowed all the women to live?’ he asked them,
‘They were the ones who followed Balaam’s advice and enticed the Israelites to be unfaithful
to the Lord in the Peor incident, so that a
plague struck the Lord’s people.’ It is evident
that Balaam hatched this vicious scheme and
shortly met his doom with the Moabites (Josh.
13:22).
What was Balaam really like? Balaam believed
in Yahweh, for he himself testifies, ‘I could not
do anything great or small to go beyond the
command of the Lord my God (Num. 22:18).
Yet he wandered off and delved in divination
and therefore God had to deliver Israel from
Balaam’s hand (Josh. 24:9,10; cf. Neh. 13:2; Mic.
6:5). Balaam actually asked permission from
God to curse Israel (Deut. 23:4-5)! Because Plan
A was foiled he resorted to Plan B: taught Balak
to entice the Israelites to sin so that they ate
food sacrificed to idols and committed sexual
immorality (Rev. 2:14). All this for the sake of
money (2 Pet. 2:15)!
So what is the way of Balaam? The way of
Balaam is basically greed for ‘filthy lucre’, concomitant with worshiping ‘idols’, and committing
sexual immorality in ministry! Many a minister of
the gospel has fallen prey to immorality, idolised
themselves, and misappropriated money (Cf. 1
Tim