deeds. But no matter!) Balaam wakes up, saddles his donkey, and goes with the
princes of Moab.
Strangely, in the very next verse, it says that “God’s anger was aroused
because he went.” (Emphasis mine). Isn’t that odd? Didn’t He just give
permission to go? And it’s not like Balaam did anything that was out of line;
it says that God was angry “because he went.” Was God being fickle? Was He
playing games with Balaam? Was He being unfair or unjust – trying to trap
him?
How often do we feel that about the Lord? That He sets up a system for us
and when we try to live within it we find that it is a challenge. “Is He trying to
trick me? Is He setting me up for failure?” Of course not! Even though we can’t
tell from the story, we must always be careful and never attribute pettiness,
meanness, unjustness or anger to the Lord, no matter what appears to be
happening in the text. Something else must be going on – something we can’t
see just yet.
Because God’s anger was aroused, He sent an angel to stand in the way
of Balaam and the donkey. The angel stood firm with his sword drawn in his
hand. Balaam didn’t see this. He didn’t see the danger in front of him. His
donkey did, however, and for the preservation of her master, she turned and
walked off the path. Balaam was furious about the detour, and so he hit her
and made her get back on the path.
This happened a second time, only instead of avoiding the angel by
walking off the path, for the preservation of her master, the donkey walked
up close to a wall. This would have been fine – if Balaam’s foot had not been
crushed in the process. And so Balaam was even madder than before and he
hit the donkey once more.
This happened a third time! An angel stood in the path, but this time,
they were in a place where there could be no turning to the right or to the left,
and so, for the preservation of her master, she stopped and she lay down right
beneath Balaam. By this point he was furious and hit her with his staff. Then,
the miraculous happens, and the Lord allowed Balaam to hear the words of the
donkey, and the following exchange occurs:
“What have I done to you, that you have struck me these three times?
And Balaam said to the donkey, “Because you have abused me. I wish there were a
sword in my hand, for now I would kill you!”
So the donkey said to Balaam, “Am I not your donkey on which you have ridden,
ever since I became yours, to this day? Was I ever disposed to do this to you?”
And he said, “No.” (Ibid. 22:28-30)
With this recognition of the faithfulness of the donkey, the Lord revealed
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