Numbers 22:30 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

The ass said unto Balaam, Am not I thine ass?— The same divine power which made the ass speak at first continued to form such an answer as might convince Balaam of his error: not that the ass understood what Balaam said, and thereupon returned this pertinent answer, as some doating interpreters have absurdly dreamed. Ever since I was thine, is, in the Hebrew, meodka; ex quo tu, says Houbigant; i.e. from a long time: not ever since thou wast, as it is in our margin. In the words, was I ever wont to do so unto thee? it is insinuated, that this being the case, he should have thought some extraordinary cause had now forced her to do what she had never done before. But before we quit this subject, it may be proper to obviate a little further the objections commonly made to this dumb creature's speaking with a human voice; which certainly is not more against nature, or above the power of an almighty Agent, than any of those miracles which were wrought in Egypt, or at the Red Sea: for if it be once allowed, that God had still reserved to himself the power, for some wise and important ends, to dispense with his own laws, how can it be made appear, that it is more above the power of an almighty Being to enable a dumb animal to pronounce some few articulate words in a rational order, than to cleave the Red Sea, to rain down manna six days, and withhold it on the seventh, or to cure the deadly sting of fiery serpents by the bare looking on an artificial brazen one? And if it be further objected, that the dumb beast shewed a greater degree of wisdom than the prophet who rode it; where, even then, will be the wonder, if we consider who inspired it? And if some of the brute creation do, in many cases, display a greater sagacity in their actions than those of the human species, who value themselves so much on their superior faculties, need we be surprised here, that the most stupid of all animals, being on such a particular occasion as this endowed with a much higher degree of rationality, (which is the utmost extent that can be allowed to the miracle,) should argue more justly than its master, whose judgment was hurried away by the torrent of his boundless ambition, and the prospect of considerable advancement? If any thing seem to challenge our admiration on this occasion, it must be, one should think, the method which the Divine Being made choice of to expose the stupidity of the prophet, 2 Pet. 11. 16 and to deter both him, and those who sent for him, from pursuing their malevolent views against the Israelites; and his choosing by that means rather to forewarn them of the danger they would bring upon themselves, than to punish them for persisting in them. He might as easily have ordered the angel to put Balaam to immediate death, as barely to obstruct his career; but if he prefers the sparing him, in order to make him a more effectual instrument to convince both Moab and Midian, how vain and dangerous their efforts would prove against a people whom he had taken under his special favour, why should the singularity of the miracle be deemed a sufficient proof against the reality of it, when it is in all other respects so agreeable to the Divine goodness? See Psalmanazar's Essays, p. 173. Bishop Newton justly observes, that the words of St. Peter, in the passage above quoted, prove that this miracle is to be understood literally; and the ass, says he, was enabled to utter such and such sounds, probably, as parrots do, without understanding them: and say what you will of the construction of the ass's mouth, of the formation of the tongue and jaws being unfit for speaking, yet an adequate cause is assigned for this wonderful effect; for it is said expressly, that the Lord opened the mouth of the ass: and no one who believes in God can doubt of his having power to do this, and much more.