And Balaam rose up, and went and returned to his place: and Balak also went his way.
Balaam ... returned to his place - i:e., to his habitation or home (cf. Numbers 7:14) in Mesopotamia. Though he set out, however, on a homeward journey, he did not continue in that direction, but turned aside, leaving the Moabite territory; not to the Israelite camp, as Hengstenberg assumes-a vain, uusupported conjecture-but to the contiguous pasture land of the Midianites (cf. Numbers 31:8; Joshua 13:22). The historian has contented himself with simply intimating the fact of Balaam's departure; for the principal, or rather the sole reason for the introduction of this episode, was to put upon record that the prophet, who had been summoned to curse, was constrained to bless, Israel. That record having been made, it was of no importance to chronicle the subsequent movements of the Mesopotamian seer; and, accordingly, it is only from an incidental notice in a later portion of the history we learn that he had gone to tamper with the Midianites.
The explanation of the singular movement seems to be, that through the overpowering impulses of his master passion, he still indulged a hope of securing the expected reward; and believing that Yahweh was a local deity like others, he imagined, now that he was beyond the boundaries of Moab, he would be entirely free from the mental constraint that had compelled him in that country to act contrary to his interests and intentions. The engrossing influence of ambition and avarice extinguished the impression of the remarkable prophecies he had recently delivered; and with a view of pandering still to the wishes of his anxious employers, he planned a villanous scheme, of such a description as he well knew would, by severing the relations of Israel to Yahweh, change the destiny of that people. 'Had the details of his achievements in Midian been given, as those in Moab are given, they might have been as numerous, as important, and as interesting (Blunt's 'Undesigned Coincidences,' p. 87).
The character of Balaam, marked by so many inconsistencies, and continually oscillating between antagonistic principles-a professed servant of the true God, and at the same time a self-sold slave of the devil-declaring his fixed resolution to act in accordance with the divine will as revealed to him, yet secretly resolved to pursue an opposite course-praying as a man of ardent piety, and yet groveling in the dust of the world-is a moral enigma which has puzzled some of the greatest minds satisfactorily to unriddle.
One grand subject of discussion, both in ancient and modern times, has been whether he was a real prophet, one of the ancient magi, or merely a sagacious and artful diviner. Some, founding on the expression, "soothsayer," which occurs in Joshua (Joshua 13:22; cf. Josephus, 'Antiquities.' b, 4:, ch. 6:, sec. 2; Philo, 'Life of Moses,' sec. 48), have maintained that he was an infamous, unprincipled sorcerer, whose whole power consisted in magic and in maledictions. A second class have held the opinion that he only pretended to consult the Lord, because he was an idolater, and possessed no gifts beyond that of a far-seeing sagacity and calculating prudence; while a third class have admitted that he knew the true God, erected altars to his honour, and was a real prophet, though corrupted by avarice. There is truth in each one of these views; but it is only the combination of all of them that, furnishing a key to open the latent principles of Balaam's character, can lead to a just estimate of this extraordinary personage.
Born a pagan, or perhaps bred in some corrupt form of the patriarchal religion (cf. Genesis 31:30), he had been brought to believe in the being and character of Yahweh; but his knowledge of the true God was greatly mixed up with the ignorance and errors of superstition. He was susceptible of pious feelings, and acknowledged God to a certain extent in his practice; but any good principles he had imbibed were apt to be forgotten or overborne by the predominance of sordid passions. Endowed with supernatural inspiration, which enabled him to reveal the purposes of Divine Providence, as connected with Israel, he degraded his prophetic gift by the supposed necessity of courting the afflatus by the preparatory rites of augury, and, like Simon Magus in the beginning of the New Testament age, thought "to make a gain of godliness." 'There were certainly in Balaam the elements of the knowledge and fear of the Lord, which he had acquired by earnest study of the divine procedure toward Israel; but he had stopped with the elements-it had never come to a fundamental conversion with him: there certainly were conferred upon him single clear flashes of light by the Spirit of God; But this prophetic gift appears throughout not as a comprehensive and certain one' (Hengstenberg, 'Balaam,' p. 346).
'Balaam was a pagan soothsayer and a prophet of Yahweh at the same time. The course of his history shows us clearly enough where it was that the obstacle lay; in other words, how it was that, after Balaam had recognized Yahweh as the true and supreme God, and notwithstanding the fact that Yahweh did not fail to make Himself known in word and power, he did not entirely lay aside his pagan incantations, and give himself up to the worship of Yahweh. The cause was not primarily an intellectual one, nor did it arise from any disqualification for the calling of a genuine prophet of Yahweh. It was altogether moral, and lay entirely in the will. Hitherto Balaam had practiced magic as a trade. When he became convinced that Yahweh, the God of Israel, was stronger than the gods of all the other nations, he turned to Him, probably in the hope that by this means he would be able to secure more striking results and still larger gains.
Thus, Balaam carried into his new phase of life a pagan state of mind, which inevitably prevented him from being more firmly established or making further progress in his fellowship with Yahweh, so long as it remained unconquered. We must not imagine, however, that his aims and endeavours were divested of nobler and loftier motives; because, had this been the case, Yahweh would have hardly suffered Himself to be found of him, or have replied to his inquiries. And the manner in which he was met by Yahweh was not without effect upon the spirit and heart, the mind and will of the magician' (Kurtz, 'History of the Old Covenant,' 3:,
p. 393). He is represented in Scripture at one time as "a soothsayer," at another as "a prophet" (2 Peter 2:15); and his fame, from his relations to God, must have been great, when the king of Moab twice sent across the Assyrian desert urgent invitations to solicit the benefit of his valued services in the valley of the Jordan. With regard to his prophetic utterances, his mind at the time must have been raised by the Spirit of God to a lofty state of ecstatic fervour; for more clear, more vigorous, more sublime predictions than those which he delivered are scarcely to be found in the sacred volume; and in perusing these predictions, even through the medium of a translation, the reader is hurried along with admiration of the fine conceptions, the powerful imagination, and the richly poetic diction by which they are distinguished.
By whatever means the knowledge of these utterances was communicated to Israel-whether, as Hengstenberg supposes, by Balaam himself, during a supposed visit to the Israelite camp, or, as others conjecture, through the Midianites, who intermingled with the people of God-they were recorded by Moses under the superintending guidance of the Spirit who had inspired them; and there can be no doubt that these lays of the Mesopotamian sage, taking a strong hold of the memories of the Israelites, as well as of the Moabite and Midianite chiefs in whose hearing they were pronounced, would be a great means of inspiriting the one in prospect of invading Canaan, and of creating among those pagan people the expectation of a glorious King who was to arise in Israel.
This latter consideration tends to remove one of the greatest difficulties respecting the enlistment of Balaam's services in predicting the glory of Messiah's kingdom. This is an isolated case-the only known instance of a Gentile being endowed with prophetic gifts; and hence, we may conclude that there was some important reason for so remarkable an exception. And this conclusion is strengthened by the consideration that it was to Gentiles that his prophecies were addressed, though they were afterward inserted in the sacred annals. It was by the revelations made to Balaam that gleams of divine light burst on the darkened nations of the pagan world; and more especially it is to them we are to trace that general expectation which prevailed for centuries prior to the advent of Christ, all over the East, relative to the appearance of an exalted and glorious personage.
This expectation was realized at the commencement of the New Testament era, when magi, under the guidance of a miraculous meteor in the heavens, arrived in Jerusalem, and inquired where was He who was born King of the Jews (Matthew 2:1-23); because they had seen His star in the East. This was an obvious allusion to the beautiful words of Balaam - "There shall come a Star out of Jacob:" and thus did Yahweh, by employing Balaam, who was not of the seed of Abraham, to foretell future events, not only display His sovereignty, but with divine wisdom prepare the nations, in some measure, for the advent of Messiah, as well as for enjoying the blessings of His reign, (see Josephus, 'Antiquities,' b. 4:, ch. 6:, secs. 12 and 13; Origen, 'Contra Cels.,' lib. 1:, sec. 160: also 'In Numeros Hom.,' 13:, sec. 7; Eusebius, 'Demonst. Evang.,' lib. 9:, sec. 1; Warburton's 'Divine Legation.' b. 4:, sec. 4; Saurin's 'Discours Historiques,' tom. 2:, disc. 64; Newton, 'On the Prophecies,' disser. 5:; Hengstenberg and Kurtz, as already referred to; Ewald's 'Geschichte,' vol. 2:, p. 277; Grandpierre, 'Essais sur le Pentateugue,' 23:; Stanley's 'Jewish Church,' Lect. 8:; 'Minutiae of Prophecy and the Minutiae of Fulfilment,' by Rev. F. Tilney Bassett; Moses Stuart, 'On Daniel,' p. 346; Boyle, 'On Daniel,' p. 367, note; Pusey, 'On Daniel,' preface, pp. 7: and 11:)