October 23, 2013 (Wednesday)
The Bible contains a few strange stories. One of them is about a sorcerer by the name of Balaam. He is mentioned several times in both the Old Testament and the New Testament.
Seems the king of Moab, Balak, tried to hire Balaam to put a curse on the Israelites. God spoke to Balaam and told him not to curse the Israelites. So Balaam refused the king’s request. The king of Moab, however, sent a second group of messengers, pleading with Balaam to come and talk with their king about it, and Balaam decided to accept the invitation. On the way, an angel of God–invisible to Balaam–blocked the road. The donkey balked at the sight of the angel. Balaam beat the donkey and commanded him to get going on down the road. Then the donkey spoke. “What have I done to you to make you beat me these three times?” (Numbers 22:28, NIV). Balaam then argued with the donkey!
God opened Balaam’s eyes so that he saw the angel, but he continued on the journey to the king of Moab. When he got there, he gave oracles blessing Israel. The angry king sent Balaam back home. But at some point during their conversations, Balaam offered the suggestion that the Israelites might be seduced to practice idolatry and immorality, and thus suffer the punishment of God. This was done, and the Israelites suffered greatly.
Balaam was eventually caught in the crossfire of strife which he induced through his false prophecies, and was killed. His lust for gold proved his downfall. His problem seemed to be that he was simply unwilling to pay the price of being a true prophet of God. Because of his duplicity and dishonesty, there is much written about him in the Bible, but not much of it is good.
His name comes up again when the Lord speaks to the church at Pergamum: “I have a few things against you. There are some among you who hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to entice the Israelites to sin so that they ate food sacrificed to idols and committed sexual immorality” (Revelation 2:14). The love of money truly is the root of all kinds of evil.