Numbers 22:17

22:15-21 A second embassy was sent to Balaam. It were well for us, if we were as earnest and constant in prosecuting a good work, notwithstanding disappointments. Balak laid a bait, not only for Balaam's covetousness, but for his pride and ambition. How earnestly should we beg of God daily to mortify such desires in us! Thus sinners stick at no pains, spare no cost, and care not how low they stoop, to gratify their luxury, or their malice. Shall we then be unwilling to do what is right? God forbid! Balaam's convictions charged him to keep to the command of God; nor could any man have spoken better. But many call God theirs, who are not his, not truly because not only his. There is no judging men by their words; God knows the heart. Balaam's corruptions at the same time inclined him to go contrary to the command. He seemed to refuse the temptation; but he expressed no abhorrence of it. He had a strong desire to accept the offer, and hoped that God might give him leave to go. He had already been told what the will of God was. It is a certain evidence of the ruling of corruption in the heart, to beg leave to sin. God gave Balaam up to his own heart's lusts. As God sometimes denies the prayers of his people in love, so sometimes he grants the desires of the wicked in wrath.

In his court, by making him some great officer there, perhaps his prime minister; so that as before he laid a bait for his covetousness, sending him large presents, and rewards of divination; here, for his pride and ambition, promising him court preferment; though Aben Ezra interprets it of mammon or riches, of which he could give him an immense sum: "in honouring I will exceedingly honour thee" (f); or load thee with wealth and riches; and so Balaam seems to understand it, since in his answer he says, "if Balak would give me his house full of silver and gold"; both civil honour and worldly wealth may be taken into the account, since they are both heavy and weighty things, and very desirable and ensnaring: and I will do whatsoever thou sayest unto me; give him what money he should ask of him, put him into whatsoever place and office he should desire; and though he was a sovereign prince, would be at his beck and command, and do whatever he should direct him to do in his kingdom, as well as in what concerned the affair of cursing Israel; as we find he afterwards did, with respect to sacrifices and rites relative thereunto: come therefore, I pray thee, curse me this people; renewing the request made in the first embassy with great importunity, Numbers 22:6 but using here a different word for "cursing"; there, as Munster observes, the word signifies to curse lightly; here, to blaspheme and utterly devote to ruin; to which may be added, to curse expressly and by name, to pierce t

13-15. the Lord refuseth to give me leave to go with you—This answer has an appearance of being good, but it studiously concealed the reason of the divine prohibition [Nu 22:12], and it intimated his own willingness and desire to go—if permitted. Balak despatched a second mission, which held out flattering prospects, both to his avarice and his ambition (Ge 31:30).

The answer with which Balaam had sent the Moabitish messengers away, encouraged Balak to cherish the hope of gaining over the celebrated soothsayer to his purpose notwithstanding, and to send an embassy "of princes more numerous and more honourable than those," and to make the attempt to overcome his former resistance by more splendid promises; whether he regarded it, as is very probable, "as the remains of a weakly fear of God, or simply as a ruse adopted for the purpose of obtaining better conditions" (Hengstenberg). As a genuine heathen, who saw nothing more in the God of Israel than a national god of that people, he thought that it would be possible to render not only men, but gods also, favourable to his purpose, by means of splendid honours and rich rewards. (Note: Compare the following remarks of Pliny (h. n. xxviii. 4) concerning this belief among the Romans: "Verrius Flaccus auctores ponit, quibus credat, in oppugnationibus ante omnia solitum a Romanis sacerdotibus evocari Deum, cujus in tutela id oppidum esset, promittique illi eundem aut ampliorem apud Romanos cultum. Et durat in Pontificum disciplina id sacrum, constatque ideo occultatum, in cujus Dei tutela Roma esset, ne qui hostium simili modo agerent;" - and the further explanations of this heathen notion in Hengstenberg's Balaam and his Prophecies.)

That Balaam, though he professed to be influenced by a supreme regard to the will of God Numbers 22:18, Numbers 22:38, was really influenced by the desire of reward, and was willing to prostitute his great office to secure such a reward, there can be no doubt. (1) the elders of Moab and of Midian came to Balaam with "the rewards of divination in their hand" Numbers 22:7, and with promises from Balak of promoting him to great honor, if he would curse the children of Israel, Numbers 22:17. (2) Balaam was disposed to go with them, and was restrained from going at once only by a direct and solemn prohibition from the Lord, Numbers 22:11. (3) notwithstanding this solemn prohibition, and not with standing he said to the ambassadors from Balak that he would do only as God directed, though Balak should give him his house full of silver and gold, Numbers 22:18, yet he did not regard the matter as settled, but proposed to them that they should wait another night, with the hope that the Lord would give a more favourable direction in reference to their request, thus showing that his heart was in the service which they required, and that his inclination was to avail himself of their offer, Numbers 22:19. (4) when he did obtain permission to go, it was only to say that which the Lord should direct him to say, Numbers 22:20; but he went with a perverse heart, with a secret wish to comply with the desire of Balak, and with a knowledge that he was doing wrong, Numbers 22:34, and was restraine

[Reformed Biblical] ffering his service in such a cursed business; and partly for a foundation to the following answer. Numbers 22:10 Numbers 22:11 Numbers 22:12 God revealeth his mind to Balaam, not for any love to him, but for the sake of his people concerned in it, as he did to Pharaoh, Gen_41:25, and to Nebuchadnezzar, Dan_2:45. ## They are blessed by my irrevocable decree and sentence, and therefore it is in vain for men to curse them. Numbers 22:13 He conceals the principal things, to wit, the reason of God’s prohibition, which might have given a stop to their further course and counsels in this matter, and secretly intimates his own goodwill and readiness to comply with them, if God had not hindered him. Numbers 22:14 Thus they lay the blame upon Balaam, which he imputed to God. Numbers 22 :15 Numbers 22:16 No counsel nor suggestion either of God or man. Numbers 22:17 Before he wrought upon his covetousness, now upon his ambition. Numbers 22:18 You desire and expect that from me which is out of my power, to resist the will of the great God. He slyly insinuates, that he wanted not will, but power only. ## The Lord my God; so he calls him, partly, to magnify himself a