I understand why God is angry with Midian, and wants them punished. But why was the prophet who spoke in the Lord’s name killed? What did Balaam do to deserve death with the unrighteous?
A short time ago we read of a prophet named Balaam who was summoned by an evil king to deliver a prophecy against Israel. When this prophet arrived at the agreed upon location he made the appropriate sacrifices to God and then delivered a prophecy FOR Israel instead of against it. This made the Midianite king very angry, but he takes the prophet to two other locations to view the large number of Israelites who are preparing to enter his country. I guess he was hoping for a different prophecy, but Balaam doesn’t waiver…he delivers only what God told him to say. And, that is where the story leaves Balaam, in a community called Peor, with the Midianite king.
Fast forward to the soldiers returning from battle, and they report that they killed all the Midianite kings, AND Balaam the prophet. Wow. Really? Speak up for the Lord and be killed by his people? Somebody must not have gotten the memo that this guy was on God’s side, right? Has God allowed a righteous man to be killed by his own people? What’s going on?
As you might suspect, there is more to the story. From what we can extrapolate from several other verses in the Bible, Balaam was not an honest follower of God. Yes, he did prophecy only what he was told to, but when he finished he didn’t go home and leave the situation alone. Instead, it appears that he hung around the old Midianite king and showed him another way that he might corrupt the Israelites. It was Balaam who suggested that the women should go out to meet the men of Israel, and that they should encourage the men to engage in both sexual relations and idol worship with them. Men, being relatively stupid when it comes to such things, were easy marks for the wiles of the Midianite women. Look up Revelation 2:14-15 or Jude 1:11. In today’s reading that aligns with 31:15-16. Balaam was apparently a greedy man who tried to exploit his gifts and insights to make a profit for himself at the expense of God’s people.
There are many lessons that find their foundation in passages like this one, here are two:
1. God is holy, and will not tolerate His people worshiping anyone or anything beside Himself. Combining what is holy (yourself as a Christian) with anything impure is not acceptable. There will be consequences. Consider this, the men who had sexual relations with those girls condemned them to death. Some of them would not have died had the Israelite men left them alone. Many more may have survived if the prophet hadn’t been corrupt. Balaam bears responsibility for many sins.
2. You can work alongside God and not belong to Him. Doing what is right isn’t a guarantee that you are part of God’s family. God spoke through Balaam, but it didn’t mean that Balaam was right with God. That’s a hard concept to assimilate. I mean, who can be sure that they belong to God, if God working through us isn’t evidence?
Actually, that’s easy enough. Those who confess their sinfulness, and allow God control over their lives are the ones whom God claims as His own. Obedience to God is a key value that is being emphasized again and again in these chapters. There is NO WAY that Balaam “accidentally” gives up information to Midian about how to corrupt the Israelites innocently. He knew what he was doing, and he knew it was wrong. His desire for “things” overwhelmed his desire to be obedient…and that earned him a death warrant. Even more sad, he is probably in hell, after prophesying in God’s name.
Stray thoughts: Gilead is the region that King David will escape to when his son Absalom overthrows him. And before that, the town of Nobah shows up again in Scripture when Gideon passes through there fighting the Midianites. The land mass of Israel is rather compact, so the stories of where Abraham walked, are on the same ground as the stories of this passage, and many other accounts will take place on the same land. Gilead is the land east of the Jordan, but a little south of the sea of Galilee. It might have included some the “Decapolis” the 10 towns of that region. It was here that Jesus cast the demons out of man and sent them into a herd of pigs. Mark 5:20-21
If you ever get to Israel, you discover that the historical accounts are all layered on top of one another by geographical location. Old and New Testament are connected by the location on which these things happened. The United States is so large, that most events have their own location, such as the 9/11 memorial or Gettysburg. But in Israel, two events like that could be on top of each other.
Faithfully,
PR