sence of Balak and his chiefs, uttered a speech, inspired by God, in which he extolled Israel as a nation beloved and specially elected by the Eternal, exceedingly numerous, and happy through righteousness. The annoyed king took Balaam to another place where, after due preliminaries, the prophet pronounced a second Divine oracle, affirming that the blessing once bestowed on Israel was irrevocable, since they were a pious people guided by the Lord, victorious by their prowess, and inapproachable in their strength. Balak, troubled and amazed, once more made a determined attempt, but again Balaam proclaimed the praises of Israel, glorifying the beauty, extent, and fertility of their land, the prosperity and splendour of their empire, and the terrible disasters they inflicted upon their enemies. In pain and rage, Balak now commanded the seer forthwith to flee to his own country. But before departing, Balaam spontaneously added a prophecy foreshadowing the subjugation of Moab herself by an illustrious king of the Israelites; and to this he joined, moreover, oracles on the future destinies of the Hebrews in connection with Edom and Amalek, the Kenites and the Assyrians. Then Balaam and Balak separated, each returning to his home.

d

2. UNCERTAIN TRADITIONS.

It is necessary for our purpose to notice the other Biblical accounts with respect to Balaam, and, first of all, to consider the following passage of Deuteronomy g 'An Ammonite and a Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord. . . because they did not meet

:

f Ver. 25.

Deut, xxiii. 4-6.

you with bread and with water on the way, when you came forth out of Egypt, and because he (the Moabite) hired against thee Balaam, the son of Beor, of Pethor in Mesopotamia, to curse thee. But the Lord thy God would not listen to Balaam, and turned the curse into a blessing for thee, because He loves thee.' Hence the Deuteronomist evidently followed a tradition very different from that embodied in the narrative of Numbers. According to the former, Balaam, when hired' to curse Israel, really pronounced curses which, however, God, in His merciful love of Israel, disregarded, and, annulling their intended effect, transformed into benedictions; in correspondence with which, Nehemiah, quoting and epitomising Deuteronomy, records that 'The Moabite hired Balaam against Israel, to curse them, but our God turned the curse into a blessing." A process so indirect and artificial is wholly at variance with the plain simplicity of the story before us. Here Balaam never evinced the least disposition or made the slightest attempt to hazard execrations which, levelled against the elect of God, would have been hardly less than blasphemous. Nor did he allow himself to be hired' in the sense in which Balak wished to engage him; but he submitted unconditionally to the direction of the Lord, who would not permit an alien to call down upon His people imprecations, however empty and transitory. Micah, living in the eighth century B.C., alludes to the tradition concerning Balaam in a context, which leaves no doubt as to its spirit and tendency. For among the

a The change from the plural (17p) to the singular (D), without the introduction of a new subject, is indeed strange and incongruous, but hardly a sufficient reason

for regarding, with some critics, the second part of verse 5, like the following verse, as a fragmentary addition.

b Neh. xiii. 2,

signal favours bestowed by God upon His people, as their deliverance from Egyptian slavery and their safe guidance under leaders like Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, the prophet mentions this also: O my people, remember now, what Balak, king of Moab, schemed, and what Balaam, the son of Beor, answered him. . . in order that you may know the kindness of the Lord.'a Balaam's 'answers' manifestly did not satisfy the king; they were blessings and praises of the Hebrews; and Micah is, therefore, in harmony with Numbers, not with Deuteronomy.

We come to another point, in which tradition wavered. The Book of Joshua, closely connected with Deuteronomy, states that Balak actually 'waged war against Israel.b But the Book of Judges writes distinctly, 'Did Balak, the son of Zippor, king of Moab, strive against Israel ? did he fight against them? And so, according to Numbers likewise, Balak's sole enterprise against Israel was his employment of Balaam. For, however eager he might have been to expel the dangerous invaders by resolute combat, he desisted from the hopeless struggle when Balaam's co-operation had proved fallacious. Our account concludes with the words, 'And Balaam rose and went away and returned to his place, and Balak also went his way;' and soon afterwards we find the Hebrews and Moabites not merely living in peace but in friendship,

e

and readily exchanging their religious views and practices.a

But the most important fluctuation is the following. The Book of Joshuab clearly describes Balaam as a 'soothsayer' (i), and adds, moreover, that he was, among other enemies, slain by the Hebrews in their war against the Midianites, on whose side he fought. A subsequent portion of the Book of Numbers not only repeats this latter statement, but charges Balaam, besides, with the heinous crime of having, by infamous counsels, enticed the Israelites to the grossly licentious worship of Baal-Peor, and of having thus caused a fearful plague, which fell upon the people as a Divine chastisement. It was naturally, and perhaps excusably, supposed that, in the section under consideration, Balaam is regarded in the same light-namely, as a common magician and a fiendish tempter; and starting from this view, theologians and interpreters, in ancient and modern times, have drawn a picture of Balaam's character which is truly awful. There is hardly a vice which they did not think themselves justified in attributing to him. They uniformly discovered that our author represented the foreign seer, above all, as swayed by the two master passions of ambition and avarice to a degree almost amounting to actual madness.d But in delineating his other differed very considerably.

numerous blemishes, they They variously described

either mean that the curses pronounced by Balaam were turned into blessings, or that he indeed pronounced curses, but was also compelled to utter blessings.

b xiii. 22.

c xxxi. 8, 16; comp. xxv. 1-9. d Freely applying to him the line of Sophocles: Τὸ μαντικὸν γὰρ πᾶν φιλάργυρον γένος (Ant. 1055).

him as proud, insolent, and inflated, and yet cunning and hypocritical; as false and ungrateful; mendacious and treacherous; wavering, yet obstinate; diabolically wicked and mischievous; the primary type of all artful seducers of God's people; cruel and passionate; a sordid trader in prophecy and a mercenary impostor-the Simon Magus of the Old Testament; a sacrilegious trickster and blasphemous dissembler; an unhallowed idolater and a lying sorcerer; a profane reviler and sanctimonious scoffer. Indeed not a few writers have produced veritable masterpieces of exegetical ingenuity.b

a

Justice, however, requires that, before expressing a decisive opinion, we should at least endeavour to understand this narrative by itself and apart from other Biblical notices. This 'Book of Balaam'-as we shall henceforth briefly call it-is in every way complete. It is pervaded by religious and historical conceptions presenting the most perfect unity. We shall, therefore, try to reproduce the figure of Balaam from this portion with all possible fidelity.

3. THE CHARACTER OF BALAAM.

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THE key to Balaam's whole conduct lies in the words, 'I cannot go against the command of the Lord to do either good or bad of my own mind.' The same significant term of my own mind,' is, in the Pentateuch, employed on another and no less remarkable occasion. When Moses announced the miraculous punishment to

a This florilegium-which is only a short specimen-has not been compiled at random, but we could quote authorities of repute for each individual epithet, and shall hereafter have occasion to do so to some extent.

b As Calvin, Michaelis, Hengstenberg, Baumgarten, Kurtz, Keil, Reinke, Lange, Koehler, and others who have influenced the interpretation of these chapters. ca??, xxiv. 13.

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