because they met you not with bread and with water on the way, when ye came forth out of Egypt, and because they hired against thee Balaam the son of Beor, of Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse thee.
Deuteronomy 23:4 gives the reasons Ammon and Moab were shut out of the assembly of the Lord. One charge is a kindness they withheld. The other is a curse they paid for.
The verse names a failure first, then an attack. One writer takes them in that order.
God has a twofold controversy with Moab concerning the people of Israel. First, they did not meet Israel with bread and water on the way out of Egypt. Second, they hired Balaam to curse Israel (Deut. 23:4). We learn from this that sin can be negative as well as positive. He who neglects to do the will of God is as real a sinner as he who openly defies it.
But Moab did more than withhold food and water. The same writer shows what was really at stake in the hire of Balaam.
But these enemies went further. There was not mere neglect but also open hostility... So Balak and Balaam, stirred up by Satan, raised a great question against the people of Israel. It is important that we understand it, for it touches us closely... What was the record of those forty years? On Jehovah's part, goodness, faithfulness and patience; on the people's part, unbelief, ingratitude and persistent disobedience. With such a record, could the people be cursed? Could Jehovah be persuaded to cast Israel aside? This was the question raised and answered in the plains of Moab.
The word "hired" points to a man who could be bought. Balak paid before a word was spoken.
Balak's messengers went to Mesopotamia "with the fees for divination in their hand" (Num. 22:7). Balak knew that the false prophet "loved gain from wrongdoing" (2 Peter 2:15). So he made sure of him by sending cash in advance. But the treacherous deceiver brought Jehovah's name into it. He kept the messengers overnight, pretending to seek the mind of God.
The curse never touched Israel. The loss fell on the people who paid for it.
There is no divination or enchantment against Israel. And there is no angel, principality, or power that can separate the believer from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. If God has taken up a people for blessing, and to make them a blessing, He will carry out in power what He has purposed in love... Moab was frustrating their own blessing, not the purpose of God, in hiring Balaam. Because of that they lost the privilege of entering the congregation of the Lord.
One writer separates how God governs from how He shows grace. He then points to what God says about the Edomite and the Egyptian.
Jehovah does not forget where it is a matter of government. He does forget (and it is precisely what He does) when it is a question of grace... But it is remarkable too that when speaking about the Edomite... He says, "He is your brother." And of those who once opposed Israel He says, "You shall not abhor an Egyptian, because you were a sojourner in his land." So this is not a question of hatred on our part. It is a question of being subject to God. We take the direction of our thoughts from His word, and form our judgments and our conduct by it.
Long after Moses, God's people took up this instruction and acted on it.
They had even hired Balaam to curse Israel, which curse God changed into a blessing. But the Jews obeyed this instruction and separated from the mixed crowd. Mixtures of believers and unbelievers are also forbidden in the New Testament (2 Cor. 6:14-18)... yet evil keeps pushing its way in among the people of God, and it must be faced, as it was here.
Yet one woman from the nation this verse shuts out did enter.
But the law does not keep Ruth out. Moabitess as she is, she does enter into the congregation of the Lord. The law is set aside for her. It does not shut out her descendants to the tenth generation; instead, her child of the third generation sits on Israel's throne.
Notice which woman the ban fell on.
It is striking that it was to this devoted, to this lovely woman that the law applied — not to Rahab nor even to Tamar... This taught in the clearest way that man as man was shut out from God — not only in his sins, but in his righteousness.
- Neglect counts. Moab's first charge is bread and water not given. Failing to do God's will is as real a sin as defying it.
- Hostility follows. Neglect hardened into a hired curse. Balak bought a prophet who loved gain from wrongdoing.
- The curse rebounds. Moab frustrated its own blessing, not God's purpose. Moab lost entry into the assembly.
- Government remembers. God does not forget in matters of government. He does forget when it is a question of grace. So the command calls for obedience, not hatred.
- Grace opens the door. Ruth the Moabitess still enters, and her child of the third generation sits on Israel's throne. The law shuts out man even at his best. Grace lets him in.
But Jehovah thy God would not listen to Balaam; and Jehovah thy God turned the curse into blessing unto thee, because Jehovah thy God loved thee.
Moses recalls what Moab and Ammon did when Israel came up from Egypt. They refused food and water, and they hired a prophet named Balaam to curse the nation. This verse says why that curse never landed. The reason lies in God, not in anything Israel could see in itself.
Balak set the attack up out of sight. Israel never asked God for help here, because Israel never knew there was anything to ask about.
The great principle of the Balaam history is that God was the unasked Guardian and Blesser of His people. Enemies keep plotting, and Israel knows nothing about it. So Israel asks nothing from God. But He is active for His people out of His own grace toward them, and nothing escapes Him. "Who are these men who have come to you?" God says to Balaam. On the other hand, Balak is in complete darkness that twists everything. He sought a curse on Israel, though God had said that whoever blesses Israel is blessed and whoever curses Israel is cursed. So he was only bringing the curse on himself.
God did not just block the curse. Each new try to buy one pulled a fuller blessing out of the prophet's mouth.
His persistence in seeking the curse enlarged the blessing; it is always so. He does not know God. And God could not just repeat the blessing already given, so He unfolds it further each time.
Set what God was saying about Israel beside what Israel was doing at the time.
How little did Israel know or imagine what was going on between the LORD and the enemy. Perhaps they were grumbling in their tents. At that very moment God was setting out their perfection through the mouth of the greedy prophet. Balak would gladly have Israel cursed; but, blessed be God, He will not let anyone curse His people. He may have to deal with them Himself, in secret, about many things. But He will not let anyone else say a word against them. He may have to expose them to themselves; but He will not allow a stranger to expose them.
This is one of the first places in Scripture where God says in plain words that He loves His people.
God reveals His love when and as He will. So in the Old Testament He spoke of it, but only in connection with Israel. And He never even mentioned it in any message from God that has come down to us until the last days of the great lawgiver's life. Then in the Book of Deuteronomy (Deut. 4:37; 7:7; 10:15; 23:5) it is first disclosed. He had loved their fathers. He loved them too. He showed it above all by making Balaam bless them, though Balaam wanted to curse them... God speaks of His love to act, if possible, on those to whom He reveals it.
God kept His own law, and He also acted in mercy. Ruth came from Moab, the nation that hired Balaam.
So the Moabite woman was under the condemnation of the law of the LORD. Still, He could not righteously receive her under His own law. Yet He accepted her in grace, according to His own mercy. And out of the riches of His coming glory by Christ Jesus, He also gave her an honourable place in the royal records of the Son of God. As to the flesh, that Son came at the appointed time from the line of her great-grandson, David.
The curse failed because God loved Israel. Can our own failure undo God's purpose for us.
But can our shortcomings affect God's counsels of grace concerning us? Will He stop loving us, erase our names from the book of life, and throw us back to where He found us? Blessed be His holy name, NO!... In His righteous government He may discipline us, as He disciplined Israel long ago. But He will never abandon His counsels of grace... Listen to Moses in Deut. 23:5... similarly, all our blessings are secured in the risen Christ, and the Father loves us as He loves Him.
- Love unasked. Israel never knew about the plot, so they never prayed about it. God guarded them unasked, and nothing escaped Him.
- Love unstoppable. Every new try to buy a curse only enlarged the blessing God put in the hired prophet's mouth.
- Love undeserved. They may have been grumbling in their tents while God declared their perfection. He deals with His people Himself, and He lets no stranger accuse them.
- Love disclosed. In Deuteronomy God first puts His love for them into words. He reveals that love to work on the hearts that hear it.
- Love beyond the ban. The law condemned the Moabite, yet mercy gave Ruth an honourable place in the line of David.