Numbers 22:1–4

Moses and the children of Israel sang their song of triumph on the shores of the Red Sea. They said: "The peoples have heard; they tremble … trembling seizes the leaders of Moab … terror and dread fall upon them" (Ex. 15:14-16). This came true to the letter forty years later, when the King of Moab and his people saw the Lord's pilgrim host camped on their borders. In the camp of Israel there were 601,730 men able to carry arms. With women and children there were probably at least three million souls — a vast company. Balak was alarmed; all the more because Israel had just destroyed three military powers that dared to oppose their march.

There was no real need for Moab to fear Israel. God was not giving the inheritance of the children of Esau or that of the children of Lot to Israel (Deut. 2:5, 9, 19). The hostility toward God's people was not because of anything Israel had done, or threatened to do, to Moab. Balak does not seem to have expected any attack from Israel either. He said to the elders of Midian, "This horde will now lick up all that is around us, as the ox licks up the grass of the field" (Num. 22:4). Moab did not like the thought of having God's people as their neighbours, and they wanted to get rid of them.

Moab could have claimed kinship with Israel. Abraham and Lot were relatives, and Abraham rescued Lot out of his position in Sodom. But the likeness stopped there. Abraham's sons in the line of faith began with Isaac, who was born to him by a miracle. They were all men of faith and men of power with God. Lot's descendants, Moab and Ammon, were the persistent enemies of Israel. They proved it at every moment of Israel's testimony.

Balak and his people had little idea that their hostility toward God's people was hostility against God Himself. Balak only thought of "a people come out of Egypt"; but the faith of Rahab said, "we have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt" (Joshua 2:10). Forty years had passed since that great event, but Rahab still had not forgotten the mighty power of Israel's God.

Balak saw, feared, and hated this people. He was aware that a power greater than his own was leading them, and he lost all confidence in his own might. He seemed to know that no merely human arm could destroy this people. So he does not march out as Amalek, Sihon, and Og did with their armies… But is there not a power on his side? Yes — and he calls on Baal-Peor through Balaam his prophet.

Moab pictures the comfortable, self-satisfied man of the world — "at ease from his youth and settled on his dregs" (Jer. 48:11), and proud and arrogant as a result (Isa. 16:6). God's saints today need not envy such people, for they have a better and more lasting portion.

How little did Israel know or imagine what was going on between the Lord and the enemy. It may be that they were grumbling in their tents at that very moment. Meanwhile God was setting out their perfection through the tongue of the covetous prophet. Balak would gladly have Israel cursed; but, blessed be God, He will not allow anyone to curse His people. He may have to deal with them Himself, in secret, about many things. But He will not allow another to move his tongue against them.

There was really no need for Moab to fear Israel. God was not giving Israel the inheritance of Esau's descendants or of Lot's descendants (Deut. 2:5, 9, 19). The enmity towards God's people was not because of anything that Israel had done, or threatened to do, to Moab. Nor does it appear that Balak expected any attack from Israel... Moab did not like the thought of having God's people as their neighbours, and they wanted to get rid of them.

When Moses and the children of Israel sang their song of triumph on the shores of the Red Sea, they said, "The peoples have heard; they tremble … the leaders of Moab, trembling seizes them … Terror and dread fall upon them" (Ex. 15:14-16). This came true to the letter when the king of Moab and his people saw the Lord's pilgrim host camped on their borders forty years later. In Israel's camp there were 601,730 men able to carry arms. With women and children there were probably at least three million people — a huge company. Balak was alarmed, all the more because Israel had recently destroyed three military powers that had dared to oppose their march.

When people are in trouble, the right thing is to turn to God in prayer. God cares about the affairs of nations as truly as He cares about the troubles and sorrows of individual men and women. But Balak knew nothing of God.

"Balak" seems to mean "waster." The name looks like a deliberate contrast with his family line, since he was only ben-Zippor, "son of a sparrow." What grand titles men take to cover their real insignificance! And they glory far more in the power to destroy — in being a Caesar or a Napoleon — than in the angels' message of peace and goodwill!

He was terrified. The fate of the Egyptians and the Amorites seemed to foretell his own. So his heart filled with fear and hatred, and he wanted to oppose and curse Israel. He allied himself with the elders of Midian. It is nothing less than the history of anti-Semitism in a nutshell. Non-Jewish nations, Christian in name, still hate and fear this people. No Pharaoh and no fortune-teller could overcome them. They are disobedient, judged and suffering, yet always conquering.

Moab, as we know, was a blood relation of Israel. He was descended from Lot, who was a relative of Abraham. So the Moabites were the natural kinsmen of the Israelites. Lot's tie to Abraham was largely a natural, fleshly one. In his descendants' case it was entirely fleshly. Israel had no more bitter and relentless enemies than these Moabites and Ammonites — their own relatives.

Balak and his people had no idea that their hostility towards God's people was enmity against their God. By sending for Balaam to curse God's people, Balak challenged the mighty God of Jacob. God was not slow to accept that challenge. There is no word in Balak's message to Balaam of any evil purpose against him... Balak did not, as Rahab did, connect Israel's coming out of Egypt with the Name of the Lord.