Then sent Balak yet again princes, more, and more honourable than they.
Balak's first messengers came home with a refusal, so he tries again with a larger and grander delegation. The question here is not Balaam's price, but what a man does when God has already spoken and the offer comes back sweeter.
Balak did not treat the first refusal as final.
Balak's first embassy is unsuccessful: the Lord refuses, as Balaam tells the messengers, to give him leave to go. He makes no secret that his own will is willing enough, while he hides the fact that God has shown him the people are blessed. Balak has reason to suppose that with more pressure Balaam will come, for it was well known that the gods of the nations could be made to give way. He sends more and more honourable representatives.
Balaam had told the first messengers that the Lord would not let him go. He did not tell them why. That silence is what left the door open.
Had Balaam given Balak's princes the word he received from God, it is not likely that he would have been tempted again.
The messengers reported only that Balaam declined:
Balaam did say truly that the Lord refused to give him leave to go with the princes. But the Name of the Lord made no impression on them. On returning to their master they said only, "Balaam refuses to come with us." There was no word of the command of God, no word that he was not to curse, and that the people were blessed.
The second group outranks the first, and the king raises his offer with them.
Balak sent a second group of messengers, princes of higher rank than the elders who went the first time. The king offered more tempting bait: he would raise Balaam to high honour, and he would do whatever Balaam asked.
The bait worked because it matched something already in the man:
His heart was set on going, because it was set on the silver and gold. At the same time there was some reference to God — an appearance of religion put on as a cloak to cover his covetous practices. He longed for the money, but he wanted to get hold of it in a religious way. Miserable man!
Each part of God's first answer closed a door.
The answer of God was in three short sentences. (1) "You shall not go with them." This should have been enough to close the matter completely. A man who really knew God would never raise the question again. (2) "You shall not curse the people." So however much his covetous heart might want Balak's silver and gold, he must not try to do what Balak wanted. (3) "They are blessed." A man who knew God would be sure that God would never go back on this.
He claimed the Lord's will bound him, and he still wanted to go.
Balaam protests that he is strictly bound by the Lord's will. Yet he wants his own way, and God leaves him to it, only making him understand that in the end he must speak His word alone. And Balaam goes.
The same test comes to us when new pressure meets a settled answer.
Whenever God has made His will known to us, we are not to allow any later influence to call it into question. That holds even if the influence takes the form of the word of God. If we were closer to the Lord in heart, we would feel that the only true and right position is to follow what He told us at first.
God does not always stop the man who ignores His first word:
How little Balaam knew what the consequences would be of not bowing to God's first word to him! Suppose God has expressed His will, and we still want our own way. God may well allow us to have our way, so that we may learn by experience the folly of our own self-will.
While this bargaining went on, Israel was unaware of the danger.
The people of the Lord, who had been ungrateful and disobedient all through their wilderness journey, were now in grave danger. They were not aware of it and so did not pray about it. But the Lord Himself took the matter up, and there we are reminded of His unchanging favour. He loved the people, despite all that they were, and He would not allow the enemy to harm them.
- Pressure — Balak judged God by the gods he knew, gods that could be bought. So he met a refusal by raising his offer.
- Silence — Balaam passed on only that he could not come, not that the people were blessed. That half-told answer brought the second delegation.
- Bait — higher-ranking princes, promised honour, and a promise to do whatever he asked. Balaam's heart was already set on silver and gold.
- Settled — "You shall not go," "You shall not curse," "They are blessed." A man who really knew God would never reopen a question God had closed.
- Guarded — Israel never knew the danger and never prayed about it. God took the matter up Himself, and He would not let the enemy harm them.
And they came to Balaam, and said to him, Thus says Balak the son of Zippor Suffer not thyself, I pray thee, to be restrained from coming to me;
Balak's first delegation went home empty-handed. So the king of Moab sends a bigger and grander one. Its message is built to remove every reason Balaam might have for staying home. The words "let nothing hinder you" show how Balak read the situation. He assumed the obstacle was price, not God.
This second group is not a repeat of the first. Balak has raised both the rank of the men and the size of the offer.
Balak sent a second group of princes, of higher rank than the elders who went the first time. The king offered more tempting baits. He would promote Balaam to high honour, and he would do whatever he asked.
Balak had a reason to try again, and it came from inside himself.
Balak judges by the thing every man knows best — his own heart and experience. So he sends princes more honourable than the ones who came to Balaam the first time.
But the deeper problem was not Balak's offer. It was the man receiving it.
It was clear that he loved money — a love that is all too common in our own day too. Balak's gold and silver proved a very tempting bait to the wretched man — a bait he could not resist. Satan knew his man, and the price he could be bought for.
Balaam's first reply named God, but the message that reached Balak did not. The messengers never passed on the real reason for the refusal, so the door stayed open.
Balaam did say that Jehovah refused to let him go with the princes. But the name of Jehovah made no impression on them. When they went back to their master they only said, "Balaam refuses to come with us." There was no word of the command of God, no word that he was not to curse, and that the people were blessed.
When the second group arrives, nothing has changed on God's side. God had already settled the matter, so one sentence would have ended it.
Balak had one desire: the cursing of the people of God. And Balaam had already received God's command, "You shall not curse … for they are blessed." So there was no room for discussion or evasion. Balaam should have given the second group of princes the same answer he should have given the first. If he had told them the whole message God had given him, he would have spared himself and Balak a great deal of trouble and sorrow.
Instead, the reply he gave exposed what he was still hoping for.
Balaam did not simply refuse to go and tell them that God had forbidden it. Instead he says, "Though Balak were to give me his house full of silver and gold, I could not go beyond the command of the LORD my God to do less or more." Does this not show what lay in Balaam's heart — the desire for silver and gold in abundance?
Raising the price makes sense only if God can be bought. Balak's idea of God came from his own religion.
In Balak we see how completely people had lost the knowledge of God. The world by its wisdom did not know Him. Balak's ignorance was no darker than the world's wisdom… His words to Balaam make clear what he thought God was like. He thought God was altogether like himself, or like what he imagined his own god to be.
The same assumption lies behind the pressure itself.
Balak has reason to think that more pressure will bring him; for everyone knew that the gods of the nations could be made to give way.
Israel had no idea that men were bargaining over them. The outcome never rested on Balaam's honesty.
Balak would gladly have had 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 let anyone else speak against them. He may have to expose them to themselves; but He will not allow a stranger to expose them.
- Pressure. Balak meets a refusal by raising the offer: nobler princes, high honour, whatever Balaam asks. He judges Balaam by his own heart.
- Price. The tactic works on a man who loved money; the enemy knew Balaam, and knew the price at which he could be bought.
- Silence. The first messengers reported only that Balaam refused. They never said God had forbidden the cursing. That half-told answer invited the second delegation.
- Plainness. There was no room for discussion. If Balaam had repeated God's full word, he would have spared both men much trouble and sorrow.
- Powerlessness. Balak imagined God was like himself, open to a bribe. But God will not let anyone curse His people, whatever the price.
for very highly will I honour thee, and whatever thou shalt say to me will I do; come therefore, I pray thee, curse me this people.
God has refused Balak once already, so the king raises his price: grander messengers, very great honour, and a blank cheque. Two questions follow — what did Balak think God was like, and why did Balaam not give him a plain no?
The king treats the first refusal as an opening bid, not a verdict. One writer explains why:
Balak has reason to think that more pressure will bring him, for everyone knew that the gods of the nations would give way to pressure. He sends still more honourable messengers: Balaam must let nothing stop him from coming, for Balak will promote him to very great honour.
A second writer points to the standard Balak used:
Balak judges by what every man knows so well: his own heart and his own experience. So he sends princes more honourable than the first ones who came to Balaam.
The offer is not random. It hits exactly where Balaam was weak.
There is something especially dreadful about the case of Balaam. He clearly loved money — sadly, a common enough love in our own day. Balak's gold and silver were a very tempting bait to the wretched man — a bait he could not resist. Satan knew his man, and he knew the price that would buy him.
His greed did more than ruin him. It set a pattern others followed:
He was a greedy religious man (Numbers 22-24). His error was that he used his knowledge of the truth of God to advance the work of Satan, if he could, and to collect a reward for it. The false teachers Jude writes about rushed greedily after the same wrong.
Balak's message invites a deal. But Balaam had his answer long before these princes arrived.
Balak had one desire: the cursing of the people of God. And Balaam had already received God's command, "You shall not curse… for they are blessed." So there was no room for discussion, and none for dodging the question. Balaam should have given the princes who came the second time the same answer he should have given the first ones. A plain statement of the whole message God had given him would have spared himself and Balak a great deal of trouble and sorrow.
Instead of closing the door, Balaam asks the men to stay the night while he consults God again:
This sounds well; but he added, "Stay here tonight as well, so that I may know what more the LORD will say to me." Such an attitude was sheer wickedness. The LORD had already made His mind plain, so there was nothing more to ask Him about. But Balaam was set on going. He knew enough of God not to want open conflict with Him. If he could, he would bend the LORD to his own will.
Balak's whole appeal rests on the honour he promises. By the end of the story he throws that honour back in Balaam's face.
The intended curse had become a threefold blessing. Unhappy Balaam would gladly have secured the wages of unrighteousness and the honour of this world. Now he receives Balak's cutting taunt, as the king tells him to run off home: "The LORD has held you back from honour."
Neither the king nor the prophet is running this:
Later we shall see how wonderful God's way was. He turned the enemy's own effort against him. He made Balaam, a thoroughly wicked man, work against all the enemy's interests without meaning to. Held in the mighty hand of God, Balaam became the instrument that sealed, as far as a man could, the blessing of God upon His people.
- Offer — Refused once, Balak just bids higher. He sends grander messengers, because he assumes pressure will make a god give way.
- Man — The bait fits the buyer. Balaam loved money, and Satan knew both the man and his price.
- Word — God had already said the people are blessed. The only honest reply was to say so again, and it would have spared everyone the trouble that followed.
- Delay — Asking God again, when He has already made His mind plain, is not learning His will. It is trying to bend Him to ours.
- Hand — The honour Balak dangled was never his to give. God kept Balaam from it. He turned the enemy's whole effort into a sealed blessing on His people.
And Balaam answered and said to the servants of Balak, If Balak give me his house full of silver and gold, I could not go beyond the commandment of Jehovah my God, to do less or more.
Balak's messengers offer Balaam silver and gold, and he answers with words that sound like pure devotion. Yet the same chapter shows him asking them to stay the night — so is this faith speaking, or a bargain dressed up in God's name?
Balaam does not merely mention God; he claims Him as his own. Commentators read that phrase as the mark of a man who had real knowledge of God but no heart for Him.
The history of Balaam is very solemn. While it brings out the sovereign grace of God, it also reveals the elements of religious corruption that prevail in the last days. Satan cannot defeat the saints of God by open attack, so he corrupts instead. In Balaam we have the character of that which corrupts. There was a knowledge of God. He had this — he even says "the LORD my God." He called Israel's God his God, but his heart was busy with covetous practices. He "loved the wages of unrighteousness." Peter describes Judas the same way. Thirty pieces of silver were the reward of wickedness for the man who greeted Jesus as Master. Both men show a feature of religious apostasy that at last perishes in its own corruption.
Balaam cannot give Balak what he wants. So he turns his refusal into a show of devotion.
Balaam sends word to Balak: "Though Balak were to give me his house full of silver and gold, I could not go beyond the command of the LORD my God." How pious he has become now! If he might have gone, he would. Though he cannot do what he would like to do for Balak, he still keeps up his credit as a prophet of the LORD. Just as if he had the secret of the LORD, he says, "I will know what more the LORD will say to me."
Balaam names the silver and gold in the very act of refusing it. His delay says more than his words.
If Balaam's heart had been right with God, he would have dealt with Balak's message at once. It would not have cost him a moment's thought to send a reply. But Balaam's heart was all wrong, and in chapter 22 we see him in the sad condition of a man pulled by conflicting feelings. His heart was set on going, because it was set on the silver and gold. At the same time there was some reference to God: an appearance of religion put on as a cloak to cover his covetous practices. He longed for the money, but he would gladly get hold of it in a religious way.
Still, what he said was true. He could not cross the line, however much he wanted to.
The greedy prophet replied that if the king gave him a house full of silver and gold, he still could not come without God's consent. His covetous nature showed how strong the restraint on him was.
But his fine answer does not end there. What he adds next undoes it.
Balaam's answer sounds well. But he added, "Stay here tonight too, that I may know what more the LORD will say to me." Such an attitude was sheer wickedness. The LORD had already stated His mind clearly, so there was nothing left to consult Him about. But Balaam was set on going. He knew enough of God not to want open conflict with Him. He would bend the LORD to his self-will if he could!
God did let Balaam go with the men. That permission was not approval.
This was not the course of His holy will. It was God dealing with the stubborn according to his stubbornness. He does this when there is no faith in a man's mind, and no honest, undivided purpose with it. He allows a man to follow his own blind schemes... Where He sees integrity, He graciously meets the trembling heart and the hesitating mind. But there was no hesitation with Balaam. There was self-will, and this in the face of the glorious expression of God's will. At bottom he makes nothing of God or His word.
- Profession. Balaam calls the LORD "my God" and speaks of His command. Knowing about God is not the same as belonging to Him.
- Price. His heart was set on the very silver and gold he claimed to refuse. Religion was the cloak over his greed.
- Restraint. His words were true. He could not go beyond God's word, and his greed shows how strong that hold on him was.
- Pressure. He asked God again about a matter God had already settled. That is not obedience; it is trying to bend God.
- Permission. God let the stubborn man have his way. He meets the honest, hesitating heart with grace. The difference lies in the will, not the words.
And now, I pray you, abide ye also here this night, and I shall know what Jehovah will say to me further.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
Then God came to Balaam at night, and said to him, If the men have come to call thee, rise up, [and] go with them; but only what I shall say unto thee shalt thou do.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
And Balaam rose up in the morning, and saddled his ass, and went with the princes of Moab.
God had already forbidden Balaam to go. He asked a second time, and God let him go on one condition. Here he saddles up at first light. That raises the hardest question in the chapter: why does God let a man take a road He has already refused him?
God's answer that night sounds like a green light. It was not approval.
Not that this was the course of His holy will; it was God dealing with the stubborn according to his stubbornness. He does this when a man has no faith and no single eye. He lets him follow his own blind schemes. This is righteous, and this is how God deals with Balaam. Where He sees integrity, He graciously meets the trembling heart and the hesitating mind. But there was no hesitation with Balaam. There was self-will, and this in the face of the glorious expression of God's will. At bottom he makes nothing of God or His word. The true moral could not be plainer. We are told that when Balaam rises in the morning, saddles his donkey, and goes with the princes of Moab, "God's anger was kindled."
God's leave came with a condition: he could go if the men came to call him. Balaam did not wait.
Balaam's heart was filled with hatred of God's people, and covetousness raged inside him. This was no ordinary task, and it would carry no ordinary reward. He did not wait for the men to call him. He rose up in the morning, saddled his donkey, and went with the princes of Moab.
Balaam was not the only one to do this. Others also asked God about a choice they had already made.
God would now deal with the fool according to his folly. He should go as he wished. But God was determined to put him to shame, and to bring great blessing for His own people out of these schemes of Satan. The man's wicked attitude toward God here calls to mind the Jewish captains in Jeremiah's day, who were afraid of the Babylonians. They asked the prophet to pray for them, so that God would guide their path. But they had already made up their minds to go with their whole company to Egypt (Jer. 42). Let us beware of going before God at any time with our minds already made up.
He had wanted to go long before he saddled up. His religion was a cover.
Balaam's heart was all wrong, and we see him in chapter 22 in the sad condition of a man pulled by conflicting feelings. His heart was bent on going, because it was bent on the silver and gold. But at the same time he made some show of turning to God — an appearance of religion put on as a cloak to cover his covetous practices. He longed for the money; but he wanted to get hold of it in a religious way.
Balaam set out eagerly, with no idea how the journey would end.
Balaam had permission from Jehovah. He got up eagerly in the morning, saddled his donkey, and set out with Balak's messengers. He was not walking in the light... Balaam walked in darkness. He hoped to have his own way and to reap a rich reward for his villainy. What a journey!... Never was Satan more determined to curse; never was God more determined to bless!
God had His own purposes in Balaam's journey. That did not make Balaam's heart any less wrong.
On one side, Balaam's presence with the king of Moab would serve certain purposes. That did not change in the least the state of soul that provoked God's anger. Balaam needs a warning. God deals with him much as He had dealt with Moses forty years earlier. Only now He uses the donkey — less senseless than Balaam himself — to save and rebuke him.
Balaam's wrong step did not become God's plan, but God bent it toward His people's good.
Verses 12 and 13 show that God had first of all forbidden Balaam to go. Balaam coveted Balak's reward, despite the high profession in verse 18. It was wrong of Balaam to ask again. Yet when he did, God used his going as a witness of divine grace to Israel, as well as of his own perverseness.
- Asked — God had already closed the matter. Balaam asked again anyway, because he coveted the reward behind his high words.
- Allowed — The leave was not God's holy will. It was God dealing with the stubborn according to his stubbornness, letting a man without a single eye follow his own blind schemes.
- Rushed — He was to go only if the men called him. He saddled up first, and the eagerness of that morning exposed a covetous heart.
- Withstood — God's anger burned at his going. The donkey became a warning meant to save him, not just to stop him.
- Overruled — Satan was never more determined to curse, and God never more determined to bless. The journey became a witness of God's grace to Israel, and of Balaam's own perverseness.