Did Balaam's donkey really talk to him?

"Jehovah opened the mouth of the ass." An omnipotent God can do this; why then should it be thought impossible? It is unbelief which makes objection to a miracle of this kind. If the occurrence did not happen, and must be classed as they Claim, with legends, what becomes of the inspiration of the New Testament? The Holy Spirit through Peter confirms the miracle (2 Peter 2:15-16).

Then follows that incident of which the New Testament takes notice in 2 Peter 2, which I trust no one here will ever allow the smallest breath of suspicion to sully. In truth the means employed were, as always, exactly suited in divine wisdom to the case. I grant you it is not a usual thing for God to make a dumb ass speak; but were these circumstances usual? Was there not something awfully humiliating in such a brute being the rebuker of the guilty prophet? But this very fact was most significant — that it was an ass which rebuked a man not wanting in natural intelligence, and soon the vessel of the most beautiful declarations on God's part, but not before the brute that he rode warned him of his folly and sin. On this I need not dilate.

Upon the road occurs that which has provoked the wonder of unbelief at all times. God's anger is kindled because he goes, and the angel of Jehovah takes his stand in the way as an adversary against him. There is no great need for wonder here. While on the one hand there were purposes to be served by Balaam's presence with the king of Moab, that did not in the least affect the state of soul which provoked the anger of God. Balaam needs a warning, and God deals with him much as He had dealt with Moses forty years before, only that now, instead of Zipporah and the stone of circumcision, He uses the ass, less insensate than himself, to save and rebuke him.

Of course, there is a miracle here, as there is not in the other case: for that it would be presumption to apologize. The strangeness of it was the more calculated to work upon a heart hardened to ordinary appeals, to humble him by making him realize how far he had sunk below the brute, whose actions were such things as his divinations assumed power to interpret; while the mercy of God, thus breaking through the natural boundary-lines to convict and save him, should have broken down with them every barrier of sin and unbelief. The extraordinary means used here are witness to the state of soul to which they were appropriate, and on the other hand to the infinite pity of God which could not use even one like this as a mere machine to accomplish His purposes without laboring after his soul. An ass's voice may indeed thus be made, not merely human, but divine.

Balak send gifts to Balaam, but he declined the invitation as the result of divine instructions. He could not resist the second deputation, which was more imposing than the first. God gave him permission on the condition that he was to say nothing but what God would tell him. How God's anger (not Jehovah, the covenant name) was kindled against him and the ass saw the angel of Jehovah, how the Lord opened the mouth of the ass and all the other details the reader will find in the text, so that a repetition here is not needed. Infidelity and higher criticism scoff at the incident of the speaking ass. One of their arguments is that the story of the speaking ass is disproven by the fact that Balaam carried on a conversation with the beast without expressing any astonishment at all at the occurrence. This is admirably answered by Augustinus: "Balaam was so carried away by his cupidity that he was not terrified by this miracle, and replied just as if he had been speaking to a man, when God, although He did not change the nature of the ass into that of a rational being, made it give utterance to whatever He pleased for the purpose of restraining his madness." That the ass saw the angel of the Lord first, before Balaam saw him, does not present any difficulty at all.

The incident related as to Balaam's ass has excited much unbelieving protest and even ridicule, yet it is vouched for by Peter in that passage to which we have referred. If Satan could speak through a serpent words of deceit, God can, if He chooses, speak words of warning through an ass. The eyes of Balaam's heart were blinded by his avarice and his traffic with demons, and now we see that the eyes of his head were as blind as the eyes of his heart. The eyes of his head were opened so that at last he saw the angel as clearly as his donkey had done. But the veil over the eyes of his heart remained.

Now God lets Balaam go, and he is delighted at it; but God chose him to go now. And his way was as perverse as ever. God intended him to go, that he might pronounce a blessing upon His people, instead of a curse. Morally, as regarded himself, Balaam's was the most wicked act in going; and yet God brings out all His purposes through it. He is nothing more than a rod in God's hand. He goes, and the Lord by an angel meets him. He rebukes man's ways and man's wisdom, by putting more sense into the mouth of the brute beast than man has; for though he has a mind, he uses it against God, which a brute beast cannot do. Man, in one sense, is more blind than Satan, because Satan believes and trembles. God could reveal Himself to a beast's eye as well as to a man's, when He pleased. The effect of this on Balaam was that, in his passion, he would have killed the ass (v. 29), if he could. When the Lord opens his eyes to see his madness and blindness all the way he has been going, he feels he has sinned, and that God has stopped him (v. 34); but it was from mere terror that he thus speaks, and he goes on without seeing that instead of cursing the people, he was to bless them, etc. (v. 39). Balaam goes to the idols of Balak to sacrifice. He liked the name of religion; but his heart was not with God at all, it was set on money and honour in this world. What a picture of the impotency of sin!

We read in 2 Peter 2:15, “Balaam … loved the wages of unrighteousness; but was rebuked for his iniquity: the dumb ass speaking with man’s voice forbad the madness of the prophet.” You can read how it happened in the Old Testament (Num. 22). Balaam was told by God not to go a certain journey, but in self-will he went. As he rode on his ass, suddenly it turned out of the road into the field. What made the ass act thus? It saw an angel standing in front, with a drawn sword in his hand. Balaam smote his ass, and turned it back into the road. A little further it got into a vineyard path, with walls on either side. When it again saw the angel, in trying to turn aside it crushed Balaam’s foot against the wall, and he smote his ass again. A little further on the angel of the Lord stood in a narrow place—so narrow that the ass had no room to turn at all. When the poor creature saw the angel it was so frightened that it fell down. At this Balaam got very angry; and he smote his ass again.

Was not Balaam astonished when God opened the mouth of the ass, and it said, “What have I done unto thee, that thou hast smitten me these three times?” And do you know that Balaam, instead of being amazed at the ass speaking, was so angry that he wished he had a sword in his hand instead of a stick, so that he might have killed the poor ass. What a dreadful thing temper is!

Then God opened Balaam’s eyes, and he saw the angel of the Lord with the drawn sword in his hand, and so learned that the ass had three times saved his life.

God did not intend Balaam to take the journey without understanding that he was disobeying His word as He had given it at the first. Therefore, in anger against Balaam, He had the Angel of the Lord stand in his way as he rode on a donkey. The donkey saw the Angel with a sword drawn, and turned to the side into a field. Balaam did not see the Angel, and he angrily struck the donkey to turn it back to the road (v.23). The Angel then took another stand where there were walls on both sides, and the donkey, trying to avoid the Angel, crushed Balaam's foot against a wall. Again Balaam struck the donkey (v.25), when he ought to have realized that God was dealing with him in some serious way.

The Angel then chose a more narrow spot still, where the donkey could not turn either way, and the donkey simply laid down. But rather than even questioning in his mind why these things had happened, Balaam in a bad temper struck the donkey again with his staff (v.27). Then God put words into the mouth of the donkey, asking Balaam why he had struck her these three times. Even this amazing miracle had no effect on Balaam, for he replied in anger to the donkey that he wished he had a sword with which to kill her! Though God had given Balaam several opportunities to realize that He Himself was intervening to awaken Balaam to a sense of his own folly, Balaam was totally insensitive to this, which would not have been the case if he were a true prophet of God.

Again the donkey spoke to him, asking him if she had ever, in all his experience with her, done what she had done that day (v.30). He answered "No," but seemed still too dense to realize there was a special reason for this happening. God was not in his thoughts.

Finally the Lord opened Balaam's eyes so that he saw the Angel standing in the way with a drawn sword in his hand (v.31). In shocked terror Balaam fell on his face. The Angel then reproved the bad temper of Balaam in striking his donkey, telling him that if the donkey had not avoided the Angel, He would have killed Balaam and spared the donkey (vs.32-33). What a lesson is this, that an unbeliever is more ignorant as regards God than a beast!

A third time the angel appeared; on this occasion in a narrow place with no room to turn one way or the other. In sheer fright the poor animal fell down. Balaam, thoroughly angered, smote his ass for the third time. Then a marvellous thing happened, “The dumb ass speaking with a man’s voice forbad the madness of the prophet” (2 Peter 2:16). The ass expostulated with his master as to why he had smitten him these three times. Balaam, so mad with anger that he did not seem to realize the wonder of the ass speaking with a man’s voice, replied that he would that he had a sword in his hand that he might have slain him (vv. 26-29).

The ass enquired if he had ever been wont to act thus, and on the prophet acknowledging that it was not so, God opened Balaam’s eyes to see the angel with the drawn sword in his hand. At the terrifying sight he bowed his head, and fell flat on his face. The angel then informed Balaam that he owed his life to the ass three times, whereupon he acknowledged that he had sinned, expressing his readiness to return (vv. 30-34).

A heavenly being stood in the way with a drawn sword in his hand. He is called "the angel of Jehovah." This was no mere servant. It is the same messenger who appeared to the wife of Manoah in Judges 13 and who said his name was "Wonderful." Both to her and to Balaam he spoke with divine authority. To Balaam He said: "I went out to withstand thee, because thy way is perverse before Me … Go with the men; but only the word that I shall speak to thee, that thou shalt speak." The speaker was none other than He whom we know as the Lord Jesus Christ.

The ass saw the Angel, and turned aside from the threatening sword. Alas, that the beast should have more perception than a man made in the image of God! "The ox knows his owner, and the ass his master's crib: but Israel doth not know, My people do not consider" (Isa. 1:3). Such was Jehovah's complaint of the moral insensibility of the people to whom He had been more kind than to any other. The very cattle could put them to shame!

Balaam smote his ass three times. The Angel rebuked him for it, for every act of cruelty to animals is divinely noted.