Balaam's donkey: The Voice on the Road to Moab
On the road toward Moab, a rider punished his donkey for refusing to move. The animal could see an angel barring the journey; the rider could not. Then Balaam's donkey received the power to speak and asked what she had done to deserve three blows. In the Book of Numbers, she is the animal that speaks to Balaam, a prophet and diviner traveling at a king's request. Her resistance had kept him alive. When he was finally allowed to see the angel himself, the journey became an encounter with the divine command that governed what he could say and do.
The royal request came from Balak, king of Moab. The Israelites were in the plains of Moab, east of the Jordan River, near the end of forty years of wandering. They had defeated Sihon, king of the Amorites, and Og, king of Bashan. Alarmed by these victories, Balak sent elders of Midian and Moabite messengers to seek a curse against Israel. He approached Balaam, son of Beor, a gentile prophet associated with Pethor. That place is identified with the ancient city of Pitru, thought to have stood in what is now northern Syria, beyond the plains where Israel had gathered.
Balaam initially returned a refusal. God had told him in a nighttime dream not to go, and he told the messengers that he could act only as Yahweh commanded. Balak responded by sending more numerous and higher-ranking princes and offering honors. Balaam continued to press God and eventually received permission to travel, with a restriction: he must say only what God commanded. He set out in the morning with the princes of Moab. The journey of Balaam's donkey thus followed an exchange between a king seeking a curse and a prophet whose permission to speak remained dependent on a divine instruction.
God became angry when Balaam went and sent the Angel of the Lord to prevent him. Only the donkey could see the messenger at first, and she tried to avoid it. Balaam punished her refusal to continue, unaware of what stood in their way. Afterward, Balaam saw the angel, who explained that her turning aside was the reason he had not killed the rider. Balaam repented immediately. The angel then told him to go on, so the intervention changed his understanding of the road without bringing the trip to its final end there.
The next stage carried the traveler beyond the encounter with Balaam's donkey and into Balak's plans for ritual sacrifice. Sacrifices on seven altars led to a prophecy blessing Israel. Balak protested because he had sought the opposite result. Balaam replied that he could speak only the words put in his mouth. They moved to another high place at Pisgah, built seven more altars, and made sacrifices on each. A second prophecy again blessed Israel, leaving the king's intended curse unspoken.
At Peor, Balak arranged another set of seven sacrifices. Balaam stopped seeking enchantments and looked toward the Israelites from the peak. The Spirit of God came upon him, and he delivered a third favorable prophecy. Balak's anger rose until he threatened the prophet, who responded with a prediction of fate. The seven poems attributed to Balaam in Numbers range across Israel's exaltation, its countless numbers, moral virtue, monarchy, and military conquests. A further poem predicts a king who will conquer Edom and Moab. Other predictions concern the Kenites, Amalekites, and ships of Kittim coming from the west against Assyria and Eber.
Numbers attributes advice behind the Heresy of Peor to him, linking him with Israel's participation in idol worship and sexual immorality. His culpability leads to his death in a retaliatory battle against Midian. Joshua also places him among those killed in revenge for the matter of Peor and says he died by the sword during a battle for Reubenite occupation of Midianite land. Beyond the journey with Balaam's donkey, his name appears in Micah and the New Testament books of Peter, Jude, and Revelation.
In 1967, archaeologists at Deir Alla in Jordan found another story of Balaam, son of Beor, painted on fragments of a plastered wall. They recovered 119 pieces of inked plaster, bearing red and black writing. The inscription portrays him receiving messages from multiple deities rather than Yahweh. He wakes weeping after gods warn him during the night of a goddess threatening the land. She is to cover the sky and reduce the world to darkness.